What Programs Does the Q Offer?

Spiral Q’s Living Loft Museum

Norris Square Parade, May 2009

Save the Libraries Rally, January 2009

“There can be no doubt in my own mind that the arts play a crucial role in the life of a people. Long ago, for instance, the San believed that their cave wall-paintings had a mystical influence on their livelihood and helped to ensure their continued survival…it was a matter of life and death. It was not entertainment, nor were they being merely creative; they were exercising that dominion over their environment which God wanted us human beings to have…Nor can anyone doubt that protest theatre is a powerful instrument in a people’s struggle for liberation. Enacted on the stage for the audience to see are the experiences of their daily lives: the shame, the attacks on their dignity, the failures, the traumas, the triumphs, the joys and laughter. That catharsis is a powerful thing. People come to the forceful realization that they are not entirely the impotent playthings of powerful forces.

It speaks of a proud defiance of the hostile forces that would demean and dehu-manize them…there is something in human beings which refuses to be manipu-lated, which proclaims for all to hear and see that human beings are creatures of the spirit too. They are made for something better than that which they are experiencing. They can dream dreams, they can work like anything to try to real-ize the apparently unrealizable – to reach out for the stars – to try to bring utopia to earth.” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

In the middle of last year’s Peoplehood process the markets collapsed and the housing bubble burst, yet we persisted in our creative journey and built a giant house. Now, a year later, we embark again on this journey of Peoplehood, and again it is a time of extreme challenge. In the middle of a city budget crisis, a still unapproved state budget, and a standstill in DC, the litany of challenges is familiar: skyrocketing unemployment, homelessness, the lack of accessible healthcare, degrading infrastructure, absence of arts in the schools, and rising violence. In the development of this year’s pageant, community members, children, and artists all spoke to the need to revisit, reenvision, and revise our world. Folks reflected on corruption, distribution of resources, deliberate systemic oppression, and our own understandings of abundance and scarcity. The scales don’t bal-ance, cross-purposed, we work in a machine that is all consuming, vying for services, divided over line items. The obstacles are overwhelming and the answers elusive.

But returning to the words above from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and inspired by our collective strength, intelligence, and perseverance, we create this humble pageant together. We create in an effort to remember our larger selves, to stand against that which degrades us, and to derive from this process a renewed commitment in our ordinary lives to act; to do that which we can; to encounter one another; to stop, look, and listen; to reflect on the small and systemic ways in which we perpetuate a world that does not serve all of us.

So we work to build a city that reflects our hopes and dreams. We seek not to come to some ultimate consensus, but to arrive at a greater under-standing of one another. In that understanding we can work together in some sense of shared purpose, we can strive to meet one another’s needs. We can carry a giant puppet high above our heads, heavy though it may be, and together we can thrive in defiance of all that would pull us down and lift our visions to the sky. - Tracy Broyles

Pageant TeamTracy BroylesLiza GoodellTed EnochAlice Manos

Aleks MartrayAmanda MurphyAngie ArahoodAnisha PayneAnnie DaleyBecca JonesBen LoughinBeth BlumBeth PulcinellaCurtis NouchiD’amonita AlgarinDeney NguyenDoug AbelowGrace KennedyHarper NelsonJamie CampbellJeff PalitschJennifer TurnbullJesse Harding

Joanna GrimJulie BosakKaryl WeberKate FarquharKestrel PlumpKim PassidomoLiza Ivanova

Max Rosen-Long Meg O’DonnellMegan WilsonMelissa MetelitsMerissa RichmondNaomi LittelNichole TalbottPablo VirgoRachel Ehrgood

Robin HernandezRose LevineRoxanne CromwellSerena SaundersShayne BargmanTara JaiyeolaYasmona EdwardsZoe Bassett

Board of DirectorsChristina CantrillMelissa DeshieldsPamela LelandDustin KiddMorgen CheshireJ. Martin FutrellRobert GoodmanJake KaskeyChristy Schneider

Partner OrganizationsAging Gracefully ProductionsBuild OnCedar Park Community Association

City Year PhiladelphiaDrexel Sierra ClubGirard Medical CenterLea Community SchoolMalcolm X ParkMontessori GenesisNeighborhood Bike WorksNetter Center for Community

