Sounds of Recovery : South-Central Arts Project Aims to Build Self-Esteem in Youth

A young African-American man is engaged in a heated argument with his stepfather, who tries to assure the youth that he has his best interests at heart when it comes to matters of discipline and advice. The youth’s mother enters the room and tensions escalate.

Stop. Do you think this family has a chance of staying together? What should they do to work the situation out?

The questions come from actress Violette Winge, one of two actors conducting improvisational theater workshops at South-Central L.A.’s Community Youth Gang Services Center as part of the California Arts Council’s Summer Recovery Project, which continues through the end of the month. The series of nearly 40 artist-in-residence programs is aimed at helping schoolchildren, teens and young adults cope with the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots.

“We let them experience their creative side and do alternative problem-solving,” said Winge, who leads the workshops for “at-risk” young adults with partner Peter Schreiner. “Most of all, they learn to feel good about themselves, and learn that their circumstances aren’t who they are--that they can go beyond that and find a way out.”

Workshop participants participated eagerly in the skits and follow-up discussions, and those interviewed agreed the program was helpful.

“I needed to interact with people with different lifestyles,” said 20-year-old Zulu, who is also enrolled in a separate summer recovery workshop on African dancing and drumming. “This is really helping me to see that there are people out there doing things that are positive. And I’m learning acting skills, too, which is great.”

The Summer Recovery Project includes ongoing, four- to 10-session workshops ranging from stand-up comedy to mural painting to choral music. Taught by artists including jazz trumpeter Bobby Bryant Sr., stand-up comedians (and twins) Daryl and Dwayne Mooney, choreographer Lula Washington and music video producer Bill Parker, the workshops are scattered around various South-Central locations, including schools, churches, art centers, libraries and Boys and Girls Clubs.

“There was a real concern by everyone in the (California Arts) Council that we respond (to the riots),” said Carol Shiffman, director of the council’s Artist-in-Residence Program, which reallocated $35,000 from its 1991-92 budget and secured an additional $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund the Summer Recovery Project.

“Knowing the incredible power of artists in working in communities and building self-esteem, and the incredible amount of difference that can make in kids’ lives, we thought this was a wonderful way to help,” the Sacramento-based Shiffman said.

Coordinated in Los Angeles by Sheila Scott-Wilkinson, an actress who has done several of her own artist-in-residence programs with gang members and prison youth, the program--which began with a handful of workshops in mid-July--is still growing, with new workshops planned well into the fall.

“A lot of sites are asking to be added to the program--they’re getting the idea that art really makes a difference--and they see the byproducts, which are self-esteem and confidence, and in turn the kids end up doing better in school,” Scott-Wilkinson said.

But while the arts are the tool, the program’s focus is education. Scott-Wilkinson stressed that participating artists are chosen not only for their art forms, but also for their ability to create concrete lesson plans.

One morning at the 92nd Street School, for instance, Peruvian-born keyboardist Octavio (Tavio) Figueroa and percussionist Ramon Ramos led a group of third- and fourth-graders in a musical performance of the song “Cocinando.” The predominantly African-American children learned the song’s simple Spanish words and were shown how to use various percussion instruments. Following the performance, they took a written test in which they had to identify the instruments--such as timbales, bongo drums and maracas.

In a nearby classroom, performance artist Zoot worked with Latino sixth graders on “gibberish skits” in which some students made up their own culture and language and others acted as United Nations interpreters. Following the skits, Zoot asked the children about customs from other nations, describing foreign delicacies such as Russian caviar or German chocolate-covered ants.

Zoot met the kids’ sounds of disgust with a retort about menudo , which many of the kids said they ate regularly.

“But that’s pig stomach,” Zoot told the class. “So remember, every culture has differences, and while some of them may sound gross to you and me, what you eat may be gross to them.”

Later, Zoot, who has performed at the 1990 Los Angeles Festival, Spoleto Festival ’91 and has danced in music videos with Prince and Neneh Cherry, talked to an interviewer about his program.

“It’s a theater improv program with cultural tolerance as a theme,” he said. “We talk about all kinds of stuff, like intercultural relationships and violence--in fact, they talk about violence a lot. . . . So we did a play about a robbery at a liquor store and I asked them what the police should do in that situation. It’s a good way for them to channel their thoughts on these subjects and talk about what they can do to help.”

Said comedian Dwayne Mooney, who along with his brother encouraged even the shyest of the children attending his program at the Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center to stand up and tell a story during the workshop’s first meeting: “Our goal is to give these kids self-esteem and confidence to be able to speak in front of people. . . . We use comedy to do it, but if they can get past their fears of being able to express themselves, then it will help when they go to get a job, or help them to ask questions in school, so that they can really learn.”