Laura Berlage
10/13/09
Balance and Liminality:
Walking the Path between Creative License and Cultural Tradition
[this essay was also accompanied by images of several of my tapestries with illustrative descriptions]
“Culture can be seen as a tapestry; pull on any thread and eventually
one is connected to every other.” ~Arlene Goldbard (102)
As I have been revisiting weaving Navajo-inspired tapestries, a question arose that has fueled much of the research and discussion of this semester: What are the ethical implications of non-Native artists producing Native style art? While there may not be a clear or tidy answer, as my faculty advisor Cynthia Ross has indicted, it is still a question worth holding. As artists, we need to take full responsibility for our work and its social, cultural, and political significance. In this essay, I will explore thoughts, concerns, and insights that have arisen around this question from my readings and personal reflection.
When I first started Navajo weaving classes with Fran Potter, just after I had turned 13, learning a Native art form had not appeared a controversial issue at all. Madison (a progressive university center) was, granted, a bit removed from any reservation or its people. All the other women in the group (so far as I knew) were of Euro-American ethnicity. Fran connected our work from its original culture—telling us the Navajo story of how Spider Woman taught the Navajo to weave, the meaning of spirit lines, and vegetal dye practices. She brought in vintage Navajo tapestries that she had restored (or that were part of her own collection), and showed us special aspect of how they had been made, where they had come from, and the story of how they had come to her for restoration. The yarns we wove came directly from the Navajo reservation, and Fran liked to give us updates about her latest visit to Hubble Trading Post in Arizona. It felt like we had a link with the Navajo people, even though we never met or talked with any of them.
It was when my family and I moved to rural northern Wisconsin that my perspective began to change. Our homestead is about 10 miles from the Lac Court Oreilles Ojibwa reservation (between us and Hayward, our postal address). There is great polarity between more prejudiced locals (who often have little good to say about “the Indians”), more tolerant transplants (who would rather ignore the problems and pretend all was well), and the various strata of the Native population (the dichotomy being between those who live on or off the reservation). Relations are often strained, with ill feelings on both sides. Recreationists fume over Native spear fishing rights (both used and misused), and Natives continue to hold anti-white hatred engendered by years of broken treaties and discrimination.
I had grown up reading Native stories and myths. They seemed a balanced, earth-loving people. But seeing life on a real reservation (and hearing my mother’s inside stories from working at their medical clinic) began punching major holes in that perspective. With rampant business corruption, inner-city style crime, roadside and home-site litter, sexual abuse, drug abuse, and semi-wild free-roving dogs that add to the danger of even stepping outside your car on reservation land, I kept finding myself wondering What happened to these people? Has some ethic from their stories been lost? I wanted to look at these issues without falling into the attitude of the bitter Euro-American neighbors related in a story from A Forest of Time by Peter Nabokov:
The folklorist Richard Dorson was assured by Anglo residents of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that he had come a half-century too late to learn anything from their Chippewa neighbors, whom they derided as mostly drunks and freeloaders anyway. But when Dorson made his respectful interest in their traditions known to these same Indians, they invited him over and regaled him night after night, filling his notebooks with reputable legends, unique versions of trickster tales, storytelling contests, their takes on local history, and even humorous responses to the prejudice that surrounded them. (20)
Was the local cultural dynamic situation really as bad as it seemed, or were there openings for people to cross ethnic boundaries with compassion and sensitivity, like Dorson had?
