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Mino Lora, co-executive director of The People’s Theatre Project gathered the theatre troops this past weekend when Uptown went to Occupy Wall Street.
For three weeks, there has been a protest unfolding on the streets of our city’s financial center downtown. It goes by the name “Occupy Wall Street,” and it has slowly but steadily been growing each day. It has both captured headlines, and has been ignored.
Gathered at Liberty Plaza, in the shadows of the stock market, Ground Zero and the City’s financial powerhouses, hundreds of people from all walks of life, both young and old, have set up camp along Zuccotti Park.
They have gathered, they argue, in protest against what they’re describing as a broken system. A system in which 25 million Americans are unemployed, scores are without health insurance, thousands more are struggling to hang on to their homes, while others continue to relish in bonuses and tax breaks within the troubled economy.
They protest the high cost of education, and the seemingly endless debt after graduation coupled with the near impossibility of finding a job in the fields they’ve studied. They call themselves the 99 percent, and although some have criticized their lack of definition, “Occupy Wall Street” has argued that perhaps maybe it’s better this way, and that
“through common struggle, debate and popular democracy they will create genuine solutions which have legitimacy,” as the first edition of the “Occupied Wall Street Journal” read that day.
Some observers are crying, “Dirty, unorganized hippies sitting around a drum circle.” The crowd has been dismissed, ignored, and categorized into just a group of unruly youngsters by some.
On Sunday, local arts group The People’s Theatre Project gathered their troops for a visit to Wall Street.
El Alto wasn’t staying behind, and neither was I.
In the words of Mino Lora, the co-executive director of The People’s Theatre Project (PTP), they were going to Wall Street to “represent Uptown, let the protesters at Occupy Wall Street know that Uptown stands with them.”
In a show of solidarity, and representing a community that grapples with the effects of our failing economy as felts in cuts to our school systems and to services for seniors, in the steadily rising rent costs, and a desperate need for better immigration policies, The People’s Theatre Project took to the stage at Liberty Plaza.
By stage, I mean a few square feet just to the left of the drum circle near Broadway and Cedar Street. There were no lights, no curtain, but plenty of improvisation. Broadway, El Alto’s main artery, carried the talent of the theatre troupe, a group that believes in using art and theatre to raise awareness of urgent issues affecting our community.
The stage was set, and “Occupy Wall Street” joined in.
In their usual PTP fashion, the troupe performed bits that portrayed discrimination, racism, and the programmed behaviors we so often engage in without stopping to question why.
In an effort to bring attention to these issues, they asked the crowd to join. Soon enough, the PTP attracted the attention of both protesters and observers at Liberty Plaza, who joined in to form human sculptures of solidarity, humor, and compassion.
In true Alto fashion, their message was loud and clear, as Mino introduced to troop to the crowd:
“We’re here to share and join this effort. Our community has the same needs, we need economic and social justice; we’re here to say presente.”
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