Meredith Montgomery has been working as a teaching artist for almost five years—first in Austin, Texas, and now in Chicago—which is both incredible and challenging, she said.
"I created my own method of devised theater as a junior in college; I call it a 'journaling to performance method.' It values the art of journal writing and original self-expression, while honoring collaboration, and teaches how to translate an original journal piece into something that can be put on stage," Montgomery said.
In Chicago, she has used the method mostly for teens.
"I have worked for a number of organizations in [Chicago], and there are some awesome and necessary artistic educational programs out there, but I felt that my method would be better suited for a smaller class size," she said. "After teaching in several classrooms and settings, I saw that there was one constant in all of them: negativity around the female gender. That is when I decided that I wanted to use my method to address this negativity by creating something empowering, artistic, and community-based, all for a demographic that is so often forgotten about: adolescent girls."
In the fall of 2013 Montgomery and her partner, Jessica London-Shields, started creating their concept, and they soon launched {she crew}—an arts empowerment program for Chicago girls, ages 12-14.
Montgomery added, "Our empowerment message is meant to be preventative; to give girls tools, artistic outlets, and a grounding sense of self as they move from childhood into young adulthood. Adolescent girls are at an age where they are instantly objectified, questioning their own identities, and having to deal with major transitions. Talk about stress. We are here to give them a safe, artistic, and empowering space to throw everything about identity against the wall and see what sticks for them.
"We provide a six-week summer intensive [June 23-Aug. 1], which included transit cards and one free meal a day prepared and shared as a community, fall and spring after school programming, one day workshops, and a student-to-intern growth program, all of which have accessible tuition for participants. We feel that by-donation only tuition is crucial, so girls in all communities, affluent or not, are guaranteed equal accessibility. Therefore, admission is decided through a short online application, not an ability or inability to pay tuition. This ensures a diverse group of girls who become a part of a greater community through {she crew} programming."
London-Shields, 28, who grew up in San Francisco and has been living in Chicago for the past 10 years, said such a program definitely would have helped her.
"We were total weirdos [growing up] and now we're theatre people," she said. "At that age, being different, or weird, or fun can often land you with a lot of isolation or the subject of harassment and bullying. We wanted to create a positive, creative, and empowering space for girls that would make them value what makes them unique, while respecting the uniqueness of others."
Montgomery, now 26, said when she was growing up that she was "lucky enough" to have speech and debate teams, coached by the theatre teachers, "so we were basically a competitive theatrical bunch of misfits."
That was her salvation.
"Though this was a creative and structured outlet for me, I was still left feeling in the dark about a lot of things surrounding my gender and my identity," Montgomery said. "The discussion surrounding gender and identity were few and far between before I attended college. But these are not things that can just be studied in high learning; it makes us who we are.
"We wanted to give girls a safe and positive space for them to discuss and explore their identities at the age when these questions arise."
{she crew} this past summer offered three performances of devised theatre, written and performed by the 2014 inaugural class—and its five performers, ranging in age from 12-15, completed the {she crew} Summer Intensive. The performances were held at three venues in late July and performers came from such neighborhoods as Woodlawn, Avondale, Englewood and Pilsen.
London-Shields said {she crew} is now offering programming all year. For instance, an after-school programming by {she crew} was at Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center in Hermosa this past fall, and is currently at Melody STEM School in Garfield Park.
"{she crew} began as a dream of mine, and when I told Jess about it, she said, 'Well, let's do it!.' Everything from its conception, to the girls' playwriting together in the classroom, to the late-night grant-writing are all reflections of women working together," Montgomery said.
London-Shields added, "I think any job that is something you started and something that is connected to the change that you want to see in the world is going to be more emotionally charged than a day-job. And it should."
So what's with the name, {she crew}?
"We wanted a title that gave a glimpse towards our priorities," London-Shields said. 'She' to imply anyone who identifies as 'she,' a feminine word that we both felt had a greater potential for diversity than say 'woman' or 'girl' and wouldn't be exclusively applied to female bodied individuals. And 'Crew' to imply community."
London-Shields said the program "is obviously queer inclusive, but not exclusively queer."
"We talk an awful lot about gender in the class, breaking it down to what it means to us, what it means to other people, how gender factors into our own expectations for ourselves, and most importantly, how to be kind of ourselves," she said. "This is very important to queer-identified youth and straight-identified [cisgender] youth alike, because gender roles are absorbed so thoroughly at this age. It is important to have a place to discuss them, so as not to internalize damaging gender expectations upon oneself. This is important for all people, no matter who you are."
Montgomery added, "Adolescents are extremely insightful. They understand a lot more than I feel our society gives them credit for. Though our female-positive message is a major factor that brings us together, it is the diversity that makes us a community. We value each other's differences because that is basic respect. Girls enjoy talking about their families, their lineage, and their unique personality traits because those are things that everyone should be able to find value in. We also discuss how diversity, or a lack thereof, can affect our communities. We encourage togetherness through respect and understanding, not assimilation."
The relationship of Montgomery and London-Shields is not discussed in the {she crew} classroom—because that's when they are instructor and facilitator.
"One of our long-term goals is to really flesh out our student-to-intern growth program," Montgomery said. "We want {she crew} to expand organically and from within. We eventually want to turn the instruction of {she crew} over to the girls who went through the program. The longevity of {she crew} will only be possible if the instructors stay young, current, and knowledgeable of the specific needs of the girls. And the young women who will be the most capable of teaching this method will be the girls who grew up with it and benefitted from it."
For more information about {she crew}, visit shecrew.org .