The Native/non-Native question began to arise with regard to my tapestry artwork when my former art teacher, Madeline Sattler, asked me to weave my first commissioned piece. She had purchased a house in Arizona, hoping to move there soon, and had wanted a Navajo weaving for it. She had pondered buying one from the reservation, then remembered that I made them as well. To her, it had more personal significance to have a piece of art from one of her own students, and she had direct influence on its design. For me, I began to wonder about my art’s significance within the greater Navajo tapestry market. Would my work be seen as being in competition with theirs? I hoped not. While I had been trained in the Navajo tapestry tradition, and while I was using Southwest motifs, I felt that my work still carried my own interpretation of that style and Lucy Lippard, in her book Mixed Blessings, has cautionary feelings about borrowing imagery from other cultures:
While it is difficult not to be moved by the antimaterialism, spirituality, formal success, and principled communal values of much traditional art, there is no “proper” or “politically correct” response by white artists that does not leave something out. But there is a difference between homage and robbery, between mutual exchange and rape. I am not suggesting that every European and Euro-American artist influenced by the power of cultures other than their own should be overwhelmed with guilt at every touch. But a certain humility, an awareness of the other cultures’ boundaries and context, wouldn’t hurt. (9)
And her quote of Lowry Stokes Sims argues that “Appropriation may be, when all is said and done, voyeurism at its most blatant” (Lippard 25). Lippard also grapples with the sticky connotations of labels like primitive art for the beautiful and meaningful works produced by Native artists. By primitive, do we mean less advanced? Do we mean less cultured? Placing Native arts in polarity with Euro-style arts brings up hierarchies and stereotypes that should no longer apply for enlightened art enthusiasts. Because a style of art (like baskets) might have a useful purpose, does that make it a lesser art form? I think this is a very frivolous argument.
I agree with Lippard that the best way to approach the creation of Native-inspired art is with respect and understanding. As part of my last packet, I explored the history of the Navajo weaving tradition with authors Alice Kaufman and Christopher Selser, which they describe as “An artistic manifestation of the turbulent history of the Navajos—and of the Southwest itself” (2). Several hundred years old, weaving has been a Navajo women’s tradition that was greatly disturbed by the enforced relocation to Bosque Redondo and later molded by the wishes of trading post owners. Such powerful Anglos on the reservation as Juan Lorenzo Hubbell and John B. Moore drastically influenced the design and colors of whole genres of weavings that are now considered part of Navajo traditional imagery—such as Red Ganado and Two Gray Hills, respectively. These men were working in the interest of selling Navajo weavings to Euro-American tourists, influenced by the popularity of Oriental carpets. Their pressures were not entirely negative to the tradition, as Kaufman and Selser show through comments like, “Hubbell encouraged the weavers who lived in the Ganado area to produce high-quality weaving in a very effective way: he refused to buy any weaving that did not meet his standards” (67).
Today it seems that the Navajos have fully reclaimed their weaving tradition, utilizing both older traditional, banded, borderless designs as well as the newer multi-bordered with a strong central motif designs. Kaufman and Selser beautifully describe the ongoing tradition:
Rather like poets working within the strict confines of the sonnet style, Navajo weavers give free rein to their creative energies to produce something distinctively original within clearly defined limits. When Daisy Taugelchee, the prize-winning Two Gray Hills weaver, sits down at her loom, she will use almost exclusively natural shades of wool—white, black, brown, and carded tans and grays. She is bound by tradition—merely decades old but firmly rooted nonetheless—to create a multibordered geometric design dominated by a strong central element. … The ability to transcend form and function is basic to Navajo weaving and has been since the Navajos started to weave some two hundred years ago. (3)
But what happens when Native artists step outside of the tradition? Or when a non-Native attempts to step into it?
At least in northern Wisconsin (and this likely applies to other areas), there is great pressure on reservation youth from within their culture not to branch into non-traditional art forms. Kevin McMullin is familiar with this in the world of classical music and the difficulties in keeping Native students, which sparked his multicultural project “One Nation.” But derogatory proddings like What, you’re not Native anymore? or terms like apple (red on the outside, white on the inside) are common local methods of peer pressure that keep Natives from exploring other expressive forms. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith adamantly disagrees that Native artists who integrate modernity into their work are impure, saying that “Dying cultures do not make art. Cultures that do not change with the time will die” (Lippard 28). In essence, strict tradition seeks to keep its adherents within its box (and others out of it), while artists (notorious for ignoring boundaries) keep running into the insides and the outsides of the walls of these boxes.
The walls of these boxes became starkly apparent last autumn when I was trying to start Navajo tapestry weaving classes at a local yarn store (much like Fran’s classes in Madison). I was circulating posters at area businesses and wanted to share my ideas (and a poster) with the shop that sells Native artwork on Main Street. I walked in, smiling, and started talking to the Ojibwa lady working the desk. She interrupted me abruptly with “are you Navajo?”
