Ep.36 Theatre-Making in a Prison Community

Join host Desire Wandan in a conversation with Rivka Eckert—theatre maker, activist, and educator—about her creative work with homeless youth and police officers in Arizona and with prisoners, correctional officers, and community members in the prisons of upstate New York. Eckert, a professor in the Theatre and Dance Department at the State University of New York at Potsdam, believes that community-based theatre-making has an important role to play in “helping us get free together.”   www.rivkarocchio.com Instagram @rivkaeckert ----more---- Welcome to All Power to the Developing, a podcast of the East Side Institute. The Institute is a center for social change efforts that reinitiate human and community development. We support, connect, and partner with committed and creative activists, scholars, artists, helpers, and healers all over the world. In 2003, Institute co-founders Lois Holzman and the late Fred Newman had a paper published with the title “All Power to the Developing.” This phrase captures how vital it is for all people—no matter their age, circumstance, status, race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—to grow, develop and transform emotionally, socially and intellectually if we are to have a shot at creating something positive out of the intense crises we’re all experiencing. We hope that this podcast series will show you that, far more than a slogan, “all power to the developing” is a loving activity, a pulsing heart in an all too cruel world. ----more---- The East Side Institute is a hub for a diverse and emergent community of social activists, thought leaders, and practitioners who are reigniting our human abilities to imagine, create and perform beyond ourselves—to develop.  Each episode will introduce you to another performance activist or play revolutionary from around the world.   To learn more about the East Side Institute you can go to https://eastsideinstitute.org/