Name of the organization: Intersections International, the USA
Description of organization: Intersections International is a youth umbrella-organization seeking to forge a common ground to promote justice, peace, and reconciliation.
Project description: The mission of the TE’A Project (Theatre Engagement and Action) is to inspire young artists to turn their talents, intelligence, and commitment to the challenge of helping communities transform the conflicts that divide them. In collaboration with the UN Alliance of Civilizations Youth Solidarity Fund Grant, the TE’A Project is currently focused on fostering “mutual understanding, respect, and long-term positive relationships” among Muslim and non-Muslim youth in America.
In this connection, the TE’A Company/NYC has created and performed Under the Veil: Being Muslim (and Non-Muslim) in America, post 9/11. Under the Veil is a timely and provocative performance piece that infuses interactive, documentary style theatre with the insight approach toconflict resolution. This pioneering integration of theory and performance generates a high-quality theatrical experience that dramatizes the everyday clash of cares and threats that divide Americans from each other in the wake of 9/11, while also fostering the curiosity, insight, and compassion that enable audience members to transcend those barriers. 
There are five key steps to the TE’A Process. First, TE’A gathers a Company of talented young artists who are committed to an exacting, constructive, and creative examination of the cares, threats, and cultural assumptions that lock people into conflict with each other on issues of race, class, politics, and religion. Second, TE’A trains the artists to listen to the voices of individuals in the community—individuals representative of groups whose collective voice is marginalized, misunderstood, or stereotyped by the
larger, dominant culture. TE’A artists gain insight into what these individuals care about, what feels threatening to them, and what decisions they make. They also gain insight into themselves. Third, the TE’A artists then engage in a collaborative, interactive, theatrical workshopping process during which they transform their insight conversations with community members into high-quality theatrical performance pieces. Fourth, the TE’A Company performs these pieces for target audiences in schools, colleges, religious institutions, and other community venues. The goal is to replace suspicion with curiosity, misunderstanding with genuine insight, and hostility with openness to new ways to relating to each other. Fifth, facilitated dialogues are integrated into each TE’A performance. The combination of high quality drama and expert facilitation creates the condition for creative, candid interactions that provide audience members with the opportunity to deepen their insight into each other’s cares, to re-examine their own personal and cultural assumptions, toquestion the reliability of their spontaneous feelings of threat—even to delink these feelings from their interpretation of the other’s actions and customs.
The TE’A Project makes it possible for artists, audiences, and community members to negotiate the profound, difficult, yet exhilarating learning curve entailed in the shift “(from us and them) to (a new us).”
To learn more about Under the Veil and the TE’A process, watch the TE’A webisodes at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEAProject
Results:
- To date, the TE’A Company/NYC has performed Under the Veil more than a dozen times in the New York – Washington region, including two performances at universities in Washington DC and a recent run at La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York. Over 500 youth have attended these performances.
- The TE’A Company/DC is now established and conducting insight conversations in the Washington area. A staged reading of the performance piece the Company is creating is scheduled for May 4th.
- In addition, the TE’A project has created a web presence as well as an award winning series of four webisodes that document the three key steps involved in producing Under the Veil: insight conversations with community members, theatrical creation, and interactive performance.
Contact information: sreef@intersectionsinternational.org
Website: www.IntersectionsInternational.org; www.teaproject.com
The TE’A Project (Theatre/Engagement and Action): Being Young and Muslim In America, post 9/11
Name of the organization: Intersections International, the USA
Description of organization: Intersections International is a youth umbrella-organization seeking to forge a common ground to promote justice, peace, and reconciliation.
Project description: The mission of the TE’A Project (Theatre Engagement and Action) is to inspire young artists to turn their talents, intelligence, and commitment to the challenge of helping communities transform the conflicts that divide them. In collaboration with the UN Alliance of Civilizations Youth Solidarity Fund Grant, the TE’A Project is currently focused on fostering “mutual understanding, respect, and long-term positive relationships” among Muslim and non-Muslim youth in America.
In this connection, the TE’A Company/NYC has created and performed Under the Veil: Being Muslim (and Non-Muslim) in America, post 9/11. Under the Veil is a timely and provocative performance piece that infuses interactive, documentary style theatre with the insight approach toconflict resolution. This pioneering integration of theory and performance generates a high-quality theatrical experience that dramatizes the everyday clash of cares and threats that divide Americans from each other in the wake of 9/11, while also fostering the curiosity, insight, and compassion that enable audience members to transcend those barriers.
There are five key steps to the TE’A Process. First, TE’A gathers a Company of talented young artists who are committed to an exacting, constructive, and creative examination of the cares, threats, and cultural assumptions that lock people into conflict with each other on issues of race, class, politics, and religion. Second, TE’A trains the artists to listen to the voices of individuals in the community—individuals representative of groups whose collective voice is marginalized, misunderstood, or stereotyped by the
larger, dominant culture. TE’A artists gain insight into what these individuals care about, what feels threatening to them, and what decisions they make. They also gain insight into themselves. Third, the TE’A artists then engage in a collaborative, interactive, theatrical workshopping process during which they transform their insight conversations with community members into high-quality theatrical performance pieces. Fourth, the TE’A Company performs these pieces for target audiences in schools, colleges, religious institutions, and other community venues. The goal is to replace suspicion with curiosity, misunderstanding with genuine insight, and hostility with openness to new ways to relating to each other. Fifth, facilitated dialogues are integrated into each TE’A performance. The combination of high quality drama and expert facilitation creates the condition for creative, candid interactions that provide audience members with the opportunity to deepen their insight into each other’s cares, to re-examine their own personal and cultural assumptions, toquestion the reliability of their spontaneous feelings of threat—even to delink these feelings from their interpretation of the other’s actions and customs.
The TE’A Project makes it possible for artists, audiences, and community members to negotiate the profound, difficult, yet exhilarating learning curve entailed in the shift “(from us and them) to (a new us).”
To learn more about Under the Veil and the TE’A process, watch the TE’A webisodes at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEAProject
Results:
Contact information: sreef@intersectionsinternational.org
Website: www.IntersectionsInternational.org; www.teaproject.com