Teens Speak Out Against
Domestic Violence
By Sara Nelson

Josie Hastings leads the RUHS health class in an "intention-focusing" exercise. (Herald/Tim Calabro)

Curious things were happening in Deb Lary's 10^th grade health class at Randolph Union High School a couple weeks ago.

Thirteen teens, wearing jeans and hoodies and dark makeup, and two women clad in flowing pastel dance attire, stood in a circle in the middle of the room, stamping their feet and exhaling noisily.

Then they took turns making strange noises.

"Don't think about it too much," instructed one be-legginged leader.

The students emitted growls and whoops, sometimes collapsing in laughter. One girl said she couldn't do it, but after encouragement, she finally worked up the nerve.

"Meow?" she ventured, shrugging her shoulders.

Tracy Penfield, the other leader, who's been doing this for a long time, encouraged the students, explaining that the exercises were meant to connect them to their own voices.

"Whether you're writing or drawing or playing guitar- all of those require a voice," she said.

The silly-serious exercises were part of a two week residency Penfield and her assistant, Josey Hastings, conducted for two health classes at RUHS. School residencies are a component of Penfield's Chelsea-based non-profit organization, SafeArt, which also offers a wide range of educational and therapeutic programs and services.

One of these ongoing programs is a teen ensemble, which performs at schools and community venues, exploring some of the toughest issues facing young people. The residencies Penfield conducts are a source of material for the ensemble, and in both the residencies and the ensemble, the idea is to get the young people to confront domestic and dating violence and related issues through drama, dance, music, and poetry.

One of the biggest SafeArt performances of the year happens to be tomorrow, Jan. 10, when both the teen ensemble, and members of Lary's health class who participated in the residency, perform at the Chandler music hall in Randolph.

Trusting their voices?

As the founding director of SafeArt, Penfield has spent her career helping young people get comfortable using their voices.

"Dramatizing stories and inviting students to explore their own responses is more effective than lecturing about teen dating and violence," she said.

The healing power of artistic expression is something Penfield has experienced firsthand.

She tells the groups that she works with the story of her personal experience in an abusive relationship. The years she spent gradually understanding and coming to terms with it culminated in the creation of a dance-and-spoken word piece that she now often performs with the SafeArt ensemble. She says that telling this story helps foster a sense of trust within the group, and gets the students to be comfortable opening up to each other.

The trust was almost tangible in Lary's classroom. Over the course of the residency, the students not only got comfortable making funny noises in front of each other, but also talking candidly about their boyfriends and girlfriends, about cruel and creepy messages written on their Myspace pages, about their families, and about their struggles with addiction, eating disorders, and self-mutilation. By the end of the two weeks, they were asked to create a piece to perform for the rest of the class.

In each case, the subject matter of these pieces was intense and personal. Some students performed pieces about alcoholism and child neglect. Two boys explored the issue of soldiers going to war. One girl wrote the story of her cousin, a young man who was murdered by his girlfriend.

Some of the pieces clearly came from direct experience, while others were empathetic. Penfield stressed that no one in the class had to disclose anything they didn't want to, but many students did indeed seem excited to have a chance to speak about their lives outside of school.

"I'm still surprised by how personal they choose to be," Penfield said.

"The fact that they're very frank is a testament to how safe they do feel."

Several students took Penfield up on her suggestion that they perform their pieces at the Chandler show.

For Hastings, who became a SafeArt staff member in October, it was her first SafeArt residency. She said she too was, "pleasantly surprised to see their hearts so open."

The residency was paid for with a grant written by Liana Reed, a high school student who'd previously participated in a SafeArt residency in Ms. Lary's class. Most of SafeArt's work is made possible through donations and grants, and a recent grant awarded by Gifford Community Health will allow for a significant expansion of SafeArt programming, including a new Randolph teen ensemble (the current ensemble is based in Chelsea) and a Randolph women's group.

Sobering Statistics?

The school performance at the end of the residency began the way every SafeArt performance begins, with a series of sobering statistics compiled, anonymously, from the experiences of the students in the show. For Lary's class, it went like this:

"We are 14 high school students. Six of us have divorced parents. Twelve of us have been teased about our physical features. Two of us have had an eating disorder. Eight of us have known someone with an eating disorder. Seven of us have had an addiction. Four of us have conquered our addiction. Seven of us have been physically abused by a family member. Three of us have experienced a sexual assault. One of us has been raped."

The numbers highlight the urgent need for something to be done. The eagerness with which the kids share their experiences, and the power of the pieces they create when invited, suggest that the SafeArt model is part of the solution.

Member's of SafeArt's regular teen ensemble say their performances have a way of breaking the silence among audience members, who thank them and say, "The same thing happened to me."

"It's a way to open up and talk about things that are taboo. The reason they're problems is because we don't talk about them," said Nathalie Trottier, a Williamstown senior who's been in the group for three years.

"If you were raised with [abuse], you might not know if it's normal," her friend and fellow ensemble member Chelsea Palin added.

Trottier said that the personal conversations she's had as a member of the group have made her aware of a side of the world she hadn't been aware of, but at the same time made her more confident she'd be able to navigate it, and do something about the problems.

Though she's performed with the group about 20 times, Trottier said she made an important realization recently when the group performed at a conference in Massachussetts.

"We were having all these conversations with activists, and all of a sudden, for the first time, I was like, 'Oh my gosh- we're activists.'"

"We're doing something to make things better. I love that feeling."

The SafeArt Ensemble performs with RUHS students this Friday, Jan 11, at 9:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets to the morning performance are $4, and for the evening performance, a suggested donation of $12.

For more information, call 685-3138.