May 26, 27, 28, 2012 was a Memorial Day weekend to remember as LAPD celebrated the history of Skid Row, with 3 days of parades, performances and a New Orleans style Marching Band. LAPD’s Walk The Talk traveled the neighborhood to recreate significant events at the spots where they happened and to perform the stories and honor folks and organizations that make this patch of land a viable, livable community.  This was our party, about our history, written by our LAPD, in our words by and for our folks. It was an epic peoples history of Skid Row.  I’m a 12-year “denizen” of Skid Row (how I hate that word). I was finally able to prance and dance down my streets with a police escort, proudly and loudly. I’m a former street hustler, a former criminal defense attorney, a recovering addict. I never thought I would ever utter these words: “The police were cool, really cool.” These members of the other, LAPD joined in, had fun, put on our LAPD “Menacing Cool” sunglasses and mugged for the cameras, right alongside us. WOW! Like I said, you had to see it and feel it to believe it. So, just like a Mike Tyson championship fight, the blow by blow narrative can’t do justice to what these eyes got to see on Memorial Day.

Please go to Walk the Talk  for more info about each days events -Parade Routes - Biographies. Walk the Talk newsletter

On Saturday May 26^th we began at 6^th and Stanford, in front of the United Coalition East Prevention Project (UCEPP), where we had been rehearsing the 10-minute vignettes about each of our 36 community visionaries for more than 1 year.

Geographically Skid Row and The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion are quite near, metaphorically they represent different universes. On Tuesday October 16, members of the Los Angeles Poverty Department left Skid Row and went up to Bunker Hill to eat, celebrate and perform at the John Wesley Community Health Centers’ Hand and Heart Gala Fundraiser.  Since its inception in 1962, JWCH has been providing medical services to LA County residents; they are the primary health care facility for the Skid Row community.

Dr. Dennis Bleakley, aka “The Skid Row Doc,” was a guest of honor at the event. Doc Bleakley was also among the 36 community assets given special recognition by LAPD during our recent Walk the Talk performances. His bedside manner acknowledges the harsh realities of his patients’ lives. He dispenses his medical wisdom just like we need it, straight with no chaser. LAPD was invited by Dr. Bleakley to recreate our “tribute” to him precisely because our portrayal was fact based and raw. He wanted us to show this well-heeled audience of dignitaries and donors what it’s like to practice medicine on the frontlines. We were able to portray his passion and frustration in a humorous yet compelling manner that was extremely well received by the surprised audience. More important was the devilish smile he greeted me with at my next medical appointment, it meant we had properly represented Skid Row, and him, to those people up on the hill.

by KevinMichael Key

Because a tree fell into Gladys Park during the December storm last year we had to postpone our 2nd annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists to January 27 & 28 of this year. We decided to expand the festival to two days because there were so many Skid Row artists who wanted to show their work during the first festival. Not only did the festival showcase Skid Row’s brightest stars, the open mike part of the program was used by newbie’s to step up with their first time performances. And Festival #2 included some artists from other parts of LA, such as Robert Gupta's Street Symphony and Raspin Stuwart, to encourage artistic exchange and to bring folks from all over to see and appreciate Skid Row’s artists at work. 

  And then, we had our 3rd Festival in October...

Rain was forecast for Saturday Oct. 20 and the 21st, so we quickly went about our preparations for Los Angeles Poverty Department’s 3^rd Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists. X-man, Walt, Sean and X-Ray were already there and soon they had the sound system and stage in good shape. We weren’t going to let anything dampen our enthusiasm. Gary, the Gladys Park worker who has seen everything, came in a little early so that we could get started right on time. As the park decorations and creativity stations began taking shape, anticipation was building. Some of the residents wanted to volunteer but we had it covered. They were talking about how much fun they had at our last event. It was a good feeling, watching everybody chipping in to make for another “LAPD” kind of happening in our community. The Festivals really filled the park and the community with a contagious spirit of cooperation.

LAPD’s Kevin Michael Key, Henriëtte Brouwers and John Malpede spent mid-July through the end of August in The Netherlands completing our collaborative project on the Cold War with Dutch artists, Floris van Delft, Merel van Dijk and Henry Alles of the PeerGrouP. The resulting production ran for a week in the Noorderzon Festival in Groningen, the largest city in the north of the Netherlands. The two groups worked intermittently over a 2 year period, with multiple week to month long meetings on both sides of the Atlantic, including a 10 day research mission in Berlin in October 2011. The PeerGrouP, like LAPD is accustomed to getting out and collecting primary research through interactions with people who’ve lived what they’re talking about. 

