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T * ! _____ ___ %u00bb ______A _____ T 1 _____%u2022 ___T > ___________ %u2022 %u00ab li i u s y i t s w i t i n e i r t u e s i n t ^ a f r o nGardens%u2014And Off and Running, NowBY JEANNETTE E. WALLSJohn Giles had wanted to hold a performance of the children%u2019s play %u201c Peer Gynt%u2019%u2019 for quite a while, but he never really had the time. What with college, marriage, trying to find a job, and simply trying to stay sane in the crazy world of acting in Manhattan, putting together a troupe for his own play was little more than a fantasy. But when he and his wife Sarah moved from their %u201c shoe box M anhattan apartment to a Carroll Gardens home, Giles saw what he thought might be his big chance.%u201c 1 guess that that%u2019s more or less how the Carroll Dance Theater was formed,%u201d said the blond actor/director. John and Sarah Giles are or. a sort of %u201c cultural pioneering expedition.%u201d The couple decided that their neighborhood needed a local theater company, and, with no guarantee of financial support, set about to establish one.Funded only with personal savings, the Giles advertised in local papers to attract potential actors to the auditions. Getting things off the ground has been tough, admits John%u2014rehearsal space was scarce and rehearsal time had to be carved out of evenings, when everyone was %u201c dragging.%u201dDespite all the drawbacks, the productions of Peer Gynt went as well as they had all hoped. %u201cThe audience response was really great, and the community support has been fantastic,%u201d Giles smiled. So far, the company has performed in local parks, libraries, churches and at Park Slope%u2019s Seventh Heaven Street Fair. A recent grant of $1,144 from the America the Beautiful Fund of New York will help the company survive until late August.%u2018CLINGING ON%u2019%u201c We%u2019re just hoping to cling on after that,%u201d said Giles. %u201cWe want to keep giving the performances free of charge as long as possible, and we want to keep making them quality showings.%u201c Now we%u2019re in need of just about everything%u2014space, costumes, people, money...%u201d confessed John, but he adds that, everything considered, he%u2019s %u201c very happy%u201d to have started the group. %u201c I guess it%u2019s the audience response that makes it all worth while,%u201d he said. The plays he chooses to work on are largely fantasy and myth, aimed at audiences ages 7-17, and confronting them with questions about themselves, about society and about life.%u201c One of the questions everyone kept asking throughout the rehearsals was %u2018Are kids going to understand this?%u2019 because some of the meanings and symbolisms were very complicated,%u201d Giles noted, adding %u201c But judging from the responses, they understood the better part of it%u2014at least enough to get the meaning, because they would relate the characters in the plays to someone in their life or maybe a character they were familiar with.%u201d Gilessaid that during one of the performances a teenager cried out, %u201c They%u2019re playing my personality.%u201dThe company works with what is close to a street-theater style, using few props and no make-up. In %u201c Peer Gynt,%u201d a 24 year old girl played an 80 year old woman, just by using facial expressions and body movement. %u201c The children can relate to our heavy movement. We don%u2019t really need props,%u201d Giles explained. %u201c We work for maximum contact with the audience. Ideally, in our stage setting the scenery would include the audience.%u201dOPENING UPGiles says that when auditioning actors, he looks for a willingness for the people to be open with themselves%u2014to have %u201cthe ability to stick out one%u2019s tongue and say %u2018BLAH%u2019%u2014it takes a lot more than most people have.%u201c It%u2019s very exciting for Sarah and myself to see each performance blossoming and tosee the company getting stronger,%u201d said John. %u201c I guess that I%u2019ll consider us established when we have our own rehearsal hall and are sort of a household word in the neighborhood.%u201d Giles said that the goal of the company is to put on full length original plays on a full-time basis.For the remainder of the summer, the Carroll Dance Theater plans to perform three more plays, each lasting roughly one hour. %u201c Mother Nature,%u201d an anti-litter musical will be presented July 26 at the Carroll Gardens Library, July 27 at the Pacific Library, July 28 at the Park Slope Library, and July 29 in Carroll Park. The Company is also making preparations to stage a dramatization of the famous French children%u2019s story %u201c The Little Prince%u201d starting August 23. %u201c A Wrinkle in Time,%u201d to be presented on September 27, is a story about two children on a desperate rescue mission to save their famous scientist father and how they learn to use the values of trust and love to combat the fantasticmechanical world that entraps them. The company usually has live music accompaning them.