Partnerships, UPennNew Life Consumer CenterNorth Philly StompersOutward BoundPaul Robeson HousePearl & Conestoga Community GardenPeople’s CaravanPhiladelphia ACT-UPWest Powelton SteppersProject RainbowSEIU Health Care State Senator Anthony WilliamsThe Enterprise CenterThe New Africa CenterThe Village of Arts & HumanitiesUniversity City DistrictWest Kensington MinistryWest Philadelphia Cooperative PreschoolWilson Community School

Every year, PEOPLEHOOD evolves from an unlikely force of individuals and organizations, friends, strangers, neighbors, coworkers, orga-nizers, artists, grownups and children, bikerid-ers, grandmothers, teachers, builders, drum-mers, dogwalkers, fathers, singers, preachers, activists, storytellers, bankers, librarians, leaders, people of faith, atheists, americans of all racial

and cultural backgrounds, immigrants, exiles, refugees. We move through a meandering dia-logue of drawing, listening, dance, words, pup-pet making, dreaming, truckloading, and finally walking through our neighborhood to Clark Park. Thank you to this year’s pageant team and the organizations who have worked together to bring you PEOPLEHOOD.

Since August, artists and volunteers on the pageant team have been working with community members at partner locations and at Spiral Q’s studios to build many of the puppets you see here today. A great big thank you to all the people at the sites below who helped make this happen!

The park extends west from 51st Street to 52nd Street and north from Larchwood Avenue to Pine Street. Home to more than 100 towering oaks, an elaborate play area, and dozens of comfortable benches for relaxing, Malcolm X Park is a hub of neighborhood activity. The Friends of Malcolm X Park is a group of volunteers committed to bringing entertaining programming and family-friendly events to the park. www.malcolmxpark.info

The primary mission of The Paul Robeson House is to heighten awareness of the life, legacy and philosophy of Paul Robeson and his historical significance to the Philadelphia region, the state of Pennsylvania, the nation and the world. The Robeson house presents and promotes educational and community programs that make learning experiences about Robeson accessible to all ages and cultures.www.paulrobesonhouse.org

The Friends of Clark Park is a volunteer organization founded in 1973 to help maintain and improve Clark Park. The organization sponsors park events and programs to encourage use of the park and foster a sense of community, organizes volunteer work days, and edu-cates the public about the park’s history. www.clarkpark.info

Spiral Q seeks to mobilize communities and illuminate the victories, frustrations, and possibilities of living in Philadelphia through giant puppet parades, neighbor-hood pageants, and toy theater.www.spiralq.org

ACT-UP Philadelphia, Peoplehood 2008

Neighborhood Bike Works, 2008

Spiral Q extends a very special thank you to some of our most important partners, Frances Aulston and The Paul Robeson House of the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, who have been the host of the starting point of the parade these last ten years. In Ms. Aulston’s words, it is the “courage of our convictions” which has brought us together in the spirit of the great artist activist, Paul Robeson. Thank you for your faith in us, your wisdom, and your own perseverance and com-mitment to truth and justice. The Paul Robeson House is located right here in West Philadelphia at 4949 Walnut Street. For more information on tours, special events, and programs, please call (215) 747–4675 or see their website for details, www.paulrobesonhouse.org.

“As residents of the U.S.A. we live inside an intense media blockade. Without a commitment to seeking out alternative news sources we receive very little information about the ever-growing resistance move-ment to global capitalism. Across the world an impressive accumula-tion of opposition and alternatives to global capitalism builds and grows, pushing and challenging the ruling elite and the status quo. From Oaxaca, to Tegucigalpa, to Durham, to Lhasa, to Philadelphia people are demanding equity and dignity.As someone who has participated in all ten Peoplehoods, I wanted to use giant puppets to articulate the story of the humanity that pushes with bravery and persistence against the “empire of money.” The giant three-person puppet has a capacity to communicate what is mythical and the magical about the human experience. Working with others at Spiral Q and participants at the Clark Park open builds we designed four scenes inspired by four notable practices of democracy as understood by the Zapatistas; Encounter, Assemble, Create, and Rebel. Like the Zapatistas I believe that another world is both pos-sible and necessary.” - Beth Pulcinella, Pageant Artist

“The past year, for many of us, has been a difficult and uncertain time. I wanted to make a puppet that could embody a force of positivity. I wanted to speak to something whose budget can’t be cut. For me, the dragon represents a muse- the spirit of inspiration and imagination. Not coincidently, the dragon takes many people working together to make it function correctly.”

