When University of London theatre director Paul Heritage arrived in Brazil to use theatre to address the human rights of prisoners, his first experience was in the Papuda prison in Brasília. The play was based on the poem "Why Brazil?" by 22 year-old inmate Moisés. What happened in the months following was the first of many tragic cases that have accompanied Heritage’s work in the Brazilian prison system.
Six months after that opening night, Moisés was dead. He caught meningitis and was refused treatment by the country’s public hospital system since he was a prisoner of Papuda. He died after agonising for 14 days in an over-crowded cell. Theatre could not save Moisés, but it may, perhaps, contribute to a change in the way that we think of prisons and prisoners.
It is due to this determination to ensure that the human rights of all prisoners are respected that has led Paul Heritage to work since 1985 in adult and juvenile prisons and detention centres in the UK, Brazil, the US, China, Burkina Faso and Bangladesh.
Nearly one year after he began working in Papuda and with his NGO People’s Palace Project officially registered in Brazil, Heritage signed an accord in March 2003 to work with minors held in Rio de Janeiro’s juvenile reform centres (DEGASE). The project Mudança de Cena will benefit juvenile offenders until September of 2005. This week a forum will be held on "domestic violence: it’s impact on youth and the development of a culture of violence."
"The forum is when these youth can finally speak out. Their voices, in the form of theatre, music and art, show the ways in which society has failed" says executive director Magno Barros.
The event will include skits acted out by DEGASE interns and a panel discussion with Paul Heritage, judge Guaraci Vianna from the 2nd Child and Youth Court, Verônica dos Anjos of the Geração da Paz (Peace Generation) project of Viva Rio, psychoanalyst Aparecida de Paula, anthropologist Bárbara Musumeci, psychologist Fernando Acosta and actress Maria Padilha.
"The form will present complex situations in an accessible way, for a public including students, professors, parents, artists, legal experts, psychologists and others" says Barros.
COAV – Why was domestic violence chosen as a theme?
Heritage: It is important to work with specific human rights themes, as well as more generic matters regarding rights and responsibilities. Domestic violence affects everyone. The forum is an attempt to consider the issue from the perspective of youth. Domestic violence is one of the principal reasons why many young people abandon their homes, and is the basis for many of the problems that result.
COAV – What is your opinion of the "culture of violence" within the context of adolescents in conflict with the law?
Heritage: The banality of violence within DEGASE makes this question all the more pertinent. It is impossible to talk of a culture between the young people within these prisons without reference to this context. Brazil has no official regulations that govern young people held in prison as ECA never envisioned that they would be held in prison conditions. Thus there are no 'prison rules' or minimum standards that govern the ways in which the states hold young people (this is not true in theory as Brazil has signed the international treaties that govern young people deprived of their liberty but in practice there is no federal legislation).
COAV – What is your methodology for working in prisons?
Heritage: We use all different types of methodology: not one. I have worked on
Shakespeare and other classical texts with prisoners and young people, the project
has employed sculptors, Afro-Reggae, NY post-modern performance artists, and
other artists.
COAV – What has the partnership with DEGASE been like?
Heritage: DEGASE is responsible for running a system in collapse. They have inherited
both the physical spaces, the infrastructure, and the laws that govern the treatment of young people in prison. None of this is their fault. Our project is one of self-advocacy for young people in prison through the arts. By its very nature it will bring us into moments of opposition with the current situation. DEGASE invited us to do this project with them, and have opened their gates to us. There is always ambivalence between governments and artists - between the king and the fool - artists are meant to disturb and disrupt. That is one of their most important roles. So there will be always be an uncomfortable balance. And both DEGASE and PPP seek to maintain
that.
COAV – How did you train the DEGASE staff?
