Reflections on Facilitation at "My Sister's House" by STP Troupe Director Sarvenaz Moshfegh Asiedu

Over 90 percent of incarcerated women have reported experiencing sexual violence. Similar  percentages apply to women who are struggling with addiction.  Although addiction and incarceration has not played a part in my personal survivor story, it has in most of the men and women I have gotten to know through my brief professional and academic career in what we call “the mental health field”; A field that systematically ignores and pathologizes survivors of sexual violence.

Being a facilitator and touring company director with Survivor Theatre Project for the last two seasons, has been a pivotal experience for me as a survivor, artist and academic. Exploring the survivor experience through theatre in STP has been a crossroads where many aspects of my mind, body and spirit are able to join; my personal survivor story, my professional training in Drama, Expressive Arts Therapy and Trauma-informed approaches to healing, along with the experiences, wisdom and hope of so many survivors I have shared space with in the various roles I have played throughout my lifetime.

Last season, I supported the STP touring company in creating and performing, “Called to Speak”.  At the time I was employed as a “Female Treatment Specialist” through Adcare Criminal Justice Services at the Boston office of Community Corrections.  The touring company was able to perform for the women mandated to the O.C.C. for drug treatment.  This experience led into plans to bring STP to a recovery community in the Boston area.

For 12 weeks, I spent Mondays from 9-10:30 a.m. at “My Sister's House”, a state-funded recovery program for women struggling with substance addiction. As is common in most government-funded recovery programs, the majority of clients are survivors of both the Criminal Injustice System, and sexual violence. For 12 weeks we got to know each other, played theatre games, made art, created puppets, read tarot cards, and broke silence about sexual violence.

The highlight of this experience for me was at the premier for “Survivors' Circus; Journey Through the Fog”, when all the women showed up.  “We took a vote last night, and decided to come,” one of them told me. Together, they made their way downtown to Emerson College  from Roxbury on the bus to see the show.  One of the women in my group had even suffered a stroke a few weeks earlier; she was there. THAT is the solidarity and love that Survivor Theatre Project inspires.

My Irish, African-American, Latina and Russian Sisters from “My Sister's House” sat in V.I.P front row seating, wide-eyed through the entire show and talk back.  “That was me, up there,”,one woman said, “I cried through the whole thing. Thank you.” 

Cast members of “The Survivors' Circus,” Noemi Paz and Vanity Reyes volunteered to visit the group the weeks following the show to share more about their journeys as artists and as survivors.  It was evident that after seeing the performance, women in the group felt even safer sharing their survivor stories. The power of STP is the person-to-person connections.  We are all in this together.

To all of my sisters at “My Sister's House”, thank you for sharing your jokes, your horrors and most of all, your hearts.  

Your friend ‘till the end, 
Sarvi.