Miracle Minds for Japan - Benefit with Big Apple Playback Theatre on the 1-yr anniversary of 3/11
Channel: CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing)
Date: 13/03/2012

In observance of the one-year anniversary of the Tohoku, Japan earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster, we CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and Big Apple Playback Theatre invited you the public to share your miracle mind and miracle stories with one another. When we embrace miracle mindedness, we are choosing to remember that we are actually infinite, unharmable, loving spirit. Then we can think and act without hesitation to help our brothers and sisters in times of crisis, and work miracles together.

Special guests Playback Founder Jonathan Fox, Drama Therapist and Big Apple Playback member Mizuho Kanazawa, and Playback Theatre Japan founder Kayo Munakata joined us to ensure that non English-speaking Japanese will be able to fully express themselves and understand what's being shared by English speakers and vice versa.

Japanese people living here at the time of 3/11 were initially unable to reach their families in the disaster zone or even to find out if they were still alive or if their homes were still standing. Those who were abroad had to fight feelings of helplessness and panic, even as their friends and family in Japan were too busy dealing with everything to be paralyzed by fear. Aftershocks and news reports, relocating and shopping for basic supplies, finding family members, etc. forced them to focus on the present. Here, little by little, we tried to focus our own minds on recovery, on grounding ourselves and providing peaceful, loving long-distance support to those in Japan to boost their spirits and get them through the long days.

A year after the catastrophe, many thousands of people are still missing, tens of thousands are still displaced, and the extent of the radioactive contamination is still very uncertain and the danger ongoing. 

By sharing these experiences, we can remind ourselves that we are all going through the seem things and facing the same challenges. The next time there is a crisis, we can help one another to act with love rather than to react with fear. When we give in to fear, we are cut off from our source and feel small, powerless, unwilling to try. But when we remember our true nature, we can do whatever is required of us. 

http://www.crsny.org/event/310-share-your-miracle-mind-japan

One third of the proceeds from full-price ticket sales was donated to the Japan Playwrights Association, to support Tohoku theatre companies affected by the disaster.

PLAYBACK THEATRE is spontaneous theatre based on stories told by audience members. Life stories are shared, cast, and then enacted on the spot by a team of actors/dancers and a musician. Be they comic or tragic, our life stories are full of important moments worth sharing and remembering. Telling our stories to each other in a theatrical context is both redemptive and invigorating. Listening to the stories of our community is crucial as we strive towards a world without hate and violence. The objective of Big Apple Playback Theatre is three-fold: to invite dialogue, build community, and to create compelling theatre. It therefore lives on the cusp between art and social change and provides opportunity for laughter, reflection, and connection.

http://bigappleplayback.com

Inspired by the experimental theatre movement, psychodrama, and oral tradition of indigenous cultures, Playback Theatre was created in upstate New York in the 1970s by Jonathan Fox, Jo Salas, and the original PT Company. The method is now practiced across the world in sixty countries, and is used in a variety of settings including conferences, schools, colleges, prisons, hospitals, service agencies, and public theatres.

To connect to Playback Theatre around the world, go to
http://www.playbacknet.org

Last spring, shortly after the devastating earthquake in Japan, actor James Yaegashi, whose family is from a nearby area, called friends in the New York theatre to say, "We as a theatre community have to do something to help our fellow artists on the other side of the world."

Six months later, a friendly consortium of over a dozen organizations came together to prepare a remarkable nation-wide event.

Now, on the first anniversary of the earthquake, theatres everywhere are joning SHINSAI: THEATERS FOR JAPAN. Shinsai [SHEEN-sigh] means great quake in Japanese.

http://tcg.org/shinsai/