Penumbra Theatre was founded in 1976 by Lou Bellamy as a forum for African American voices in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area’s theater community. Today, Penumbra is using arts, equity and wellness as it evolves into the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing. President Sarah Bellamy and wellness director Camille Cyprian join share the process and how their team is engaging in a long-term community needs assessment to discover how people are learning to thrive in an environment with myriad issues, including racism.
Penumbra Theatre was founded in 1976 by Lou Bellamy as a forum for African American voices in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area’s theater community. Today, Penumbra is using arts, equity and wellness as it evolves into the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing. President Sarah Bellamy and wellness director Camille Cyprian join share the process and how their team is engaging in a long-term community needs assessment to discover how people are learning to thrive in an environment with myriad issues, including racism.
Hosts: Kari Haley, MD, and Steven Jackson, MD
Guests: Sarah Bellamy and Camille Cyprian
HealthPartners website: Off the Charts podcast
Got an idea? Have thoughts to share? We want to hear from you. Email us at offthecharts@healthpartners.com.
Kari Haley:
He's a rehab doctor from Chicago.
Steven Jackson:
She's an emergency medicine doctor from the Twin Cities.
Kari Haley:
Together we're examining the health equity emergency.
Steven Jackson:
Inviting voices for change without the cue cards.
Kari Haley:
I'm Dr. Kari Haley.
Steven Jackson:
I'm Dr. Steven Jackson.
Both, together:
And this is Off the Charts.
Steven Jackson:
Welcome to our show. Just want to give a shout-out to all our listeners. Thank you for your support, and thank you for just giving us an opportunity to do what we love to do and that's talk about important things.
Kari Haley:
Thank you everyone for listening in. As you've listened to all these episodes, please if you have recommendations, thoughts, ideas, please send them to us, our email address is offthecharts@healthpartners.com.
Steven Jackson:
We are blessed and excited to be sitting down with Sarah Bellamy, who is the president of Penumbra Center for Racial Healing. And we also have Camille Cyprian, who is the wellness director, also of the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing. Welcome, guys. Thanks for being here.
Sarah Bellamy:
Thanks for having us.
Camille Cyprian:
Pleasure to be here.
Steven Jackson:
So we talk a lot about affecting the community and being impactful. We come from a large health care organization and we want to be intentional about not missing on affecting those that we serve. And you guys also impact the community and we're very excited about that. So tell us a little bit about some of the things, and some of the ways that you have affected the community and even your drive and your vision. That's a big question, so I'm going to buckle up and listen.
Sarah Bellamy:
Well, I think maybe one of the places to start is to really think about Penumbra's origins as a theater company and as one of many, many Black theater companies that were formed out of a period in the '60s and '70s called the Black Arts Movement. Part of the tenets of that movement was that the work created on our stages should be by, for, about, and near, the people that it represents. And so Penumbra Theatre was founded at the Hallie Q. Brown, Martin Luther King Center, 46 years ago. And part of our engagement with the community, with the historic Rondo community there is to be accountable for what we put on our stages to make sure that we are in conversation with community and that we're presenting honest, loving, and also sometimes critical depictions of Black life and culture for us to be able to witness and share in.
And so that same spirit, I think, will guide the work that we're doing as we evolve into the Center for Racial Healing. Accountability to our community is really essential. So any impacts that we hope to engender, I think, around racial healing work needs to be informed by what community says they need. And so as part of our evolutionary process, we've been engaging in a long-term community needs assessment that just really tries to hear how people are learning to, not just survive, but thrive in an environment that is saturated with some really problematic issues, including racism.
So that's I think a sort of general look at it. Camille, I don't know if you want to speak to this at all, a little bit about community process and how we engage with folks about the needs they may have.
Camille Cyprian:
Oh, I think you mentioned the community needs assessment. I think that just being in conversation in a relationship with community is really key for us and informing our programming that we'll be coming forward, as well as identifying in my situation as a wellness director, what does wellness mean for the community? What are some of the needs that the community has, the desires that the community has for wellness? And being responsive to that as well. So that's the only thing that I would add.
Kari Haley:
What kind of tools are you thinking about using or putting out there for the community as the Center for Racial Healing? Because I hear that and I'm like, oh, there's so many ways you could take that, or so many ways that you can think about that. What are some of the specific things that you are planning or hoping to do going forward?
