The chapter I read in conjunction with the 12 Guiding Principals of Theater of Witness was These Hands, which explored the experience the author had doing a show about growing up and existing as a female. Through the reading of this chapter, it became abundantly clear how listening with an open heart and seeing the world through others eyes was an integral part of this particular production process. Without having the openness of being able to see a story from other's point of view, these stories would have lost their meaning. Being able to find the medicine in things as dark as sexual abuse and turning it into a women's manifesto was very powerful to read. These stories would most likely never have come to light if it weren't through the director's ability to expose her own shortcomings and vulnerabilities with the cast in order to allow them all to bond through shared life experiences and even empathize with those not shared in order to make a remarkable performance and a transformative experience for those involved.
While reading some of the monuments pieces I felt as if each of them had something that they needed to prove. For example, for the Tate piece felt the need to expose what history has done to people. Each level exposed how much each person was taken advantage of in service of someone else. For the rumors of war piece exposed the whole idealism of the past resurrecting a past historical leader to make sure that the event does not happen again. The Bracero monument exposed all of the work that the people of that time had done in order to make sure that not another person is taken advantage of again. But truth be told, all of these monuments have come with some sort of backlash. The bracero monument had gotten criticism for stating that the braceros were free to do what they wished. From what the article had stated that was not the truth. It was merely one persons interpretation of what a bracero was, b...
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