“No,” I replied, honestly. [1] She turned away and would not talk or listen to me anymore, and I left the store feeling a bit shaken. It was quite apparent from her voice and body language that there was no room for conversation in her mind about this issue. Had I said something wrong? Had I said it the wrong way? Was the local Native art world going to hold a grudge against me for infringing on their cultural space unauthorized? Unfortunately, in part due to the economic slump that made people wary of spending money on learning to make art, the classes never came together.
Certainly, there have been people from one culture who have interpreted material from another culture without much respect for the original intent and meaning. Robert Graves in The White Goddess draws an example between the ancient bards and the troubadours:
The Norman French trouveres and Malory who collected and collated their Arthurian romances had no knowledge of, or interest in, the historical and religious meaning of the myths that they handled. They felt themselves free to improve the narrative in accordance with their new gospel of chivalry fetched from Provence—breaking up the old mythic patterns and taking liberties of every sort that the Welsh minstrels had never dared to take. (60)
And this type of treatment has been felt by Native cultures across the Americas. Nabokov tells of protective and defensive walls that have been erected by Native cultures to preserve their histories from Anglo misrepresentation:
Not sharing history as a form of active persistence, because it contains crucial guidelines for group survival, and not revealing it as a form of passive resistance, because it has become a token in psychological tussles between whites and Indians, are often merged motivations. The shift from “you’ll make fun of what we tell you” to “what you don’t know won’t hurt us” to “what we don’t tell you makes you crazy” reflects the ever-changing and always subtle interplay of intercultural relations. (56)
Does the world of traditional arts grapple with these same situations? It seems so. This reminds me of Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof and the song “Tradition!” that is followed by a decay of his known world as his children break from the old way of life. He is torn between making them stay within the traditional box (and therefore keeping them close) or letting them follow their love (therefore losing part of his stability). Yet if tradition is not allowed to encompass the new—like Navajo weavers embracing the Two Gray Hills design—then we are left with misplaced residuals like American Scandinavians still eating lutefisk[2] during the holiday season (even though they no longer eat it at all in the Old Country).
I realize that, because I am not of Native descent, that I will forever be an outsider (at least to some degree) to that world. Neither am I a puristic traditionalist; instead, I seek to learn the wisdoms inherent within traditions and give them my own interpretive twist. It is a place of balance and liminality, imbedded with respect for the old ways yet open to the new. Perhaps the path of walking between these worlds—between past and present, between Native and European—is not unlike the spirit line in traditional Navajo tapestry. It is believed by the Navajos that perfection is not meant for mortals, just as multiple borders were contrary to their original tapestry aesthetic. So they always left an imperfection in their weavings that allowed their artistic spirit to exit from that tapestry so it could make another. They weave a path (several strands of the background color) through the border, the wall of the box. Maybe that is what we should all do; leave doorways in the boxes so we can have conversations about intercultural issues, share ideas, and create beautiful works of art from our hearts. In that wonderfully liminal space between (around, over, under, through) our cultures, we can hold difficult questions and learn to see with compassion and understanding.
Works Cited
Goldbard, Arlene. New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development. Oakland, CA: New Village Press, 2006.
Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. Amended and Enlarged Edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966.
Kaufman, Alice and Christopher Selser. The Navajo Weaving Tradition: 1650 to the Present. Tulsa and San Francisco: Council Oak Books, 1999.
Lippard, Lucy R. Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America. New York: The New Press, 1990.
Nabokov, Peter. A Forest of Time: American Indian Ways of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
[1] I actually had a Euro-American fellow vendor at the farmer’s market say, “You should have said yes, you could pass for Navajo.” Can you imagine! What an incredibly cruel lie. How would someone ever keep such a front with someone from a Native culture? The hypocrisy would be glaring.
[2] Lutefisk is cod preserved in a lye solution, which leaves it semi-translucent and very slimy. I tried it once, out of politeness, and cannot understand why—since it is no longer the necessary way to preserve fish—anyone would delight in eating it.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A Little "Engaged Arts" Workshop Given by Susan and Triada this week in Brooklyn
Hello! I thought you might all enjoy this:
Here is the post I wrote for the CORD blog this morning:
Friday, October 23, 2009
LOCAL TEENS CREATE "Airborne Contaminants Masks" in response to the Toxic Gowanus Canal in their "backyards"
MASK BY LIZZIE (See CORD blog)
Local teens from Starting Artists started an "Airborne Contaminants Masks" project this week at their local, artspace at 211 Smith Street in response to their feelings about living near the polluted waters and banks of the toxic Gowanus Canal. After a presentation by Brooklyn Utopias? Exhibition Curator, Katherine Gressel, and by participating and visiting artists, Triada Samaras, and Susan Konvit, these teens artists expressed deep concern over their health and safety in the event of a Gowanus Canal clean-up.