Sarah Bellamy:
Absolutely. Yeah. So our postulate, or our theory of change, suggests that when you take the arts, equity and wellness and merge them together, you have the potentiality for racial healing work. The arts really help people dream big, express themselves, find authentic voice, all of those things that are really core to our sense of identity and sense of self, both culturally and in other ways. Equity ensures that we are not just dealing with individuals, but we're also focusing on systems change. So the wellness aspect really helps to power people up, I think, and make people feel more resilient, feel a sense of belonging at our location and inside community. And then those equity programs are going to drive them toward being change ages in community. So that's really the triumphant relationship.
And for us, the trick now is each of our directors, including Camille, has their own work stream in arts, wellness and equity. But there's also collaborative programs where all of it comes together holistically, and this is a fairly new team of directors. They've just joined us and they're already having some really juicy conversations about what can happen at that dynamic intersection of those three, we call them rivers at Penumbra.
Kari Haley:
I like the visual.
Steven Jackson:
I like the river. I like the vision of the river. So what I love about what you guys are saying is, you ask the community what wellness is to them and you inform the community about what productions are coming up or what we're trying to depict in upcoming productions. And what I hear is partnership. And I see a lot of direct parallels with how you guys are partnering and how we are attempting to partner as a health care organization. Because when I think about theater, and I know that's not all that you guys do at Penumbra, but when I think about theater, I think about an opportunity to tell a story from a unique perspective, especially a true story that can be misconstrued or maybe over time not true. So it's an opportunity to tell the truth about another person's perspective.
And I feel like that's kind of what we try to do in health care, when people come to the doctor's office. I mean, I can enter the room with my script and I can say, nice to meet you, see you in six months, or I can give patients and families an opportunity to tell their story because I think in doing that, it creates a bond. It creates trust, which we often talk about on this podcast. How important is building trust, particularly in the fields that you guys find yourselves in?
Camille Cyprian:
Yeah, when you were talking about partnership and trust, it made me think about something that's very foundational to Penumbra, even in my short experience, which is the idea of ensemble or the community of being an ensemble, which I'm sure you all as medical providers can resonate with. So even the convergence of the three rivers and how we will come together in arts, equity, and wellness. It's about the ensemble and how we work together, how we trust one another, how we build our culture to benefit, I think, the racial healing work that we're trying to do. So that's what came to mind for me. Sarah?
Sarah Bellamy:
Yeah, I love that. I also feel like trust is really engendered most powerfully when it's clear that everyone is vulnerable in the space to some extent. When we don't acknowledge power dynamics that are at play, that's when trust can feel forced or it can be withheld and reasonably so. I think especially when you are in a differential situation where someone has more knowledge possibly about you than you know, or different knowledge about you than you know, figuring out a way to talk to each other and meet each other in a way where there's reciprocity, which is a huge pillar of what Camille's vision adheres to, is really critical. And so I think part of what we're trying to do is just create enough safety around the work so that people feel comfortable being just a little more vulnerable, understanding that there is tremendous reward there when it's a responsibly held container.
Too often I think when we're vulnerable, we get slapped down, or injured and then we clam up. And of course humans are going to be, we have a survival instinct that's really deep and profound and amazing, so we take those lessons. But I heard this beautiful quote the other day, and I can't attribute it, so I'm sorry about that. But the idea was we have to stop imagining the future by remembering the past. And I think that there's something really, really powerful in that. And what's critically important for us to remember at Penumbra, is our past is not done, our past is present, our past is living. The issues that are endemic in this country are still harming folks.
Steven Jackson:
Yes.
Sarah Bellamy:
And this want, this amnesia, in the United States, I think a collective amnesia to want to just push things under the rug and move forward. And then we find ourselves presented with the same issues again and again and again. And so part of how we balance that idea of not over-determining our future, being open to possibility is saying, the best way to do that is to reckon with the past, to bravely face it and understand how it's determining this moment that we're in, but that doesn't mean that it needs to determine the future. So one of the aspects of theoretical thought that grounds us is the idea of the Sankofa, which is a West African Adinkra symbol, and it's a bird with an egg in its beak and it's looking back over its body, and the idea is a step forward always should begin with a glance back. So let's remember where we've been, but let's not replicate our past in the future. Let's use that knowledge and that understanding and that brave reckoning with where we've been to build a boulder, braver, more compassionate, more just future.