While in Berlin we engaged with numerous individuals and ran the gamut from interviewing journalists to schmoozing with newsvendors. We hosted a dinner for a number of people that we met, which revealed much about the to this day emotionally charged legacy of the division of Germany during the Cold War. In February 2012, we presented an in progress performance at LA’s Wende Museum. In keeping with the adventurous nature of the museum we presented the performance in the Museum archives and used archival materials in the performance, including flags, portraits of Erik Honnecker, busts of Stalin, and much more. The Wende Museum has the most extensive collection of East German artifacts outside of Germany. All Angelinos should check it out.

Part of LAPD’s mission has always been to change the dominant media narrative of Skid Row as a place where everyone ends up to where people start over. Our new project Biggest Recovery Community Anywhere highlights the neighborhood as one of the most significant recovery centers in the country with the longest history of recovery culture in Los Angeles. Culminating in a performance piece in May 2013, the project involves a series of events, screenings and discussions, acknowledging the culture and history of recovery in the neighborhood. The project underlines the importance of the neighborhood’s recovery resources as the frontline of battling addiction in all of its various forms and faces. LAPD holds trice weekly open rehearsals at UCEPP where members of the group together work on the upcoming performance in May.

This year LAPD participated in symposiums, conferences, workshops and presented and discussed the work of the organization at various venues in Los Angeles and beyond.

In January 14^th, we participated in the Empowerment Congress Summit organized by the office of Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas at University of Southern California. John Malpede participated in a panel discussion on The Empowerment of Art. LAPD conducted a small workshop at the conference where members sang and performed excerpts from Walk the Talk about the history of Skid Row and invited participants to tell stories from their neighborhoods over beats of the drums of Walter and Henriëtte.

LAPD’s 9 hour long video from our project State of Incarceration was on display at Occidental College in the Spring 2012. The video shows 184 Californians reading the entire 184-page decision of 9th. Circuit Court, ruling that the health services and over-crowded conditions in California’s State prisons are in violation of the US constitution and constitute “Cruel and Unusual Punishment.”

In June 2009, Malpede presented in 'TedEx Skid Row,' an event that included speakers from the world of arts and activism, advocates for homelessness, mental health, Veterans care, and incarceration within the community of downtown Los Angeles, the Arts District and Skid Row. 'TedEx Skid Row' was organized by LA Philharmonic violinist Robert Gupta who performed at the 2nd Festival for All Skid Row Artists with his 'Street Symphony'.

  John Malpede, founding director of LAPD, presented on the work of the organization at the annual Creative Time Summit in New York. The Summit brought together over forty participants from around the globe under the umbrella of Confronting Inequity, presenting on October 12-13 at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

HOSPITAL Collaboration

LAPD has been awarded a National Touring Program Grant to develop and tour the US with a new project HOSPITAL.  Hospital will be made in collaboration with Dutch Theater Group WUNDERBAUM. Wunderbaum is a very cool group of 5 actors who work collaboratively, devising, performing and co-directing original works. They are smart, funny, dedicated, willing to be outrageous and are absolutely a pleasure to work with. They make the creative process exhilarating and fun. They don’t hold back and they are open to an exchange of ideas.

The project is a cross-cultural examination of health care and healthcare systems. Research for the project will begin this winter, with LAPD’ers gathering stories here in conversations with LA clinic and hospital patients and doctors and administrators. Wunderbaum and LAPD will convene in May, August and September to create the performance, which will premiere in October 2013 and then tour.  

When Wunderbaum was in residence at REDCAT theater in 2010, they invited LAPD’s John Malpede to collaborate in making their show Looking For Paul which has gone on to play in The Netherlands and Belgium. While in town Wunderbaum saw LAPD working on State of Incarceration and we began to think of a further collaboration. We’re all very excited about the work we will make together.

State of Incarceration at center of Queens Museum Retrospective Exhibition on LAPD

The work of LAPD will be the subject of a large retrospective gallery show, one of the first in the renovated and expanded Queens Museum, when it opens a year from now. The Queens Museum in Flushing Meadow, Queens, New York has gained a reputation for curating exhibitions that directly relate to contemporary urban life. 

LAPD’s State of Incarceration will be the centerpiece of the retrospective exhibition. State of Incarceration’s 60 prison bunk-beds will be installed in 1200 feet of gallery space along with video excerpts for the 4 month duration of the exhibition.

The successful United States Artists online fundraising campaign, that many of you contributed to, will help us to bring LAPD’s large State of Incarceration cast to NYC for a week of performances and residency activities, which will include public conversations and workshops on reforming the criminal justice system.

Los Angeles Poverty Department projects are made possible with the support of: