RFK in EKY, The Robert F. Kennedy Performance Project, is a series of public conversations and activities centered around the real-time, site-specific intermedia performance that recreated, on September 9th and 10th 2004, Robert Kennedy’s two-day, 200 mile “poverty tour” of southeastern Kentucky in 1968. An Appalshop project directed by John Malpede.
Cartoon by Michiel Hoving Is there history on Skid Row? Was created around the theme of the social creation and re-creation of the neighborhood in Los Angeles know as Skid Row.
We rented a store front so the performance was on view and open for the people to drop in for five minutes or four hours. All kinds of audience showed up: people sitting across the street; area workers; security guards; truck loaders / unloaders; store sales people and shop owners; yuppie loft dwellers; LAPD’s core audience; and passers by.
We used many approaches and artist media to document the history and to explore the present moment / forces and issues that will shape the future of the area. We covered the wall space with historical photos and documents; conducted live interviews with long time service providers, shopkeepers, area residents and arts funders; and video interviews of other people living and working in the area. We focused considerable attention on the emerging issue of the recent dramatic increase of women and children in the area and conducted video interviews with service providers that work with women in the area. Women in the company gave live performance accounts of their experiences and the experiences of women in Skid Row.
Other live performances, written by company members, dealt with the problems of drugs in the area; the constant surveillance and “prison without walls” feeling of the neighborhood, and the shrinking of the neighborhood – as more and more people are consolidated into a smaller and smaller area, due to development of adjacent areas. Through this tapestry of offerings, a multifaceted look at the past, present and future of the Skid Row area was created.
Special live interviews were conducted daily. Von Gregory, owner of Gigi’s Gift Boutique, spoke about his arrival in Los Angeles as a crack addict and transformation from drug-user to businessman. His boutique, the only store in the Skid Row area selling new, unused items, caters to those living on the streets and in SROs. Jeff Dietrich, co founder of the Catholic Worker of Los Angeles and the Hippy Kitchen gave an historical overview of the area from his 25-year’s-in-the-area perspective. Caron Atlas and Claire Peeps (Durfee Foundation) gave instruction on how to secure funding for arts projects. Geoffrey Gilbert-Hammerling, sociologist and former assistant director of SRO Housing, spoke about the transformation of Skid Row housing.
The Skid Row area of Los Angeles is undergoing a major transformation.
