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Konstantinos Manesiotis Week 7 Blog Post

I think the most important element from the reading is the willingness to understand your current circumstances, evaluate them in a productive manner and have the creative capacity to imagine change. Even if that change is something strange, if you let yourself go to a place you, or others, aren't comfortable with; it can bring out unexpected gold mines of ideas. Humans love to do this, as evidenced by the constant stream of new creations that pop up all around the world. However, sometimes we get complacent and fall into tradition which can be good in some ways and bad in others. Reading Roberta Uno's piece is eye opening to the ways in which you act traditionally. It helps you analyze what can be changed in that tradition and how to go about it in a precise way that can change the world.

Allowing myself to go to places in my mind and emotions that I haven't before is what resonates in my artistic process the most. It is a constant battle to allow myself to "go there" in ever performance I have. I try to work my best at being brave enough to be vulnerable in front of others on stage, but it can be difficult. I am a huge fan of stoic philosophy, and believe that the tools I've learned from it help me deal with my everyday struggles in my daily life in a good way. However, in acting there is no place for stoicism. You must live as viscerally as possible. Allowing yourself to express the same thoughts and impulses that you have in your mind outwardly, with no filter. Allowing myself to go to places I might not in regular life opens up ways to express myself. "Going there" is my constant battle, and it is one of the biggest reasons I love acting. I can express myself fully in front of a group of people who can identify with what is happening on stage.

In my eyes the play that is talked about can be seen as a time machine. A ways to transport the audience back to a time where things were morally and culturally different. If I were an audience member walking through a door that says whites only, I'd feel uncomfortable. I'd feel like I was participating in a form of racism that has died. It is ridiculous to think of this racism to have existed not too long ago. However, even though it not all that long ago many have forgotten about it. This play takes the audience back in the time machine and opens them up to history. In a way, it also comments on the present state of affairs. It gets the mind contemplating if we have succeeded in stopping this type of racism or not. As well as, what other forms of racism have not been attacked like the Jim Crow racism was. That type of discrimination was overt, blatant, and easy to spot. We need to try and acknowledge the type of discrimination that is not easily seen.

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