The on-going mask project, which may include works in other art/s media, will be a testament to their feelings. The teens expressed a clear desire for the safest and most comprehensive Gowanus Canal clean-up available to the public. Many live close enough to the canal to smell it on a "bad" day and cross it daily on their way to school and back.
The "Airborne Contaminants Masks" project that will be submitted in early November to the Brooklyn Utopias? Teen Art Exhibition at Starting Artists.
All Brooklyn Teens are eligible to submit an art work to this show.
Brooklyn middle and high school students: click here to submit artwork to the Brooklyn Utopias? Submissions DUE NOVEMBER 5!
Here is the post I wrote for the CORD blog this morning:
Friday, October 23, 2009
LOCAL TEENS CREATE "Airborne Contaminants Masks" in response to the Toxic Gowanus Canal in their "backyards"
MASK BY LIZZIE (See CORD blog)
Local teens from Starting Artists started an "Airborne Contaminants Masks" project this week at their local, artspace at 211 Smith Street in response to their feelings about living near the polluted waters and banks of the toxic Gowanus Canal. After a presentation by Brooklyn Utopias? Exhibition Curator, Katherine Gressel, and by participating and visiting artists, Triada Samaras, and Susan Konvit, these teens artists expressed deep concern over their health and safety in the event of a Gowanus Canal clean-up.
The on-going mask project, which may include works in other art/s media, will be a testament to their feelings. The teens expressed a clear desire for the safest and most comprehensive Gowanus Canal clean-up available to the public. Many live close enough to the canal to smell it on a "bad" day and cross it daily on their way to school and back.
The "Airborne Contaminants Masks" project that will be submitted in early November to the Brooklyn Utopias? Teen Art Exhibition at Starting Artists.
All Brooklyn Teens are eligible to submit an art work to this show.
Brooklyn middle and high school students: click here to submit artwork to the Brooklyn Utopias? Submissions DUE NOVEMBER 5!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Models of Action are Needed by Susan
Susan:
As an outsider witnessing the environmental community battle that is now being fought by art activists and environmentalists to save the health and homes of the residents in Brooklyn, it is appear that the need for a critical arts language to define this art discipline along with art activist models that have been used in the past, would be of enormous value. Access All Areas: Conversations on Engaged Arts brings artists steps closer to accomplishing this task and providing the seeds of future models.
The discipline of community arts grew out of artists recognizing the needs of their own community. Choosing to step forward, with the purpose of bringing attention to the issues that plague their home communities and motivating the changes necessary through the use of art, is a risky business and takes courage and commitment on the part of the artists. Sacrifice is the word that is at the heart of how hard life becomes for artists when they walk this path. How can this journey be made easier for those artists? And what language and models can be left behind for the next generation?
The essays in this book examine multiple Canadian communities and how the arts have played an important role in addressing the issues of their hometowns. Throughout the book multiple terms are used to describe these “art interactions – community-engaged artistic practice, community cultural development, publicly engaged art, littoral arts, cultural democracy,”( 9) community public art, new genre public art, and the naming lists continues. Even as an artist, the difference in these terms can be somewhat confusing. And to compound the difficulty, these term are not included in the general art definitions and art term books and websites. Even locating working models to implement these art interventions is near to impossible. The first concrete step is to create a unified language accepted by the entire art community.
Throughout Access All Areas I read thoughtful words and sentences that gave me hope that at least efforts are being made to acknowledge and question the need for a unified language. The term Engaged Arts is a comfortable fit for the art interventions in this book; engagement as the umbrella with the spokes composing each of the individual terms. This one word can be the foundation to build this unified language to classify the different roles of art activism. But the words are coming too slow for this fast paced technological world.