Steven Jackson:
And perhaps not make the same errors and mistakes. And they say, if you're doing the same thing expecting a different result, that's the definition of insanity.
Sarah Bellamy:
That's Albert Einstein.
Steven Jackson:
Albert Einstein. So interestingly enough as, I mean, because again, I'm hearing a lot of direct parallels with what we do and what you guys are doing, particularly in the impact. I have people in my own family, because of historic trauma and because of personal historic trauma, they'll go see Dr. Haley, who's an ER doctor, as their primary doctor. In other words, they won't seek health care until it's an emergent situation. And understanding that there is a need to build trust gaps and there is a need to, again, be vulnerable, because you must have been reading our notes, we talk about power dynamics a lot on this podcast too. But when I walk into a room, I'm standing, there's a good chance the person I'm seeing is sitting or lying. I'm fully clothed, they might be in a gown, I get to go home, they're going to stay. So there are probably 10 to 15 power dynamics automatically before I even open my mouth.
So one of the things that we think about is just having that wherewithal, that understanding, that this is where we are when I walk into that room. And knowing that ahead of time, I think sets up for a positive interaction. And again, building a relationship built on trust, which is one of our values or visions as a health care organization here.
If you could write it down, and this is going to be an interesting question, so I'm warning you, so buckle up. All right. So if you could write this down, what is the impact that you guys want to have on the community you serve? What does that impact look like? What is the result of that look like?
Sarah Bellamy:
One of the things that I think we really need to help people broadly understand, it's in pockets of certain sectors right now, but broadly understand, is that sustaining racism is directly related to chronic illness. And this is called weathering, that when we experience the stress response system constantly getting turned on over and over and over again because we're living under fear of threat or terror or whatever it is, which is a both real and perceived experience for people of color living within the United States, that is a socially determined health issue. And so are there ways that we can create more understanding about the connections between racism and heart disease and diabetes and all kinds of different mental health conditions that can addiction, depression, all these things, and build that awareness so that we are in a sensibility around racism that's not just individual to individual? Like that person was rude to me or only at the systems level, the ceilings that we hit. But that it's also interpersonal, it's between us. And so I think understanding the correlations between racism, experiencing it, and the social determinants of health, is really, really critical.
Part of the work that we're wanting to do at Penumbra is to build more resiliency, especially working with young ones, ages 2 to 22, helping them understand how they can monitor their bodies and learn how to manage stress. Because we can't take them out of the environments that they exist within, but we can add resiliency strategies to them. So that's part of it.
The other piece that's really important that Penumbra is committed to engaging is, helping white-identifying folks understand that racism also is toxic for them. And that is a conversation that I think a lot of people, when they hear us talk about racial healing, and certainly we are a Black organization, we will always center the Black experience and attend to Black community, but we have to work together. You can't just have one cultural group trying to affect this change. It's got to be all in. And so when we think about the ways in which white folks may be experiencing detrimental outcomes, because of racism within our society, there's work for them to do as well. It's intellectual, it's spiritual, it's emotional, it's sematic.
And I think that part of what we're trying to figure out right now is we're designing different programs, is how we create safety for all of the groups when they're engaging with one another so that, I'm trying to remember the term for it, horizontal hostility doesn't actually come up and accidentally injure someone. Or if I'm doing my own work and I'm really clumsy in speaking about race that I'm not, because of my inexperience harming another person in that room. So we're really trying to figure out how we can create an environment where we can do this work in parallel ways. Does that make sense?
Steven Jackson:
It makes sense. It makes sense. We talk a lot about grace, we talk about giving space for having delicate conversations, and obviously when one talks about race and even lived experiences, they can relive some of those things and it becomes volatile at times. But I think again, preparing an environment, preparing a forum, a space, a format, et cetera, where those conversations can be had and where lived experiences can be shared, I think that's when you can come to a mutual understanding and all parties walk away educated and prepared for the next conversation.
Sarah Bellamy:
Do you want to add to that?
Camille Cyprian:
Yeah, I was thinking about two things. And the first is the reclamation and reconnecting of ancestral ways of being and knowing practices that come from our cultures, our histories that we can reconnect to in order to help us with those resiliency strategies as a part of those resiliency strategies, in ways that are culturally affirming for the folks that are engaging in the practice and the work. And I think when you get to the essence of it, we're talking about re-humanizing folks. Doing the work in order to re-humanize ourselves, because there are systems that tell people of color or other marginalized identities that you are less than. And we take that on for ourselves, but we also take that on as Sarah was talking about, amongst ourselves or between ourselves. And so I see this work as the work of re-humanizing both ourselves as well as others.
