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La Llorona, Weeping Women on Skid Row |
The fastest growing segment of homeless population is women and children.
LAPD's project "La Llorona; Weeping women on Skid Row" addresses the crisis of an exploding population of women and children on Skid Row, and the lack of housing and other sevices for them in the Skid Row neighborhood.
Skid Row is a socially contrived neighborhood where social services for single men have traditionally been concentrated. No services for women have been in place on Skid Row, out of the feeling that it was so nasty a place that women should not be encouraged, through the availablity of services, to stay there.
However, in the last two years the population of women and children in the area has exploded. This explosion coincides with the arrival of the 5 year lifetime limit for Aid for Dependent Children --- cynically known as "welfare reform". As the area has been flooded with women and children the few sevices available to women and children have been overwhelmed. The Downtown Women's Action Coalition was formed in 2002, to advocate for the creation of services for women and children in the area.
Henriette Brouwers and 14 LAPD company members developed "La Llorona; Weeping Women on Skid Row", a show with and by the women of Skid Row, to address these issues. The show was developed in conjunction in dialogue with and with facilities support from Skid Row womens' advocacy (Downtown Women's Action Coalition) and service providers: Central City Outreach, Church of the Nazarene and SRO Housing Corporation. SRO Housing Corporation, which has done so much to generate a stock of affordable, decent housing on Skid Row, hosted our rehearsals at the new Jim Woods Community Center. Central City Outreach / Church of the Nazarene is known for it's spirited sense of providing for the spirit of people living in Skid Row; it runs a wonderful after school play and study program and packs the house on Wednesday evenings for community karaoke night. "La Llorona; Weeping Women on Skid Row" was performed 3 times at the Church of the Nazarene (a former sewing factory loft). Pre-event articles in the LA Times and the LA Weekly generated large enthusiastic audiences of neighborhood residents and people from other parts of Los Angeles. A fourth performance took place at Scripps College, in Claremont, as part of a national conference on women and poverty.
La Llorona, Weeping Women on Skid Row is based on the Mexican legend of La Llorona (the weeping woman), who wanders the earth in search of her lost / abandoned children . The legend becomes the through line for relating the personal journeys of the 14 men and women in the cast. The performance is composed of original movement, text and song. This collective creation, La Llorona, offers deeply felt, multiple perspectives and insights into the causes, as well as the personal struggles, of the most rapidly growing segment of the homeless population: women and children.
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