{"id":10544,"date":"2022-12-09T17:02:44","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T00:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbccviking.com\/?p=10544"},"modified":"2022-12-09T17:02:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T00:02:46","slug":"bringing-it-home-brings-fruitful-partnership-with-military-and-civilian-lives-through-narrative-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/?p=10544","title":{"rendered":"‘Bringing it Home’ brings fruitful partnership with military and civilian lives through narrative performance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A sizable crowd showed up in attendance for the Dec. 1 opening night performance of \u201cBringing it Home,\u201d presented by Deploy the Arts, at the LBCC Performing Arts Theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ensemble of actors brought their A-game performing scenes with heavy topics, while still being able to deliver some laughs through the different acts of the play. The stellar performances from the cast brought an array of emotions for the audience to experience. They even followed the performance with a question and answer session, giving the opportunity to learn about the experience and thought process behind the production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conceived and directed by Greg Mortensen, theater professor and head of Deploy the Arts, the program was made to help bridge the gap between student veterans and non-veteran through collaboration, connection and a shared understanding of our nation’s deep history and what these veterans went through to protect and serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rodney Richardson during dress rehearsal on Nov. 28 for Deploy the Arts presents ‘Bringing it Home.’ (Desary Vailencour)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The performance consisted of 10 monologues and one three-person scene, through various decades and different walks of military life, even stepping away from the U.S. to ancient civilizations at times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The settings ranged from Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korean, and the Spanish-American war for the modern day scenes written by veterans. The few performances from ancient history featured the Battle of Troy, Goddess of War Athena, and Andianople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each scene was based on a true story, some being classics from the past and others being new modern narratives written by real veterans. The real veterans’ stories were so on point, that the audience was shocked to learn that each story was actually written by somebody else, not the actor who performed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ellen Arroyo, above, and Olivia Kale, below, during dress rehearsal on Nov. 28 for a ‘Bringing it Home’ production for the Deploy the Arts program at the Liberal Arts Campus. (Desary Vailencour)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s better that way, when we can once remove ourselves from our own direct trauma, and focus on another person\u2019s piece, we can relate and help draw a connection, without triggering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),\u201d veteran Jason Bowe said, who did a superb performance on the scene \u2018War All the Time.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mortensen even explained a little about PTSD, how people normally think it\u2019s your brain reacting to the trauma but what is really happening is that your gut is remembering the trauma, and your brain has to sort it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we use regressive narrative therapy, through conversation, collaboration and narrative performance a person can work through their problematic stories, or gain more understanding for the lives of veterans,\u201d Mortensen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Luis Manjarrez during dress rehearsal on Nov. 28 for Deploy the Arts presents ‘Bringing it Home.’ (Desary Vailencour)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

LaVonna Miller embodied her character in \u2018A Member of the Club\u2019 so well that the audience was surprised to learn that she was not a veteran. She played a news reporter, reporting on the front lines of the Iraq war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really related to the story, the seriousness of the military and it being a male dominated industry, and being a woman in it, I could feel her pain and bias toward her,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Veteran Julian Laney is one of the founding members of the Deploy the Arts program, and he did a great job playing two different characters. He performed a dramatic scene of \u2018Captain Crawford\u2019 and a comedic three-person scene titled \u2018Private Wars\u2019. When he first arrived home he felt numb and reckless after being under control and strict structure for such a long time, that when he got out he felt lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cActing and this program really helped bring a sense of community, purpose, and a place to help transform pain into beautiful things,\u201d said Laney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Julian Laney during dress rehearsal on Nov. 28 for Deploy the Arts presents ‘Bringing it Home.’ (Desary Vailencour)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Audience member and current student veteran, Jose Bueno, found the play very interesting and well put together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were a couple acts that really hit home with me. I could see myself there. It was a little hard to watch without feeling emotional, but then at the same time it was relatable and felt nice and I appreciated how they broke up and organized the scenes so everything wasn\u2019t so heavy,\u201d Bueno said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trustee Vivian Malauulu, who played Athena, gave everyone a chuckle when she shared that she\u2019s not a veteran, but that she is a real life goddess and thinks this program is so amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile learning about the lives of veterans, I also got to learn about their lives in the community, and I want to bring back community in community college,\u201d Malauulu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vivian Malauulu during dress rehearsal on Nov. 28 for Deploy the Arts presents ‘Bringing it Home.’ (Desary Vailencour)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the show all the cast members came out and lined up, and each actor had the chance to say what \u201cBringing it Home\u201d meant to them. It was a beautiful and heartwarming conclusion to the production before they all took their bows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program and production has had such a positive response that LBCC is adding three more classes to its theater arts curriculum, all of which will be transferable college credits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A sizable crowd showed up in attendance for the Dec. 1 opening night performance of \u201cBringing it Home,\u201d presented by Deploy the Arts, at the LBCC Performing Arts Theater. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":10550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[4647,4406,4553,4682,29,1263,853,142,68,1639,1912,390,77],"class_list":["post-10544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-deploy-the-arts","tag-desary-vailencour","tag-drama","tag-gregory-mortenson","tag-lbcc","tag-lifestyle","tag-live-stage-performances","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-city-college","tag-military","tag-performance","tag-theater","tag-veterans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Skgy-2K4","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lbccviking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Lifestyle_20221128_DeploytheArts_DVailencour_7828-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10544"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10554,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10544\/revisions\/10554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}