Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

What do 463 bodies look like all in one place? DMAD (Drama Making a Difference) Theatre Company sought to answer this question in conjunction with a number of other performance artists and groups on January 13.
Several groups, including Freetown Collective, IACT (I am Christian Theatre), Two Cents Movement, Arts in Action and others, along with private individuals and activist groups, congregated in Woodford Square in Port of Spain, to take part in the theatrical event.

Each participant was given a printed sheet with the name of a murder victim to hang around their neck, and most people made placards. DMAD, IACT, Two Cents Movement and Freetown Collective performed pieces exhorting people to come together and fight against crime, before the approximately 200 participants were asked to lie on the ground for 10 minutes and reflect on what they could do as individuals to reach out to their communities and begin to assist in the fight against crime.
DMAD Marketing Manager Kyle Cox said the original idea to make a visual representation of the number of murders in 2016 came from an audience member at one of their shows. “We wanted to highlight violence which results in murder. Our presentation focused on scenarios which resulted in murder, like someone settling a sports dispute with a gun, or a man raping and murdering a woman, or murder for hire. As each scenario took place, we put the bodies into a pile to show what it looked like to have bodies piling up.” He said the aim of the event was to shock people who were becoming desensitized because there were so many murders taking place, to the point where a day with only one murder was a good one. “We wanted to remind people that each of these persons had a story and weren’t just statistics. People only react when it hits home, but our message was that every murder should bother you.”
He said relatives and friends of murder victims were invited to attend, and another purpose of the event was to foster a sense of community, to show people that they’re not grieving alone. “We wanted to show we’re all in this together, we’re a village and this problem affects us all. We also wanted to say that crime cannot be stopped solely by the police, but is each person’s responsibility.”
The protestors attempted to reach out to persons passing through the square on the way from work to take the time to see what the protest was about, but many people said they were too busy, which Cox said was very discouraging.
During the event, the news arrived of the discovery of the body of 17-year-old Rachel Ramkissoon, which left many participants visibly distraught. Cox said “I, along with others present, felt hopeless, numb and discouraged, but then if we are hopeless, we lose before we start, so we have to have hope.”
Participants marched around Woodford Square with their placards, chanting “we will stop this bloodshed” while symbolic blood was poured into the gutters.
Cox said DMAD plans to continue to partner with other arts organizations and anyone else who is interested to continue the movement, which was branded as #TogetherWe. “The intention, hopefully, is to respond to society’s ills or society’s issues through what we do. We are artists, we are not policy-makers, so we will do what we could do. It’s about building community through the Arts. Hopefully eventually people will not be able to ignore us.”