“City@Peace” by Morales

City@Peace, sponsored by the Community Mediation Program in Santa Barbara, California, brings together a diverse group of teenagers, age 13 to 19, from all socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds to promote peace and cross-cultural understanding through the performing arts. Assisted by professional artists trained as mediators, the teens explore conflicts in their lives and use improvisational theater techniques to write, produce, and perform original musical plays. Through collaboration with the professional artists (writers, actors, directors, visual artists, dancers, composers, musicians, poets), the teens grow in self-esteem and become productive (rather than destructive)members of their communities. They also invite an ever-expanding audience of their friends, families, extended families, and community supporters to enjoy their work.

This year, City@Peace adopted interactive, computer-generated sets to replace traditional props and backgrounds. The computer imagery shows physical locations where the action takes place (for example, in homes, on the streets, etc.) The image- processing capabilities are also used to show not only reality, but how the reality might feel. The German Expressionists called this “Theatre of the Mind.”