COLD WAR a performance project, developed over 3 years by the PeerGrouP and Los Angeles Poverty Department

The finished piece will be presented as part of the Noorderzon Festival in Groningen, the Netherlands, from16-26 August 2012.  The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Cultural Exchange International initiative has supported two phases of this collaboration between LAPD and the Netherlands-based PeerGrouP .  Both groups create theater work that engages with current social issues, but the communities they work with are very different: PeerGrouP builds projects in rural locations in Drente and L.A. Poverty Department builds projects in the heart of Skid Row, downtown LA.

Excerpt form an interview with women from Paula Panke, a women’s center in East Berlin.

"I lived in a very small village. My grandfather went to war and came back a changed man: he never wanted to talk about it. We never talked about politics. We were very poor, no running water or toilet in the house, but we had a garden and we had enough to eat. We were happy. After the Wall fell our teachers started teaching us about the rest of the world. From one day to the next the socialist system was not the only possible, right system anymore. I could not understand it. I could not believe in my teacher anymore. It was as if we all had migrated to another country, only, we had not moved at all."

  We started the research in October 2010, when two members of the PeerGrouP, Floris van Delft and Valentijn Fit, came to work with LAPD and to do research for the Cold War performance project here in Los Angeles.

This year 3 LAPD-ers went to the Netherlands where we exchanged our research, distilled from piles of books and internet-sites, with 3 PeerGrouP-ers and together we started to develop performance material. The last 10 days of our stay were spent in Berlin, Germany. We walked the line of the Wall, visited many museums, spoke with East- and West Berliners and invited them over for dinner, which we cooked in our apartment in Pankow, were we also had our studio. We created a wall length timeline (from 1945 till 2011) that linked our personal experience to world historical events and invited our guests to add to it. We improvised with this material and created texts based on existing texts and our personal writings.

We walked down to the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenberg Gate) with 7000 people during Occupy Berlin and had many conversations that gave us insights in the effects of the Cold War on every day life, right now, in Berlin and our own lives in the Netherlands and America.

October 6-31, 2010 Floris van Delft and Valentijn Fit, members of the PeerGrouP, came to work with LAPD and to do research for the Cold War performance project that LAPD is developing with the PeerGrouP.

Skid Row and the Cold War by Floris van Delft

I arrive at LAX with a ‘mission’. Actually, I have two ‘missions’. Number one. I’m in Los Angeles to get to know LAPD, to meet the people, learn about their way of working. Number two. I’m in Los Angeles to research the Cold War. Two completely different goals with one thing in common: with both of them I don’t have a very clear idea about what I will find or where to start exactly. I’ll just start and, depending on what I will find, decide on the next step.

My research on the Cold War leads me to a string of completely different places. From a professor in political science at UCLA, to the left wing Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. From the Reagan Library to the Titan Missile Museum in Tucson. From the Wende Museum in Culver City to veterans on Skid Row. The Cold War as a topic for research is quite a big one. So I try to focus on different events every time. The Berlin airlift, the Cuban missile crisis, the development of nuclear weapons and the meetings between Gorbachev and Reagan.

Trying to see ‘the big picture’ by zooming in. After taking a lot of pictures, meeting with a lot of people and filling a lot of pages with facts and stories there seem to be even more questions about what exactly the impact has been of this period on the world. Because, fortunately, the Cold War never became a ‘hot’ war, it seems almost easy to forget it took place. All that ends well…

And while driving miles and miles to visit all these different Cold War places, there’s one point I keep coming back to: Skid Row. LAPD’s rehearsal schedule gives a nice rhythm to the week. Tuesday and Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon I know where I’m going: to the rehearsal space at UCCEP on Skid Row.

Skid Row works like a mirror. While getting to know the people and the neighborhood, you have to deal with all the stereotypes you have in your head. The first evening I came to Skid Row, I saw streets full of potentially violent and definitely crazy people. But then I met the LAPD group, which consists of… the same people I just saw walking around. And during the weeks I worked with them, heard their stories and found out how all these ‘crazy’ people are part of a community. All my stereotypical thoughts about ‘these’ type of people were put to the test and failed.