Essayist Irwin Oostindie expresses impatience over and over again about the progress being made in his field of the community cultural arts. His words are an example of the frustration expressed by artists participating in the engaged arts. He writes, “Clearly good intentions are not enough”. Oostindie does not stop here with his criticism and suggestions. “Can community-engaged artist practioners learn critical perspective and empower their peers with constructive criticism? Can we integrate knowledge gained from decades of cultural resistance? Do we know the names of our cultural heroes?” (68) This is the information that is needed to energize and educate the discipline of art activism.
The lack of documenting and making available the knowledge gained from art interventions is what weakens the progress of art engagement, and leads to exhaustion and burnout of both artists and community members, and dissuades funding sources from giving. Art Activists templates / models based on this knowledge could shorten the learning curve of how to implement art interventions that can create an impact that educates residents and can reach political powers that control the decisions being made over how communities function. Each community artist/s could utilize the information as a guide to inspire the creative steps they take in implementing their own art interventions.
Right now, this moment, artists in Brooklyn, New York are working and implementing art interventions, as they have been for the past two years. They are creating their own words to describe what they are doing; yet they too have a need for a unified language and knowledge they could look to for inspiration. These artists understand that they and the environmentalists are at the forefront of this battle to save their community of 2.5 million residents from massive exposure to highly carcinogenic airborne contaminants. Brooklyn artists have been the residents educating their fellow residents through the use of their art. This is engaged art in action.
The role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist. Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (2002)
As an outsider witnessing the environmental community battle that is now being fought by art activists and environmentalists to save the health and homes of the residents in Brooklyn, it is appear that the need for a critical arts language to define this art discipline along with art activist models that have been used in the past, would be of enormous value. Access All Areas: Conversations on Engaged Arts brings artists steps closer to accomplishing this task and providing the seeds of future models.
The discipline of community arts grew out of artists recognizing the needs of their own community. Choosing to step forward, with the purpose of bringing attention to the issues that plague their home communities and motivating the changes necessary through the use of art, is a risky business and takes courage and commitment on the part of the artists. Sacrifice is the word that is at the heart of how hard life becomes for artists when they walk this path. How can this journey be made easier for those artists? And what language and models can be left behind for the next generation?
The essays in this book examine multiple Canadian communities and how the arts have played an important role in addressing the issues of their hometowns. Throughout the book multiple terms are used to describe these “art interactions – community-engaged artistic practice, community cultural development, publicly engaged art, littoral arts, cultural democracy,”( 9) community public art, new genre public art, and the naming lists continues. Even as an artist, the difference in these terms can be somewhat confusing. And to compound the difficulty, these term are not included in the general art definitions and art term books and websites. Even locating working models to implement these art interventions is near to impossible. The first concrete step is to create a unified language accepted by the entire art community.
Throughout Access All Areas I read thoughtful words and sentences that gave me hope that at least efforts are being made to acknowledge and question the need for a unified language. The term Engaged Arts is a comfortable fit for the art interventions in this book; engagement as the umbrella with the spokes composing each of the individual terms. This one word can be the foundation to build this unified language to classify the different roles of art activism. But the words are coming too slow for this fast paced technological world.
Essayist Irwin Oostindie expresses impatience over and over again about the progress being made in his field of the community cultural arts. His words are an example of the frustration expressed by artists participating in the engaged arts. He writes, “Clearly good intentions are not enough”. Oostindie does not stop here with his criticism and suggestions. “Can community-engaged artist practioners learn critical perspective and empower their peers with constructive criticism? Can we integrate knowledge gained from decades of cultural resistance? Do we know the names of our cultural heroes?” (68) This is the information that is needed to energize and educate the discipline of art activism.
The lack of documenting and making available the knowledge gained from art interventions is what weakens the progress of art engagement, and leads to exhaustion and burnout of both artists and community members, and dissuades funding sources from giving. Art Activists templates / models based on this knowledge could shorten the learning curve of how to implement art interventions that can create an impact that educates residents and can reach political powers that control the decisions being made over how communities function. Each community artist/s could utilize the information as a guide to inspire the creative steps they take in implementing their own art interventions.
Right now, this moment, artists in Brooklyn, New York are working and implementing art interventions, as they have been for the past two years. They are creating their own words to describe what they are doing; yet they too have a need for a unified language and knowledge they could look to for inspiration. These artists understand that they and the environmentalists are at the forefront of this battle to save their community of 2.5 million residents from massive exposure to highly carcinogenic airborne contaminants. Brooklyn artists have been the residents educating their fellow residents through the use of their art. This is engaged art in action.
