KPBS Midday Edition in San Diego featured two local theatre groups—Uprise Theatre and Voces Unidas/Voices United—using improv to educate their community about their rights in the face of ICE raids. (Listen in Overcast or Apple Podcasts.)

Annie Rios, Uprise Theatre:

Uprise Theatre is a nonprofit organization here. It is rooted and run out of southeast San Diego in particular. We use art and activist lawyering to disrupt systems of oppression and reclaim power with the people. And that’s a really fancy way of saying that we use a lot of different creative and artistic techniques to educate and empower folks about their constitutional legal rights, especially as it pertains to law enforcement.

Guillermo Mendez, Voces Unidas/Voices United:

What we do is people’s theatre in action. […] Our job in theater is to put it on stage. The tears, the sweat, the blood, the death, the laughter, all the things that go on in the working class community, all our struggles—put it on the stage. But in this also, how we can figure out how to use theater, improvisation and teaching and working with the community, how to address this particular moment, how to address this fascism that’s in our community.

The conversation was deeply inspiring and it got me thinking of different ways I could use my theatre and improv background to get involved with a similar effort. A wonderful use of the performing arts to empower communities.

(Via Ronzilla.)