No Blood/No Foul

From the performance by the same name, by Suzanne Lacy, Stan Hebert, Councilwoman Sheila Jordan, Frank Williams, Officer Terrance West, Mike Shaw, and Annice Jacoby, Oakland, 1995-6. Suzanne Lacy worked alongside youth activists, city council members and the mayor’s office to draft a Youth Policy Initiative that would create a dedicated stream of funding to serve youth needs. In the spring of that year, No Blood/No Foul was a performance on the eve of the Policy’s vote by the Oakland City Council, with Mayor, Council members and a large audience in attendance. The performance pitted youth against police officers in a tough, competitive, and fast-paced "basketball as performance" artwork. The performance, with its live action video, pre-recorded interviews of players, half-time teenage dance presentation, street hip sound track, and real sports commentators, mixed up the rules of the normal basketball game. The audience participated as referees, voting calls up or down. The performance received extensive local and national television coverage and was widely acknowledged as an example of the Oakland Youth Policy Initiative in action. Because both police and youth could relate to the concept of a basketball game as a ground for healthy competition, Lacy used this popular form as a platform for a performance, one she hoped would yield more willingness by police to engage in a larger and more provocative performance, the project that eventually became known as Code 33--Emergency! Clear the Air.