Multiplying Impacts
We are creating the capacity to support creative projects in this time when the arts are most needed to question the status quo and shine light on what is emerging from the edges. Any community who wants to bring a performance, exhibit, or other creative event to their region ought to be able to afford to do so. Likewise, artists and cultural creatives often don't have access to funds or wider communities to share their works more broadly. Leveraging important works of art to their next stage is how we metabolize what is new across society. We help to make this possible and ask for donations for these projects to bring about a resurgence of the imaginal. Your participation represents an economy of grace that invites prosperity across communities when we work together.
Scroll down to check out some of the projects we have invested in to share them more broadly with the world, to multiply the impacts.
Multiplying Impacts Projects
We Own This Now
A scene from the play with Ted Swartz and Michelle Milne
Playwright Alison Casella Brookins with Ted Swartz and Michelle Milne
This play is a rewrite from the original play, Discovery: A Comic Lament, by Alison Casella Brookins, performed by Ted Swartz and Michelle Milne. The creation of this project has been a movement. As an aspiring playwright, who had never written a play, Alison had an idea. A seed that was planted from her intersection with Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery. Alison reached out to Ted for mentoring, and the seed grew into a full play developed through conversations, research, and dreaming. It was then launched and toured across the United States and Canada through a partnership with Ted & Company Theaterworks, multiplying its impact beyond a finished script.
After receiving feedback from Indigenous People's voices, and audiences across the continent, Alison did some re-writes and the new title came forward through a collaborative brainstorm, We Own This Now. Many colleges, universities, churches and peace and justice groups were interested in booking this show in their communities, but couldn't afford the full price of a live show. CAHS underwrote several tours to allow the play to be distributed more widely. The show is still available to tour and can be booked for 2022 through Ted & Company TheaterWorks.
The play looks at love of land, loss of land, and what it means to "own" something. It examines how that "ownership" came to be defined in North America. Diving into historical documents, absurd situations, and extended metaphors, the audience learns how the Doctrine of Discovery (the legal framework that justifies theft of land and oppression of Indigenous Peoples) still carries forth its mandate, causing continued harm to land and to Indigenous People today.
Due to the importance of addressing historical and ongoing land theft and oppression of Indigenous Peoples, we continue to seek donations and funding to help underwrite more tours of this show in the future. If you'd like to participate by giving, please donate here.