Kari Haley:
I really like that. I think that we've talked a little bit about it before too, that it's not a zero-sum game and just really trying to find that common ground that we have as people and connect with others on that level and that building that trust, as you said, or being that little bit of vulnerability, is so important in order to move forward in our conversations. So I think what you're doing in the community is really laying really good framework and groundwork really, to continue to build up from that. And I'm hopeful that partnership with health care organizations or other community members, community organizations is something that can help foster that and bring more of an equitable health, overall health, art, physical, everything's connected to the citizens of the community. So what you're doing I think is instrumental in doing that. Absolutely.
Steven Jackson:
I've had the pleasure of seeing weathering and also it doesn't give it just, when you say seeing, but really experiencing and even experiencing the presentation on George Floyd, I mean, it was very, very impactful. And I'm just one person, I'm just imagining how many people have walked away just, it's almost like, wow, I don't even know what to say. I'm just going to go chew on it for next year or so. With that being said, what would you say, what's next? And I've asked questions like what kind of impact do you want to have, but what direction do you and Camille see yourselves going in, because I mean, honestly, when you say Penumbra Center for Racial Healing, you can go any number of directions because there is such a need for racial healing from the historical perspective to the present day to again, systems to interpersonal, it's just so much. So what direction do you guys see yourselves going presently and in the near future?
Sarah Bellamy:
Our hope is that the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing will be a powerful resource for our hyper-local community. That people will feel like their membership in that community not only makes them more resilient, more connected. One of our directors, Christine Smith, always uses the term mastery, having a sense of, I am expert in my experience, but now I have some tools to really have more agency in whatever environment I'm in. So that's part of it. But I also hope that the Center for Racial Healing will be a national beacon. I mean, this work is absolutely vital here in Minnesota where there's so many intersecting disparities in sector after sector for Black and brown folk.
And there are regional differences. We are in a bit of a hotspot in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin and Illinois. And there's very particular and endemic issues that are in that environment, but that's not necessarily the same as in the west coast, the south. So what we want to do is be in fluid relationship with other geographies, with learning with other contexts. And so I'm hoping that this will be a place where people will come for inspiration from the arts. They'll come for retreat and rest and relaxation through the wellness programs to help center our nervous systems and calm ourselves so we can hear ourselves and what we dream, and that we'll have some real practical tools that people can exercise here and take back to their own communities to implement change.
It's very, very important that people understand that the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing has to exist within a nexus or a constellation of community partners. We can't do this work alone. We don't want to. We need to build on the good work that's happening across sectors. And so the design of our programs is really intentional across four core areas where we hope to find deep partnership, health, equity, education, criminal justice and climate. And so you'll see a lot of our programs are going to start to fall within those sectors. We'll be looking for meaningful and deep partnerships where there's values alignment. But we're not interested in those sort of one off superficial relationships at this point, because our capacity has to be invested so deeply to see the work really be transformative. So where there's right alignment and mission and vision and values alignment, we're really excited to explore and discover with others.
Camille Cyprian:
Yeah, I'll shake, I'll shake to that. Yes.
Steven Jackson:
Seriously, she kind of broke it down, didn't she.
Camille Cyprian:
Broke it down.
Kari Haley:
I want to pivot just a little bit, because I'm really interested in the wellness, your direction with the wellness, because I don't know about you, Steve, but when I think about wellness, I think about the mandatory things that I was assigned to watch to tell me about my wellness, or the lecture that I got about how to be well or take time and meditate for myself, when in reality that's nothing to do with my true wellness
Steven Jackson:
Or not burnout.
Kari Haley:
Or not burnout, maybe adds to burnout. So in your thoughts, what does wellness mean to you and what does your envisionment for the community when it comes to wellness?
Camille Cyprian:
Yeah, I think that's a great question. Today, my definition of wellness, I would say that it is taking deliberate actions and creating the conditions for me to be my full self in a holistic way. And that of course is the physical piece of it, my physiology, my actual body that I'm able to move and work and continue to walk in my purpose or calling in. But there's also spiritual aspects of that, emotional aspects of that, mental aspects of that. And I think for the Black community and Penumbra Center for Racial Healing, there's also a communal aspect to that, that is really important.
