Escape: what many Baton Rouge residents wanted after a chaotic and painful summer.
The shooting of Alton Sterling on July 5 shook the community. Baton Rouge Police Department officers Montrell Jackson, Brad Garafola and Matthew Gerald were killed in gunfire less than two weeks later on July 17. Then came “The Great Flood of 2016” which started Aug. 12 and left many areas consumed by water.
Escape: one reason why many people make and consume art.
During a time of heartache, the arts play a crucial role, offering escape, self-reflection and a sense of community.
The following four artists explain how they use various mediums to process the tumultuous events of the summer.
DONNEY ROSE
Rose, the marketing director at Forward Arts, is a teaching artist and 16-year veteran of performance poetry. In the overview and mission statement on its Facebook page, Forward Arts describes itself as an arts-based, non profit organization and a “multi-generational collective of youth, artists, and educators who are committed to providing learning opportunities in Southeastern Louisiana.”
In part through this organization, Rose makes sure art is used to its full healing potential. After the flooding, Rose visited the F.G. Clark Activity Center at Southern University to give young children living in the shelter a chance to “check out” of reality, he said. The children were living without privacy, surrounded by cots, showering in shower trucks, eating donated meals and living in a completely unfamiliar environment, Rose explained.
Along with other members of Forward Arts, Rose provided coloring pages, led creative writing workshops and shared stories with the children, allowing them to occupy their minds with imagination.
“When dealing with grief and … trauma, you have to have moments where you get to step outside of [reality],” he said. “During that time they are not a flood evacuee, they are not in a destitute situation. They’re just kids being creative, using their imagination.”
Art can have multiple functions, Rose says. For some, art provides a mental break from processing trauma and grief. On the other side of the coin, art can help people face their emotions, express them and comfortably share them with others.
“The art begins the conversation,” Rose said. “It unpacks it. And then from there, we come up with solutions.”
Art can help to understand and articulate one’s emotions, Rose explains.
“I think that when you’re talking about just healing in general, there’s something very relieving of getting out bottled up emotion and having a platform to do so and having people interested in hearing you do it,” he said.
He explained that art helps people heal by giving them the courage to share their feelings with others, instead of feeling detached or isolated.
“A part of the healing is just knowing that through this art, there’s a community of people that are present with me, that are here with me, and we are all collectively grieving, but we’re all collectively moving through our grief together,” he said.
JALEA JACKSON
Jackson, a New Orleans-based filmmaker and LSU alumna, felt a similar sense of community at the Nate Parker Summer Film Institute. The 10-day film program was comprised of 32 high school and college-aged black filmmakers who discussed topics like African culture and black film. The students applied their new knowledge to a collectively produced short film.
The program coincided with the shootings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castille and the Dallas police officers. This timing brought up a myriad of emotions in Jackson, who is a Baton Rouge native. While Jackson normally avoids watching videos of shootings due to the emotions they stir up, she made an exception as the video of Sterling circulated.
“With [the shooting of Alton Sterling], I knew where the street was,” she explained. “I think his video was the first one that I ever watched… because it was in Baton Rouge, and it was so close to me, I felt that need or that desire to watch what was going on in my own city.”
Jackson says she felt concerned for her city and conflicted about being absent, despite the important and relevant information about black history and black film that she was learning at the program.
After Sterling’s death, youth organizers led a march on July 10 in downtown Baton Rouge to mourn Sterling and demand policy changes. It was directly followed by a second march which led to a confrontation between BRPD and some of the protesters. Jackson found out about the day’s events during the Nate Parker program. Had she not been in Texas at the time, Jackson said she would have brought her camera and captured the events.
“I remember coming back… and driving down North Foster [Drive] — I didn’t even realize I was on the street until I was at the sign and I realized [I was near where the shooting happened] — and there was a very chilling moment for me,” she said. “That, combined with being at the Nate Parker Foundation, made me realize how important, how vital it is to have our voices heard through any type of medium.”
For Jackson, this medium is filmmaking. Jackson says she struggles to articulate her thoughts and emotions through speech, so she found her voice through film.
“Every frame, every second, every moment from the opening credits to the closing, from the beat of the music to that last moment … that is a way to express how you’re really feeling without [having to] say a word,” Jackson said.
DANIELLE STANFIELD AND TODD HENRY
LSU alumni Stanfield and Henry, the Playmakers of Baton Rouge education director and executive director respectively, both work at Reilly Theatre. They were on the tail end of rehearsals for their production of “Madeline and the Gypsies” when the flooding hit, forcing them to push the entire schedule back by about a week.
Henry said it was a huge relief once rehearsals got back in full swing, to be back to a sense of normalcy.
“It was probably one of [the] happiest days,” Henry said, referencing the cast’s first day back after the flood. “Any time our kids get together, they’re excited to see each other, but that day, just seeing all the families come back in — some of these families who have lost everything — and just to walk in and like, the sense of relief, like, ‘We’re here, this is normal, this is normalcy for us.’”
For some acting through characters helps better confront personal grief. Stanfield explained how theater can help someone detach from their emotions in order to examine them.
“Theater kind of forces you to face those characters’ feelings and deal with them,” Stanfield said. “Everything is very black and white, and I think to some extent that helps you to look inward and gives you the ability to simplify your life a little bit and sort out your own feelings.”
She added that younger children especially can benefit from acting as they’re learning how to understand and explain strong emotions.
“It’s easier for kids to articulate their feelings or have that creative expression, particularly through theater because you’re not acting as yourself,” Stanfield said. “It doesn’t all come back on you. Kids might explore ideas that they wouldn’t have as themselves as a character because that’s how their character is.”
Henry explained that Playmakers is beginning a partnership with Our Lady of the Lake Hospital. They plan to help kids using “drama therapy,” a method of processing emotions through improv and theater games.
“It’s safer to express an emotion they may be holding on to when it’s in the form of play,” Henry said.
Stanfield agreed, recalling a moment with an 11-year-old boy who was in “Madeline and the Gypsies.” He and his family had lost everything in the flood, yet Stanfield said the boy would come in with the most positive attitude every day despite having lost so much.
“He would have a big smile on his face and [say], ‘Oh, well today I found out that I lost all of my toys, but I just had to cry about it, and that’s okay, and now I’m here!’”