– Kestrel Plump, Pageant Artist

Making Giant Puppets at Clark Park

Paul Robeson House and Museum • A New Life Consumer Center • Abington Art Center Abington Friends School • African Cultural Alliance of North America • Acoustic Philly ACLU • ACT-UP • AIDS Walk Philly • Alpha Omega Devastators • Asian Americans United ASPIRA • Arts & Business Council B.R.A.C. • Building with Books • Calvary Center • Center for Community Partnerships Center in the Park • Central Germantown Family Center

Centro Nueva Creacion • Chester Springs Studio • Children’s Services Inc. • Circle of Life Program • City Year Greater Philadelphia • Civic House • Clark Park Music & Arts Festival • Command Performance • Community College of Philadelphia • Conestoga Angels Congreso de Latinos Unidos • Delaware Valley Earth Force • Dunlap Community Citizens Concerned • Eco Charter School • Education Works, Germantown Beacon Center •

Education Works, Gray’s Ferry Beacon Center • Extraordinaire Precision • Food Not Bombs • Frankford Group Ministry – CDC • Frankford Human Relations Committee Frankford United Neighbors Community Development Corporation • FrankfordStyle • Freire Charter School • Friends of Clark Park FUMCOG- Germantown High School After School Program • GALLAEI • Garden Court Newsletter • George Washington Beacon •

Germantown YMCA • Girard Medical Center Good Schools Pennsylvania • Good Shepherd Mediation Program • H.O.P.E. Family Center Institute for the Development of African-American Youth, Inc. • International Action Center • Jobs with Justice • Kuumba • La Comunidad Hispana • Landskaters • Lower Merion High School • Lulac - National Education Services, Inc. • Mainline Art Center Malcolm X Park • Mantua Family Center

• Mantua Recreation Center • Marching Thunder • Martha Washington School • Millcreek Community Center • Montessori Genesis II • Moore College of Art & Design Morrison Elementary • Morton McMichael School • Mothers in Charge • Mural Arts Program • National School and Community Corps • National Union of American Families Naylamp Street and Puppet Theater • Neighborhood Bike Works • New Courtland

New Freedom Theatre • New Jerusalem Norris Square Neighborhood Project • North Central Youth Opportunity Center North Philly Stompers • Northern Home Services for Children • Office of Student Life, University of Pennsylvania • Pearl and Conestoga Community Gardens • Penn Center for Community Partnerships • Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts • Pennsylvania Better Schools • Pennsylvania Horticultural Society •

Pentridge Children’s Garden • People Against Sweatshops • Philadelphia Beauty Showcase Museum • Philadelphia Carriage Company • Philadelphia Community Access Coalition • Philadelphia Folklore Project • Philadelphia Postal Employee Choir • Philly Car Share • Philly NORML • Philadelphia Parks and Rec Pickett Middle School • Point Breeze Family

Center • Point Breeze Performing Arts Center West Powelton Steppers • Project HOME • Radical Cheerleaders • Remembering Blain Spry • Renaissance Arts Network • Research for Action • Roberto Clemente Middle School Rude Mechanical Orchestra • Salvation Army Learning Zone • Salvation Army, Red Shield Residence • SCAN • Scribe Video •

Shepherd Recration Center • SmART Futures South Philly Athletic League • Southwest Community Enrichment Center • Squirrel Hill Community Association • St. Mary’s Family Respite Center • Stoddart Fleisher Middle School • Students for a Democratic Society • Southwest Community Enrichment Center • Taller Puertorriqueno • Temple

Students for Justice in Palestine/SUSTAIN The Attic Youth Center • The Back of the Pack Band • The Empowerment Group • The Food Trust The Gold Coast Buccaneers • The New Africa Center • The Parkside Cowboys • The Quads • The Religious Society of Friends The Showcase Community News • The Tender Bridge • The Village of Arts and

Humanities • University City Arts League • University City District • University City High School • University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine • Urban Nutrition Initiative Urban Tree Connection • Vare Middle School • Walnut Hill Community Association • West Philadelphia Community Center • West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance • West

Philadelphia High School • West Philadelphia Regional Library • Wharton Business School • White Dog Café • Youth Build Charter School • Youth Empowerment Services • Youth Health Empowerment Project • Youth Leadership Council of SE Philadelphia Collaborative • Youth Opportunity Network-- Peoplehood Participants since 2000

PeoplehoodParade Route!

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Locust St.

Spruce St.

Pine St.Os age St.

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Cedar Ave.

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Walton Ave.48th St.

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