And so as we're thinking about wellness, we're thinking about our own bodies in its full expression of spirit and emotion and mental and physical, but also our collective body, our community. And I think that's a really important aspect of wellness and a lens of wellness that the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing holds.
Steven Jackson:
And it's like with what you guys present to the community and what you offer with obviously expertise, but compassion and just drive to make things better for everybody, you're actually offering collective wellness. When you say Sarah, you want the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing to be a beacon, a national beacon. Well, I think of being in a dry desert and I'm walking to this beacon that has water and food. If I'm person that's in need of healing, well I'm going to Penumbra, because I know they're reaching out to me. And I think that's, that's the epitome of impact, that's the epitome of making the proverbial difference that we all want to make, but we're not just talking about it, we're being about it and I just think that's powerful.
For me, similar to what you said, Camille wellness today. I mean, I think wellness, it's complicated, but it's not, in other words, I think particularly when you're thinking about community, I think that sometimes I try to keep it simple. There are things that we all need, that sense of belonging, that sense of community, that sense of purpose. We all need to be fed, we all need water. So sometimes you have to go basic. But I mean, there are so many factors that can affect your wellness. I mean, I don't wake up in the morning hoping to be offended, hoping to have my day messed up by something that happens in traffic or et cetera, let alone an untimely death or police brutality or you fill in the blank.
And so I think, put it this way, I think there is job security in this room, because there's a lot of work to be done. And I think that's usually what we conclude when we have conversations with so many people that we've talked to, there's a lot of work to be done. But I think that feeds our purpose. It's like, well, I got something to do today and I'll have something to do next year, and so on and so forth.
Kari Haley:
And I think it's great, that piece that you were talking about, Sarah, that catching the partnering deeply with especially health and equity, education, the climate, police brutality, I mean those all things that are contributing to the wellness of the community and individuals. And I think that it's so important that you're doing that, because one person or one aspect of life is not all of life. In that encompassing everything is, or trying to hit at least as many big points as you can, will help build that whole holistic wellness rather than just saying, well, some people say, go to the arts for healing, but what does that mean? And I think you're really hitting it on the head of what that means.
Sarah Bellamy:
We're trying. And I think it's about taking the art to its absolute furthest extent, to understanding that it opens up something really powerful and special in people and then nurturing what's been opened there, with as many tools as we can. The thing that I really want people to walk away understanding at a fundamental cellular level, is that this work can be joyful, it can bring a greater sense of yourself and your belonging within community, and it will leave a legacy that is hopefully a better future. So it's all reward. It's not to say it's not hard, but at the end of the day, the benefits so far outweigh the challenges that we have to walk through to get toward them. So that's what that's really excited about and that's what keeps me getting up every day.
Steven Jackson:
Yeah, I totally agree. It's worth it. And again, yet another parallel, because we were talking just not too long ago about how busy we've been as a hospital and just the obligations and the late nights, the early mornings, but when someone leaves the hospital or leaves your clinic feeling good about their care, feeling, yeah, I can make it another few months, I can be OK, I can be well, then it's like, yeah, OK, this was a good day and it was worth it. So I feel that. I feel that.
Kari Haley:
Well, I mean, I think that I could talk with you guys for much longer than the time we have allotted, but huge messages that I hear from you include just that sense of community, that importance of wellness and creating that vision that you have for the Penumbra Center for Racial Healing. Did I get it right? Yes. And I'm so thankful that you guys took the time to be here today, because I have learned a lot. I hope to come see things and productions and participate as you grow your center.
Sarah Bellamy:
For more information, you can visit www.penumbratheatre.org and click around to see all of the events and resources that we have available on the website.
Steven Jackson:
Thanks so much, guys. This was very meaningful and I'm looking forward to, again, like Dr. Haley said, looking forward to experiencing more of what you guys have to offer. It's powerful and impactful, and I want to be a part of something like that. So thank you so much.
Sarah Bellamy:
Thank you.
Camille Cyprian:
Thank you.
Steven Jackson:
Off the Charts is a production of HealthPartners and Park Nicollet.
Kari Haley:
It is recorded by Jimmy Bellamy, with creative by Peggy Arnson, Tina Long, Tim Myers and Jeff Jondahl.
Steven Jackson:
Production services provided by Matriarch Digital Media.
Kari Haley:
Our theme music is by Ryan Ike.