And four weeks later when I was line dancing with eighty Skid Row inhabitants at the weekly karaoke night, I realized how simple it is to connect to people. It’s like the way I did my research. You start with saying ‘How are you?’, see what comes and then take it from there. 

Skid Row gives purpose to the work of LAPD. With so much going on, so much to fight for or against, there’s no question why the stories they tell should be told. Prison overcrowding, aggressive policing, real estate fraud, political mistakes. It automatically raises the question of purpose in what I do. With Skid Row LAPD also works as a mirror for me as a theatre maker. It’s not that I feel I should do the same kind of work: it’s the question why I do what I do.A question I have asked myself many times before but that has been renewed seeing LAPD working with the community, stories and problems of Skid Row. A question that I took home with me on October 30th and will keep trying to answer. 

Los Angeles Poverty Department produced a Festival for All Skid Row artists on Saturday December 4th in Gladys Park. The festival was an afternoon of activities that identified artists in all genres who live and work on Skid Row. Neighborhood artists performed or showed their art work. LAPD collected information about the artists, to create an artists’ registry and an archive of their work. We want the world to see that Skid Row is a neighborhood that’s home to many creative people.

This festival encouraged known neighborhood artists to continue their work. It also identified and brought together arts makers who where unknown even in their own Skid Row neighborhood. All participating artists received a pair of yellow shades, with the inscription Skid Row Artist: menacing cool imprinted on the left temple.

Download our newsletter about the festival: Festival for All Skid Row Artists - 2010

The ‘Festival for All Skid Row Artists’

All participating artists receive a pair of yellow shades, with the inscription “Skid Row Artist: menacing cool" imprinted on the left temple. The ‘Festival for All Skid Row Artists’ gives a menacing-cool face to the creative community of Skid Row.

Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, released “Making a Case for Skid Row Culture: Findings from a Collaborative Inquiry by the Los Angeles Poverty Department and the Urban Institute”. This study by John Malpede (Los Angeles Poverty Department) and Mario Rosario Jackson (Urban Institute) documents the role of arts and culture in Skid Row. The paper is available at www.artsusa.org/animatingdemocracy/pdf/reading_room/LAPD.pdf   This study found that culture comes from the ground up in Skid Row and is often initiated by residents and resident driven initiatives. This festival is undertaken to recognize these people and initiatives and to stimulate a new way of envisioning and talking about this neighborhood.

The ‘Festival for All Skid Row Artists’ moves the case for Skid Row culture forward in practice by creating a unique context that both generates cultural participation and documents it. This project encourages known neighborhood artists and identifys and brings together arts makers who are unknown even in their own Skid Row neighborhood.

FESTIVAL FOR ALL SKID ROW ARTISTS - FRIDAY AND SATURDAY JANUARY 27 & 28 from 12-4 PM, GLADYS PARK

Los Angeles Poverty Department produces the 2nd annual 'Festival for All Skid Row Artists'  in Gladys Park, at the corner of 6th and Gladys Street in Skid Row.

Because there is so much creative energy in the community we are expanding this years ‘Festival for All Skid Row Artists’ to two afternoons of performances, visual arts exhibitions and activities by artists who live and work on Skid Row. We are also inviting a few artists from outside Skid Row to create artistic exchange.

Neighborhood artists will perform and Los Angeles Poverty Department will collect digital data to create an artists’ registry and an archive of artists work. We will film and photograph visual art, writing, song and performances of neighborhood residents in Gladys Park.

Artists can exhibit their work and sign up in advance to reserve performance time up to 15 minutes. There will be time for open mic performances as well, so people can participate spontaneously. To reserve a time, send an email to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or call/text Henriëtte: 310-227 6071 or Kevin Michael: 213-948-6159.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

!!! Just like last year, if you register as an artist we will give you some 'menacing cool' shades !!! and we'll film your performance and give you a DVD with clips of all the performances and art works for free.