The role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever scale chosen by the artist. Nicholas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics (2002)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Brooklyn Utopias? Show by Triada Samaras
Hello everyone!
I want to report on my Brooklyn Utopias? exhibition as so much has been happening. The exhibition takes place at two places: The Brooklyn Historical Society and the Old Stone House. Both locations have historical significance but the second one's history really blew me away as I installed my little "Democracy Wall" project there. It turns out that the Old Stone House occupies the spot of the greatest battle of the Revolutionary War: (The Battle of Brooklyn). The vivid time-line of that battle and the loss of life involved by innocent men trying to protect "Democracy" utterly screams from the ground when you are there. (I became very in-tune with those energies the night of one of my events there.) In the Battle of Brooklyn 400 men lost their lives as they tried to stall the British while General Washington snuck away over the Gowanus Canal to streets next to mine on the way to Brooklyn Heights. This was the largest number of deaths in any of the battles of the Revolutionary War and these men literally sacrificed their lives for us to occupy the spot we are on right now.
So when I fast forward to the last two years of my life here in Carroll Gardens, and the enormous fighting spirit that has taken hold of so many of us, I am seeing we are in a spot that breeds debates and fights and even deaths. FIERCE DEBATES! The Gowanus Canal clean-up by getting the Canal Superfund Designated is now an even hotter and broader issue than our prior issues with out of context development were as this Canal clean-up issue affects our health and safety.
The history of my neighborhood has thus become so tangible to me and I have also begun to think about others people who were pushed out or killed before the Europeans ever arrived (the Native Americans). I realized that each spot on earth is hallowed ground of one kind or another. But the spots I am on are what I would call "contentious ground", no doubt about it. There is the spirit of the daring warrior here from our ancestors.
As an aside, I think it would be an interesting artistic project to find out what lies below one's house and yet I think some of us would prefer not to know.
At any rate my artist/activist work in my neighborhood has become situated in a greater historical context and that is very humbling and makes me feel honored too, I must say.
I got one very good question from someone at the Old Stone House event that evening: A woman asked me: "How did you feel when the Democracy Wall was demolished?" In the past I would have been devastated as an artist to see such an event occur, but through my art/activism here in CG, I realized something long ago: That wall was coming down no matter what I tried to do. We are hopefully winning the war, but yes we are losing many battles.
So I just tried to celebrate the wall to the hilt for all it was worth when it existed, Now, by exhibiting pieces of it in public I am able to outreach even more with it.
I also have exciting news! Brooklyn Utopias? is having many outreach events for the public and for teens. Susan Konvit and I (from this blog) are doing a project together next Tuesday with teens near my house: We will be helping them to create a work of art/performance in response to the issue of general air quality here (or lack thereof). This is so exciting to work with a fellow Goddard student on this. The place we will be holding this workshop is a very impressive, new non-profit called "Starting Artists" on 211 Smith Street in Brooklyn. Susan will be linking her own non profit in NJ to ours here in Brooklyn using this issue as a catalyst for conversation, for art, and for ACTION! Britta Wheeler will also be involved with us.
Peace, Triada
I want to report on my Brooklyn Utopias? exhibition as so much has been happening. The exhibition takes place at two places: The Brooklyn Historical Society and the Old Stone House. Both locations have historical significance but the second one's history really blew me away as I installed my little "Democracy Wall" project there. It turns out that the Old Stone House occupies the spot of the greatest battle of the Revolutionary War: (The Battle of Brooklyn). The vivid time-line of that battle and the loss of life involved by innocent men trying to protect "Democracy" utterly screams from the ground when you are there. (I became very in-tune with those energies the night of one of my events there.) In the Battle of Brooklyn 400 men lost their lives as they tried to stall the British while General Washington snuck away over the Gowanus Canal to streets next to mine on the way to Brooklyn Heights. This was the largest number of deaths in any of the battles of the Revolutionary War and these men literally sacrificed their lives for us to occupy the spot we are on right now.
So when I fast forward to the last two years of my life here in Carroll Gardens, and the enormous fighting spirit that has taken hold of so many of us, I am seeing we are in a spot that breeds debates and fights and even deaths. FIERCE DEBATES! The Gowanus Canal clean-up by getting the Canal Superfund Designated is now an even hotter and broader issue than our prior issues with out of context development were as this Canal clean-up issue affects our health and safety.
