Jay Ruby: This is our fridge, microwave, toaster, washer, dryer...
Artistic Director Jay Ruby zigzags his Carpet Bag Brigade across the country in a converted school bus every summer, financed partially through 0% credit cards. As they go from town to town, they leave gaping jaws and delighted smiles in their wake, with their astounding acrobatic and stilt walking performances.
Jay Ruby: Underneath the bus we can store our amplifier and we can run our PA off of the batteries - we have deep cycle batteries. So we can actually pull into a park or a field, and either rehearse or do a performance and not have to plug into the local electricity.
A typical Carpet Bag Brigade performance features seven dancers on two-foot tall stilts, clad in colorful costumes, body paint and handmade masks. They explore a variety of thematic concepts like fire and evolution with back bends, front tumbles to the ground, lifts, and two person poses that force each dancer to trust the strength of the other. After performing in Denver and Kansas, they've stopped over in Cleveland for a week to teach their talents to inner-city youth. Its all a part of free program of Cleveland Public Theater called Brick City Theater.
As he leans on the side of the bus, Ruby says opportunities like this are important to him because they fill a hole he sees left by cuts in arts education.
Jay Ruby: It's a crime in my eyes when there's not arts funding in education, because it teaches trust, it teaches discovering your inner self. And those are experiences that turn into memories that create values and guide ones moral compass. When you take that program out, you leave kids in a vacuum.
If that vacuum exists in Cleveland, it's a world away from the kids wobbling and falling with long pieces of wood strapped to their feet. In a Westside Flats gymnasium, 40 kids share 20 pairs of stilts ranging from one foot to two-and-a-half feet tall. While some wait their turn, others wander the gym floor timidly sometimes turn in circles, walk sideways or kicking their legs in front of them.
But some like Tatiana Bradley still grip the hands of their instructors... out of fear.
Tatiana Bradley: I ain't never... I haven't fallen yet.
Alexandra Underhill: You haven't fallen yet?
Tatiana Bradley: Ah, um... I'm scared.
Alexandra Underhill: Wow, well that says something.
Tatiana's grip is so tight it's almost cutting off the blood flow of Alexandra Underhill's hand. She's a Cleveland stilt walker and instructor with Brick City Theater. She promptly leads Tatiana to a large blue mat and coaches her on how to fall.
Alexandra Underhill: Move out of the way so she can do it... You go knee first and throw your weight back. Get up close.
Tatiana Bradley: (falls) Like that?
Alexandra Underhill: Yes, exactly like that. You did great.
After a week of workshops, the Carpet Bag Brigade moves on to New England and Lincoln Center in New York City. Meanwhile Underhill and Brick City Director Nina Tomang, will continue to work with the children and create a performance piece worthy of Ingenuity Festival. Tomang says this process of showing kids how to perform, work together and depend on each other will benefit them later on.
Nina Tomang: A lot of how the job market works now is based on creativity. And to think creatively and to present that idea to someone you have to have a certain level of confidence.
And Tomang says whether or not all of the children stick with the program till the end, at least this week their self-confidence was elevated, if only a few feet.
Lisa Ann Pinkerton, 90.3.