Heritage: The training consisted of theatre games and interactive exercises, but also of writing and drawing exercises, and general approaches which release creativity and imagination in situations where a strict script has been learnt over the years. It has always been harder to work with staff than prisoners. They have more to lose as they break down barriers and start to think differently about the world around them and the relationships that are formed within it. The de-humanising effect of the prison system is necessary for them to treat the prisoners in a certain way. Arts bring a form of humanisation to the institution of prison. This is not easy for the guards.
Theatre is place from which we learn to see in different ways. A guard is the person who looks and watches. Not the prisoner. When the prisoner becomes the person who watches and the guard becomes the object of that looking, the power dynamic of the space changes. Every time a prisoner picks up a video camera, there is a challenge to the guard’s authority.
As our projects are all related to human rights, this brings a further challenge to the guard's world view. S/he sees human rights as something to defend prisoners. We seek to use our programmes to show that the guards have rights as well, and the prison is a place not where rights are absolute, but where they are held in an impossible balancing act. We use arts programmes with guards to demonstrate that balance and to practice different ways of responding to the conflicts of rights and responsibilities.
COAV – And how did the adolescents respond to the project?
Heritage: Young people in prison receive arts projects like any other young people: with all the conflicting emotions of adolescence. These reactions range from suspicion to joy, from anger to love. It is impossible to unify these experiences. In a general sense, there is a welcome and a suspicion that mixes with any visit from outsiders. The prison is a very self-contained world.
COAV – In what way does this project help youth involved in crime?
Heritage: It seeks to give access to arts activities (a human right guaranteed under Article 28 of the UN Declaration) - it seeks to create dialogue through artistic expression - it seeks to use the arts as a means by which young people can describe their world and suggest ways in which it can be changed - it seeks to break preconceptions about who these young people are and what they can become.
COAV – How does theatre contribute to social development?
Heritage: Social development is about the possibility of change. Theatre is about enabling people to become social actors - to become agents in change - to participate in their world – to undo what seems to be inevitable.
Perhaps the key word in terms of theatre/arts and social development is respect. Through involvement in arts-based projects, people learn respect for themselves and for others [through identification with groups]. This is a means of gaining recognition through positive activities. It is a way to combat the dangers of invisibility which result from social exclusion.
COAV – has one experience stood out during these three months?
Heritage: One of my first visits to a Rio unit, I was taken round the installations. They were Dantesque. Totally contrary to the spirit and to the letter of ECA. The unit was built as a prison and operates as such. The young men were held in sub-human conditions not fit for any prisoner. At the end of the visit, I asked to see where young people were held if they committed an offence inside the prison. I was told that the cells had been de-activated. I asked to see them. I was taken to them, and there were 20 young people - most of them only in shorts and without footwear in a cellar without light and open sewage dripping in...the boys were let out into the yard at my request. There bodies were covered in cuts and bites - they were in a totally disgusting state.
I have never seen such appalling conditions during 15 years of working in prisons. I was visiting with the vice-director of DEGASE. He was also shocked. I said that I would not leave until the boys were removed from that space. It was a very tense moment. The boys were moved.
COAV Are adolescents in the DEGASE centres given a chance to re-incorporate into society as citizens?
Heritage: Without respect - auto-respect and respect for others - citizenship cannot exist. Because citizenship is not given - it is performed - it is lived - it is a state of being. Of course, there are also the laws and structures that make it possible, but it is primarily a condition of humanity. And that is cultural.
Rights don't exist with judges, politicians, lawyers, etc. But rights also don't exist without the culture in which they are recognised. Our work exists on the cultural level but unfortunately there are such clear gaps at the political and legal levels that it is sometimes difficult to think it is worth the fight.
COAV – What are the goals for Mudança de Cena for three years from now?
Heritage: A rights-based cultural programme inside the custodial institutions for young people in conflict with the law. A rights-based cultural programme for young people in transition from custodial institutions and as they return to their communities. Participation by young people in conflict with the law in public debates dealing with key human rights issues. Also, educational/promotional material specific to young people in conflict with the law: produced by young people for young people.