The history of my neighborhood has thus become so tangible to me and I have also begun to think about others people who were pushed out or killed before the Europeans ever arrived (the Native Americans). I realized that each spot on earth is hallowed ground of one kind or another. But the spots I am on are what I would call "contentious ground", no doubt about it. There is the spirit of the daring warrior here from our ancestors.
As an aside, I think it would be an interesting artistic project to find out what lies below one's house and yet I think some of us would prefer not to know.
At any rate my artist/activist work in my neighborhood has become situated in a greater historical context and that is very humbling and makes me feel honored too, I must say.
I got one very good question from someone at the Old Stone House event that evening: A woman asked me: "How did you feel when the Democracy Wall was demolished?" In the past I would have been devastated as an artist to see such an event occur, but through my art/activism here in CG, I realized something long ago: That wall was coming down no matter what I tried to do. We are hopefully winning the war, but yes we are losing many battles.
So I just tried to celebrate the wall to the hilt for all it was worth when it existed, Now, by exhibiting pieces of it in public I am able to outreach even more with it.
I also have exciting news! Brooklyn Utopias? is having many outreach events for the public and for teens. Susan Konvit and I (from this blog) are doing a project together next Tuesday with teens near my house: We will be helping them to create a work of art/performance in response to the issue of general air quality here (or lack thereof). This is so exciting to work with a fellow Goddard student on this. The place we will be holding this workshop is a very impressive, new non-profit called "Starting Artists" on 211 Smith Street in Brooklyn. Susan will be linking her own non profit in NJ to ours here in Brooklyn using this issue as a catalyst for conversation, for art, and for ACTION! Britta Wheeler will also be involved with us.
Peace, Triada
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Social Acupuncture--Tammy Parks
Last thoughts before the next text
In Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance and Utopia, Darren O’Donnell uses acupuncture as a metaphor for the imbalance of power and resources in our social body and calls for theater that pinpoints problems in our civic sphere to intervene and address issues of disenfranchisement, war and commercial manipulation. It was interesting as an outsider to the theater to read an insider’s viewpoint—I might even call it a manifesto—on how the theater needs to change in order to thrive in contemporary times. O’Donnell feels that most contemporary theater is boring and irrelevant as it remains obsessed with the classics and representational works.
O’Donnell believes that it is difficult to sustain theater because it is a forum where actual bodies encounter one another. In live theater you must have “creators and consumers in the same space (proximity)” and socially engaged spaces are being killed by information-age capitalism. I have witnessed this distancing within society as the preferred method of communication becomes texting and e-mailing as compared to speaking on the phone or face-to-face exchanges. The author is also concerned about how “all socializing and public encounters occur under the banner of consumption” (94), and there are few forums to meet people where “identity and power do not dictate the parameters of discourse.” (53) I cannot think of any significant events or public spaces in my community which allow people to interact physically or mentally that are not based on commerce (selling tickets, food, alcohol, etc.) or managed by a corporate body (school administrations, town councils, church elders, etc.) The author fails to mention whether or not there is a charge for his performances that take place in theater (corporate) spaces.
O’Donnell makes a point to meet and greet the audience as they enter the theater for his performance. He attempts to remove the understood distance located between viewer and performer in order to encourage interaction during his play. He wants audience participation. I am not as disturbed as he with being a “passive” viewer because of many experiences of being deeply affected by the performances I have witnessed on the stage. I think that the word witness is better used than viewer when it comes to naming the audience in a theater. I am participating even though I am not interjecting orally or physically in the event. I am moved by the words, emotions and ideas transmitted by the actors and my silence and stillness allow my eyes, ears and skin to be even more sensitized to the work taking place before me and in the midst of my presence.
O’Donnell writes that the elements of the social body are intertwined (a holistic approach) in which “small interventions at key junctures should affect larger organs to directly engage with social flows.” (48) Theater and art in general can be used to perform social acupuncture as it asks questions and encourages dialogues between the actors and audiences. O’Donnell advocates theater that is unscripted and accidental because it “is often much more beautiful, astonishing and revealing than the rehearsed.” (60) There is a particular beauty in ad lib and improvisation that is attractive to me. I am spellbound whenever I watch an interview with Robin Williams as words and humor pour out of him with every interaction. My favorite show on television is Whose Line is it Anyway? in which comics devise sketches, impersonations and songs based on suggestions and props from the host and audience.
