SWAMP Theatre grassroots interactive theatre
THE SWAMP...
The Swamp is an anti-oppression, grass-roots theatre group. Our focus is on healing ourselves and our communities through the use of theatre, dance, movement and story-telling. We utilize Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) and David Diamond's Theatre for Living methods, including Image and Forum theatre, many hilarious and challenging games and exercises, as well as elements of yoga and meditation.
Collectively, we have been trained by Métis facilitator Anna Soole, TO practitioner Carmen Aguirre, and David Diamond of Theatre for Living. We have also trained with Power of Hope, PeerNet, YouthCO AIDS Society, Leave Out ViolencE, The Mothertongue Project (South Africa), Vikki Reynolds, and Judith Koltai (RDMT), amongst others.
The area around your belly is “your swamp” – the seat of your energy where things can be dark, and murky, stinky and difficult but also fertile and lush and full of the exact chaos needed to produce life. We focus our exercises on releasing from that area, that swamp, and bringing whatever is down there up into the world. When you are able to investigate your own swamp, and work from such a deep place then comes the revolution of the self and with it, the world.
THE SWAMPERS...
Vulnerability is the swampland
of the soul.
-Brene Brown
EVE WILENSKY
Co-Artistic Director, Facilitator
Eve brings over 6 years of facilitation training and experience in Theatre of the Oppressed and is now doing her masters in Drama Therapy. She is the former coordinator of YouthCO AIDS Society's forum theatre troupe. Her passion for community-engaged theatre has taken her from small communities in northern BC to women's groups in South Africa. She has a remarkable knack for knowing exactly what a room full of people need in order to be open, present and vulnerable.
AURORA PRELEVIC
Facilitator
Aurora is a Montréalaise émigré, with Balkan roots, living up her hippie dreams on the West coast, where she dove into the Swamp, soon after moving to Vancouver 2 years ago. It represents a powerful intersection of her passions for physical embodiment and expression, community-based healing work, and political activism. When she’s not Swamping, Aurora works as a yoga instructor in Hatha, Yin and Restorative traditions, studies Herbalism on Salt Spring Island, and is a friend and caretaker to some pretty awesome children.
RIANNE SVELNIS
Co-artistic director,Facilitator
Rianne is the granddaughter of eastern european immigrants who now finds herself living on unceded Coast Salish Territory. She has been practicing Theatre of the Oppressed technique for over 6 years, in 2 continents and is now studying contemporary dance. Rianne sees art as a primal language of expression, and a basic human right that we need to reclaim as our own to help us tell our stories. She also brings experience in front-lines mental health and addiction advocacy, is a certified yoga teacher, and a student with Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance.
IVO HAGGERTY
Facilitator
Ivo is originally from the Cowessess Indian Band in SK, and has lived and loved on Coast Salish territory for the past twenty years. Ivo identifies as part of the non-gender binary as a two spirited person. Ivo worked with young people and indigenous people all over BC and the Lower Mainland for the past six years; most recently working with YouthCO in the Aboriginal Youth Program as a peer sexual health educator and continues to work with Leave Out ViolencE (LOVE) BC. Ivo has been practising Theatre of the Oppressed/ Theatre for Living/ Forum Theatre for the past two years and hopes to one day lead and joke a new troupe.
STEPHEN CHENG
Facilitator
Steve is one of the founding members of Swamp Theatre. Prior to that, he was part of a forum theatre troupe with Eve, Connor, Erin, and Rianne. During Swamp meetings, Steve can be found doing log rolls, making intense eye contact, attempting chakra balance through vocal toning, and having his inflexible body bent into uncomfortable positions. In his free time, he enjoys cooking elaborate meals, camping, building giant fires, chatting with his cat, getting lost in foreign cities, eating fried chicken, learning guitar, and falling asleep on beaches.
ERIN PAVAN
Facilitator
Erin attended her first Theatre of the Oppressed performance on Commercial Drive in 2008, and joined YouthCO’s forum theatre troupe very shortly thereafter. She is interested in social justice, particularly the rights of Indigenous people, and has a B. A. in political science and a law degree. Erin has worked in Aboriginal Child and Family Services at the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development, and the Ontario Victim Services Secretariat, and is currently an intern at the BC Civil Liberties Association. For Erin, the Swamp is a place to explore personal and community healing, a necessity for any positive change in the realm of social justice.
CONNOR POLISHAK
Facilitator
Connor, a founding member of Swamp Theatre, owes much of his still shifting and evolving sense of social consciousness to his involvement with forum theatre for the past 6 years. He has worked and played with communities all over BC as a part of YouthCO's Theatre Troupe, an actor with David Diamond's Theatre for Living, as a Sexual Health Educator with Healing Our Spirit, and currently as a facilitator for Out in Schools. He is constantly investigating new and effective ways to be an ally, laugh, have fun, and create safer, healthier spaces. He is also in his first year of the Integrative Energy Healing program at Langara and is excited to bring aspects of energy work to the Swamp.