Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping in action
Yesterday (April 19 2015), I suggested nine ways forward for #WeAreTheBlackCap, the campaign that sprang up in response to last week’s shock closure of iconic Camden LGBTQ venue the Black Cap.
But what do I know?
A lot less than the US performer and activist Reverend Billy, that’s for sure. Since the 1990s, the Rev has been out there, pushing back against corporate greed, environmental degradation and social injustice with humour, style and the backing of the Church of Stop Shopping gospel choir.
Their work – always peaceful, always with a clear message, always using costumes, music and laughter – shows that combining deeply principled activism with rollicking entertainment isn’t just possible but a highly effective way of spreading information and ideas.
Billy’s been arrested about 70 times, including:
at Disneyland for singing against shopping;
in Union Square for reciting the First Amendment through a bullhorn;
and at Grand Central Station for laying out pictures of black people killed by policemen and preaching about them.
The Church’s actions include:
an exorcism of BP from Tate Modern (which has accepted money from the oil company);
occupying a JPMorgan Chase bank in Manhattan dressed as golden toads (the corporation’s investments contributed to the animal’s extinction);
performing uninvited at a Harvard lab developing ‘robobees’ that would replace real bees and facilitate surveillance;
and hosting an all-organic picnic on the front lawn of genetically-modified food giant Monsanto.
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping’s latest UK trip starts next Monday April 27 in Liverpool, reaches Colchester on Wednesday April 29, then hits London.
“On Thursday April 30, we’ll be in the City of London with Global Justice Now,” Billy says. “We’ll surround a devil law firm that sues countries that enforce a minimum wage. Then on Friday May 1, we’ll be partying and building props and making plans at the Chelsea Theatre on King’s Road.
“On Saturday May 2, in the afternoon we will join BP or Not BP in a large museum – not the Tate this time – before we perform our fabulous worship Faster, Monsanto! Die! Die! at Wilton’s Music Hall that night.”
See revbilly.com for the latest info on the schedule.
Ahead of the trip, I told Billy about how many in the London drag, cabaret and performance scenes are being drawn towards campaigning in response to the threat to our small independent venues. Could he maybe offer five ways that performers can become activists?
“I’m grateful for the suggestion,” he said, “because I should’ve written it five years ago. Or ten.”
Take it away, Rev…
Rev Billy speaks
The Church of Stop Shopping is singing activists, manipulating the imagery of fundamentalist religions and corporations.
I write here of the activism that we have learned. We know that you will take what you can use.
As for what I call ‘Nonviolent Dramatic Action’, here’s some laws of our universe.
1. Love small, love analogue, love personal
The plan is the body. The revolution is physical. Social change starts with a small number of people willing to take the big risk. The most powerful media is what is carried on the air between living bodies. Hand-painted signs are best. Electronic petitions ain’t it.
2. Public space is already theatrical space
The stage is public space, defining ‘public’ not as a legal term but as a space that is peopled. Where there is a crowd, there should be a performance. The current revolution in the name of our climate, our culture and our cries for justice must be embodied in public space.
Here in New York, police want to take over theatre in public. They create ‘police theatre’. If we perform without a police permit and they notice us, they will rush over to create an instant proscenium arch with metal fencing and the fascist presentation of shiny hat brims, arched backs, trouser seams that slice.
They must be pushed back and won over. For instance, climate change endangers their children. Therefore police should not extend the control of corporations into public space. They should protect their children. They may have to be performed to for a while, and their wives and husbands, before they get it.
Rev Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping exorcise BP from Tate Modern
3. People are more receptive than you think
As for performance skills: what can be done in the perfectly controlled black-box theatre or cabaret can be done in public space. Sightlines, acoustics, competing performers from corporations and cops etc. may seem insurmountable. They aren’t.
The fact is that theatre inside professional spaces is becoming less and less powerful as economic inequality, climate collapse and racism rise like an undeniable tsunami outside. The best theatre is set within the built environment of injustice.
4. Give them a reason to snap out of it and smile
Never be afraid of any authority. Your performance creates the commons around it – the shared space which was supposed to be converted to real estate by corporations, religions or government. They are counting on your fear. They are predators. Your fearlessness makes them stop and watch. Then your audience grows bigger.
The choreography of the public is very strict in the age of consumerism. Shopping is a very limited number of gestures and inflamed thought patterns. If you go in there and add more gestures, give different body shapes, emit the sounds of extinct animals, wear costumes that fuck iconic characters, as I try to do with my televangelist, you will have people released out of their choreography into giggles, lunges, paralysed stillness, or grateful clapping.
Never be afraid of the person in the crowd who acts out, but protect yourself. This is Nonviolent Dramatic Action and the nonviolence must extend to your audience.
5. Tap into the deep local stories that matter more than adverts
Be watchful. A 70-foot-tall supermodel may be looking at you like the two of you had an orgasm together moments ago, but she may be in a battle with a longtime local story that persists in the thousands below her on that street.
Places have resident stories that hang in the air. Maybe a story told by a forest satyr on the front of an old building deflects that orgasmic laser-guided drone attack from Kate Moss. That magical being from the dark, wine-soaked woods may have more power than any commercial concoction – because no-one is completely a consumer. Some percentage of every one of us would know that satyr.
So there is hope. Be watchful and listen. Every place has native dreams that a bold actor can step into and convey a meaning that is mysteriously shared, as the corporate words melt away, hissing like the wicked witch of the west.
Members of the Church of Stop Shopping sing for the bees
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping’s latest UK trip takes in Liverpool Hope University (Apr 27), Colchester Arts Centre (Apr 29) and, in London, public actions with Global Justice Now (Apr 30) and BP or Not BP (May 2), a party to make props and plans at Chelsea Theatre (May 1) and a show at Wilton’s Music Hall (May 2).
See revbilly.com for the latest info on the schedule. Some dates have been updated since this was first posted.
