Amplified St.Paul Project

Project Overview

Starting in Summer 2019, Amplified is a community-based collaborative initiative leverages performance-based activism methods (devised theatre), performance elements (theatre, movement, and voice) and techniques of intervention to highlight the perspectives of the unheard, silenced voices of the young people of St. Paul's and the consequential effects of the redevelopment process. These stories will be woven together into an original performance piece that creates a dramatic dialogue using movement, text, music, and projections.  

This project initiative is to bridge a collaboration with Old Dominion University Theatre program and Teens with a Purpose, a non-profit organization whose mission is to create a platform that empowers young people to use their voice, creativity, reflection, and action to affect personal growth, transform lives, and impact communities.

Ultimately, Amplified will culminate in multiple archivable performance exhibitions within the St. Paul’s Quadrant by Summer 2023.

Community Organizations/Partners

Teens with a Purpose
Dept. of Communication and Theatre Arts at Old Dominion University
New Virginia Majority
Virginia Stage Company
Norfolk Botanical Gardens
Hermitage Museum

Project Approach & Statement

Project Intent

Home to the historic Crispus Attucks Theater (known as "Apollo of the South"), the St. Paul's Quadrant area was the focal point of entertainment, business, and racial pride in Norfolk's African American community as far back as 1919. Frankly, their voices are getting lost behind the assumed economic gain of this gentrification of their community: they will be uprooted from their homes, schools, and friends—ever shifting their histories.

From this project, their stories will interweave together into an original performance piece that creates a dramatic dialogue using movement, text, music, and projections that ultimately are archived using written documentation and digital recording.

Project extensions:

'Ur Roots Amplified": Beyond the Radius

'Ur Roots Amplified": River Stories

Project Methodological Approach(es)

Methodology/Techniques Used

Exploring the thematic elements of Devised Theatre and variations
- a process in which the creative team develops a show collaboratively from scratch.

Viewpoints methodology of relation to space, relationship, and time

Michael Rohd's Theatre for Community, Conflict, and Dialogue
- a progressive community-based practice centered around theatre as a tool for empowerment, listening to community concerns, and encouraging the community to voice and solve their own problems by participating in it with or by itself.

Augusto Boal's Image Theatre (part of Theatre of the Oppressed pedagogy)
- a collaborative tool devised from Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed applied theatre technique ‘Image Theatre’ in which still images are used to explore abstract concepts, such as relationships and emotions

Project Outcomes

Project outcomes to include (not limited to):

igniting creative output and self-expression

fostering collaboration amongst various groups of individuals.

creating bridges in the Hampton Roads community and statewide, legitimizing the performance of "resilience" by archiving the narratives of this shrinking community.

08/2019- 07/2023

AMPLIFIED: THE ST. PAUL’S PROJECT

Project Overview

Project Approach & Statement

Project Intent

Project Methodological Approach(es)

Project Outcomes

Image Gallery