Fall 2019 Arts and Activism

Pechakucha was very hard for me to follow. I didn't feel there was enough time to really understand and learn the topics that were being presented. I think the slides that had short concise bullet points were the easiest to understand and remember.

Assignment: Roberta Uno- Blog Post (due October 29th, 8pm) In preparation for Roberta Uno's visit next week, read her  "Steps Towards A New World."    In it she includes 11 precepts. In a blog post, address each of the following prompts: - What are the most important/significant ideas or elements outlined by Roberta and why? - What are the implications or resonances of Uno's precepts in your own practice? - What could be a metaphor or analogy for the kind of theater that Roberta Uno describes in this text? - What questions came up as you were reading this piece? ​ I found that the most important concept in the text was how the organization is not simply chained to a building. The theatre is wherever it is necessary to be, and is defined by the community it envelopes, not the brick and mortar it houses. Community and working together collectively to create art is more important than finding a roadhouse or a nice stage. Interestingly to me, this ...

" Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox For Revolution"   is a book, web-based toolbox and international network of artist-activist trainers whose mission is to make grassroots movements more creative and effective.” Explore Beautiful Trouble’s  a)  Principles , b)  Tactics , and c) Theories  pages. Select a total of 3 entries (from any of the 3 pages you explored) and discuss the merits or challenges of each. Post your thoughts on our blog.  ​ ​ 1. Debtors of the world, unite! This article calls for people around the world to organize and go on a debt strike, by refusing to pay their debts collectively. I believe that this is one of the forms of strike that would be most effective in getting any real change done, as the threat or follow through of not paying back debts would crash the financial world as the debt economy is the backbone of it. However, it is one of the most difficult kinds of organizing to pull off because debt is spr...

 What questions, concerns, ideas, or provocations were sparked by the article and the hidden bias test you took?  - What are key connections you are making (or have experienced) between bias, activism and artistic practice? (30 points) One of the main questions I have is what this data that they are collecting through the tests will be used for? I think research based on this could be advanced to affect policy changes or through other avenues. A concern I had taking the sexuality bias test was how it simplified sexuality down to just gay and straight, without bringing into the test the fluidity of it. While I understand it can be difficult to represent all facets of sexuality in a test like this, I think it would be interesting to see one that did, as I know I got some of the response 'wrong' on the test because of my own assumption of sexualities being a spectrum. While the test showed me no automatic preferences, I can see the connection between all of these as acti...

The Post-Competitive, Comparative Game of a Free City 5 takeaways: -people who live in excess should give to people who don't have enough -basic necessities should be free and easily accessible -if a community works together they can create change -there is something deeply wrong with our society when people can not afford food for their families -having hospital bills be so expensive is a way for the rich to say that they don't care if poor people are sick Manifesto for the Guerrilla Art Action Group -rich artists need to give back to the people who need it -art should be accessible to everyone -art cannot repress underrepresented voices, it needs to give them a platform to speak -artists should never be elitists -art must always be for the people, not for the profit

I chose to read chapter 13: Beauty Born From Ugliness, about Teya Sepinuck's work in Northern Ireland. The first thing that jumped out at me about this chapter was how much the narration centered on Sepinuck's feelings and journey with the work as compared to those of the participants. Within the context of Theater of Witness, this could be a manifestation of "Becoming the Vessel", but it feels more as a personal reflection than an offering of guidance for others trying to emulate her process. Other principles that are prominently evident in Sepinuck's account are "Finding the Gold" and "Taking the Problem and Make it the Solution." Finding the gold in one participant's use of drumming as emotional release helps invite the audience into his healing process. Making a problem a solution affected the piece in multiple ways, both where one participant's desire for a nonspeaking role helped create a better closing to the piece and another pa...

The group project, in the end, was quite successful! My contribution included note taking, creating the groups, helping facilitate the scene work and print off all of the copies. A lot of the work done on this group project fell upon the same 2-5 people, so I don't believe the work load was distributed fairly. However, visiting LFCSA was so fun. The kids were very responsive to the scene work we did from "Midsummer Night's Dream"! I'm so thankful for this experience to connect with them and to share our artistic practices with them. The acting kids were so open minded and took direction quite well. Overall, I'm glad that we could establish a good connection with them and that they had a good time!!

I was one of the leaders for the visit to LFCSA. I made cuts for the scenes and stapled all the scenes. I helped to facilitate conversation and corresponded with the group. I created the survey for everyone to fill out. When at LFCSA, I worked as the leader for the Acting group until everyone had arrived. In retrospect, we as a group should have made a PDF labeling each person with their roles and what they were going to contribute, because it was hard to keep people accountable for the work they said they would do, so Sophia or I ended up doing it. That would definitely have helped the project run more smoothly. The workshop itself was so fun. The students were so wonderful, and I had a great time learning from the kids and watching them create.