%u201c We have a word for when everything goes as planned,%u201d Giles grinned. %u201c We call it WAMP. That%u2019s when we feel that everyone is having inner experiences. When the audience receives what we wanted to get across and when we begin to experience sensations from them, it%u2019s a really wonderful experience%u2014and maybe enhanced by the fact that people didn%u2019t really think we could relate to each other. After each performance the audience always comes up to talk with us%u2014about the characters, about the play or about their lives. Together, it seems, that we%u2019ve reached a point of understanding.%u201dJohn and Sarah are anxious to expand, so if you%u2019d like to get involved with the Carroll Dance Theater, or if you have any questions concerning their schedule, call them at 852-7551Bushwick Kids On Display at Brooklyn Museum: It%u2019s A Hit!BY JUDD TULLYThree and a half years ago, when Builder Levy%u2019s photography workshop started at the Bushwick Youth Services Bureau (BYSB) the darkroom was in the boy%u2019s bathroom and the only camera was a second-hand Yashica twin-lens reflex. The fruits of that workshop, still going strong, is currently on exhibit at the Corner Gallery in The Brooklyn Museum.The 41 photographs in the show are a rich document of instant social history. Sisters, brothers, girl friends, gang members, babies and stark panoramas of Bushwick%u2019s sagging architecture are captured by the students, who range in age from 12 to 18. BYSB is a publicly funded program, an offshoot of P.S. 231K and is designed for young people who have had trouble functioning in regular%u2022 1SLI1UU15.Matted and mounted behind sheets of plexiglass, the exhibit occupies the sharply angled corridor at the tail-end of the Museum%u2019s Community Gallery, a few paces from the Museum%u2019s cafeteria. Avel de Knight, the Community Services artist-in-residence at the Museum, coordinated and designed the exhibition. DeKnight is part of the Cultural Council Foundation%u2019s CETA Artists Project. %u201cThey took a theme, a neighborhood,%u201d de Knight said, %u201cand managed to capture the people they live with on the block and their family life in a very beautiful and sensitive way.%u201dClustered around a table filled with sandwich cookies and a large bowl of sweet fruit punch at the edge of the gallery on opening day, many of the workshop students beamed and giggled about their work. Adys Pimentel talked about her plans to take photography courses in %u201c P.R.%u201d this summer, and Jose Rivera, generally acknowledged to be the master photographer of the group, was anxiously awaiting a high school equivalency exam which he has been studying for at BYSB. Carmen Alvarez, a member< i< /\\%u00ab lrr< L /> n or.planned to continue documenting her family and friends and wistfully spoke of a career in photography.Through the guidance of Builder Levy, a photographer in his own right who has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Moscow and Berlin, two of his students, Jose Rivera and JuanMendoza applied for and received a %u201c Youth to Youth Grant%u201d from the Citizens Committee for New York. They purchased a B66 Omega enlarger and set up greatly improved darkroom facilities at BYSB%u2019s new quarters at 271 Melrose Street.Builder%u2019s photography club is a collaborative venture and the show amply documents this concept with dual credits for photographer and printer on many of the photographs. One of the toughest obstacles in organizing the show was giving proper credit to the darkroom demons and photo spotters who labored to produce archive quality prints.As well as loaning out the large format Yashicas and black and white film, the processing chemicals and dizzying array of papers, Builder%u2019s workshop carries al i k f O K M r a #from Edward Steichen's Family of Man classic to retrospective monographs on Paul Strand, Lewis W. Hine (from the looks of things, the class%u2019s favorite) and James Van Der Zee. Books and poetry on the culture and history of Puerto Rico abound and make the slap-dash lay out of the workshop rich in creative Ambiance.It is the cross-cutting of cultures that motivate Builder%u2019s students. Workshop photographer Efrain Torres wrote of Hine: %u201c He went up in a basket hundreds of feet just to take pictures of people working in the Empire State Building. His pictures weren%u2019t worth anything when he was alive. Now that he%u2019s dead, his pictures are in the Brooklyn Museum. When he was alive, he wanted to see his pictures in the Brooklyn Museum.%u201dThe poetry and brief stories thataccompany the photographs in the exhibit offer equally powerful images in another medium of black and white. Carmen Alvarez wrote:%u201c My little sister Michell only lasted ten days. She had two holes in her heart so she dies. She would be four years old now.%u201c IJ -----i.__ L _ ____ 4t_. %u00bb%u2022. na u m c L l i i u g H i k e r a u iStrand%u2019s picture of a %u201c White Tomb%u201d in France. My sister%u2019s tomb doesn%u2019t have the white metal gate with circles, her has different flowers.%u201cThat photograph is beautiful, like my little sister.%u201dThe exhibit, %u201c Bushwick Througn the Eyes of Its Youth%u201d runs through Aug 1.July 13,1978, PHOENIX, Page 21