With a flurry of snapshots, about 30 youth organizers presented a play filled with speeches, poetry, dance, and hip hop, depicting the daily struggles of young people and their families in the city of Boston.
Hundreds of people streamed into the Paramount Theatre at Downtown Crossing Saturday night for the 23rd annual Boston Youth Peace Conference, entitled “Reality Remixed.” The conference, hosted by the Center for Teen Empowerment, was dedicated to discussing such timely issues as street violence and youth-police relationships, and used the play to address those topics.
“It’s an opportunity for young people to create their own message about what needs to happen in the community, what the problems are, and what needs to be done about it,” said Stanley Pollack, the founder and executive director of Teen Empowerment. “They put it into song, dance, poetry, rap, acting, and public speaking, and project it out.
Advertisement
“The idea is that it has a big impact on them as they create that message, but also has a big impact on their peers,” he said.
While all of the performers Saturday were young people from Boston, city officials were in attendance. Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Police Superintendent-in-Chief William G. Gross, and City Councilor Tito Jackson all shared thoughts before or after the performance.
“It’s important to show that we can come together and have good dialogue,” said Gross. “As we’ve seen anti-police sentiment across this great nation, not only with the youth in those communities, but young adults and seniors, what’s missing in other communities that we have here is that we’re willing to have a dialogue and a continued dialogue, both good and bad.”
“We can’t talk over the voices of our youth. We must listen to them,” he said before the play.
As the theater filled, Gross shared his pride of the community that he was addressing. City Councilor Tito Jackson also took the stage, explaining that he was in the audience for the very first Youth Peace Conference, and how different of a city Boston was then.
Advertisement
“Twenty-three years ago, I sat exactly where you sat, and I believe exactly what you believe: that teens are what make the city go round, that teens are the ones we should be asking and not pointing our fingers at, as I stated before,” said Jackson. “We should be bringing you to the table because you are not our future, you are actually our present.”
The play began with a scene at an MBTA stop, where bystanders were struck by bullets from a shooting. The play delved into the issues of the objectification of women, abuse on social media, having a parent as a police officer, family members stuck behind bars, and life after incarceration.
After almost every scene of the nearly two-hour play, a speech was made, discussing the issues the audience had just witnessed.
“It is time for our community to wise up and break the cycle,” Teen Empowerment organizer Jair Ferreira said after his character was released from years in prison. “We need to understand what the cycle does to our community. We need to think. We need to learn from other people’s mistakes, and we need to act together.
At the same time, we need laws that don’t get our people locked up for petty crimes,” said Ferreira. “We need services, before, during, and after incarceration to give a person a real second chance. It begins with each of us realizing that we need to stay positive no matter what.”
Advertisement
After the play, numerous officials and prominent figures, such as Mayor Walsh and Police Superintendent John Brown spoke about what they had seen in the performance. The group from Teen Empowerment was commended by all.
“You can make an impact,” Walsh said. “Continue to be leaders in this city.”
Miancy Cime, 16, who has been working with Youth Empowerment for two years, hoped that the show made an impact.
“Not many people know what our daily struggles are, and we don’t know what their daily struggles are,” she said, emphasizing the importance of events like this one. “As long as we can connect and communicate with the audience through the play that we’re doing, people will start to understand.”
Derek J. Anderson can be reached at derek.anderson@globe.com.