"Illicit" Community Production
Donation protected
Since October 2016, growing out of our work at the former PHS Drug Users Resource Centre, a group of harm reduction workers and frontline responders from the Downtown Eastside community have been meeting monthly with professional artists to investigate the nuances of illicit drug culture, the human impacts of drug policy, and the realities of the opioid overdose crisis, which has claimed over 1000 lives in BC this year. The result?
Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement - a new interdisciplinary performance featuring live music, poetry, tableaux, choreography, and shadow theatre.
We believe that the arts can play a significant role in harm reduction because they have the ability to reveal a shared humanity. Our hope is to, with imagination and honesty, fight the stigma that still surrounds people who use illicit drugs and alcohol - stigma that impedes our ability as a society to effectively respond to and prevent tragedies like the overdose crisis.
We presented the results of our research in a workshop performance and conversation at the first Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival, on August 11th, 2017. With feedback from that event, we plan to move into a production phase, to fine-tune a full-length work that can be toured within Vancouver and other communities in BC. Your contribution will help us make this work as impactful as possible. It's time to show the world
what we have created.
The feedback we've received is clear: this production needs to reach its potential and it needs to reach more people. This requires funding to pay performers and professional artists for artistic development and rehearsal. It requires food, accommodation, travel, promotion, and administrative costs. The people who created this work are those very people who are responding to the fentanyl crisis every day and who are most impacted by illicit drug stigma. They are offering their stories in the service of all those who have been affected by the overdose crisis.
We are so grateful for any level of donation. Thank you for helping us to reach our goal, and in turn amplifying the voices of harm reduction leaders on the frontlines.
Illicit: Stories from a harm reduction movement - a new interdisciplinary performance featuring live music, poetry, tableaux, choreography, and shadow theatre.
We believe that the arts can play a significant role in harm reduction because they have the ability to reveal a shared humanity. Our hope is to, with imagination and honesty, fight the stigma that still surrounds people who use illicit drugs and alcohol - stigma that impedes our ability as a society to effectively respond to and prevent tragedies like the overdose crisis.
We presented the results of our research in a workshop performance and conversation at the first Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival, on August 11th, 2017. With feedback from that event, we plan to move into a production phase, to fine-tune a full-length work that can be toured within Vancouver and other communities in BC. Your contribution will help us make this work as impactful as possible. It's time to show the world
what we have created.
The feedback we've received is clear: this production needs to reach its potential and it needs to reach more people. This requires funding to pay performers and professional artists for artistic development and rehearsal. It requires food, accommodation, travel, promotion, and administrative costs. The people who created this work are those very people who are responding to the fentanyl crisis every day and who are most impacted by illicit drug stigma. They are offering their stories in the service of all those who have been affected by the overdose crisis.
We are so grateful for any level of donation. Thank you for helping us to reach our goal, and in turn amplifying the voices of harm reduction leaders on the frontlines.
Organizer
Kelty McKerracher
Organizer
Vancouver, BC