Just like acupuncture performed on the human body, the effects of artistic acupuncture on the social body “will be felt only over a significant period of time and with repeated applications.” (51) In this scenario, the little things that we all do really can make a difference if we continue our work day after day with diligence, consistency and patience. This is a difficult concept, though, for a society that wants immediate gratification and measurable progress and which possesses an attention span of about two minutes.
O’Donnell warns us that social acupuncture, like real acupuncture, will not always be pleasant because “when you’re increasing your social intelligence, you will spend some time in discomfort.” (57) He believes that “discomfort and antagonism are hallmarks of a successful encounter.” (31) He sites many examples of civically engaged art with people on the street by asking very personal questions, the creation of adult spin-the-bottle games and haircuts by children on adults. I am not quite sure how politically and socially engaged these examples are without a more in-depth analysis of the events and the processes. His synopses are brief and allow only a glimpse into the projects he describes. He includes the script of his “Suicide-Site Guide to the City” that is uncomfortable, confusing and even tangential at times. I realize that the script can only give you a taste of the actual embodied performance, but I felt a little disappointed at the work because it was fragmented and hard to follow and understand. I am reminded of Hal Foster’s warning in the first packet in Participation that “at times, the death of the author has meant not the birth of the reader, so much as the befuddlement of the viewer.” I fear that the befuddlement of this viewer was official by the end of O’Donnell’s script because I did not feel connected at all to his words or ideas.
What keeps writers and performers from writing, producing and performing more work that is controversial, uncomfortable or painful? O’Donnell thinks that many theatrical performances are limited creatively by parameters that “use the rhetoric of safety to cloak control.” (56) Many people in power do not like change because it means losing control or power over a situation. I have experienced this very scenario in the past when a principal has pulled the old “safety card” out as an excuse for not doing something new or creative. I requested that the administration allow students to go outside for their lunch time again since the privilege was removed after a series of fights took place last year. I was told that we should just continue keeping the students inside because “the surveillance was better indoors.” I am still trying to understand the equation that being outside means more fighting. The “tradition card” has been pulled a few times in my public school experience when administrators explain how “that is the way we have always done it.” I have determined that tradition in the United States means anything that has happened for two consecutive years. Two years equal always? Another shallow equation, it seems to me.
O’Donnell promotes a neo-philistine work ethic where a person’s “acts of charity also improve the well-being of the donor.” (39) If artists create social good, the author believes that the artist’s motivations do not need to be pure. Why shouldn’t the act of goodness or kindness result in bettering the situation of the artist as well? He warns artists against masquerading as do-gooders in their work and to avoid performing any type of charity because charity “can discriminate and emphasize the classicism, racism, sexism, etc.” (79) that is present in the culture. I think that if you consider yourself a member of the community that you are helping, you are simply working to make things better for everyone, including yourself. I see the destructive qualities of setting up a stereotypical scenario of the artist helping out those “poor and unfortunate people” in the community. Done rightly, however, breaking down the wall between giver and receiver places people on more equal ground.
I identified with O’Donnell’s caution of the new freedom given to artists who work at home. “Working at home brings the opportunity to never escape work opportunities.” (79) I think that it is healthy to have this physical separation from the work world. I leave the school at five in the afternoon each day and drive home to paint, play with my pets, have dinner with my husband or work on the usual house chores that never seem to end. I found myself frazzled about eight years ago, edgy, impatient, unhappy, anxious, exhausted and even a little depressed. It took a little while for me to recognize that I was spending too much of my time at home still working as an art teacher. I was being super teacher; the artist, wife and woman were suffering. I committed myself to leaving my school work at school.
In Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance and Utopia, Darren O’Donnell uses acupuncture as a metaphor for the imbalance of power and resources in our social body and calls for theater that pinpoints problems in our civic sphere to intervene and address issues of disenfranchisement, war and commercial manipulation. It was interesting as an outsider to the theater to read an insider’s viewpoint—I might even call it a manifesto—on how the theater needs to change in order to thrive in contemporary times. O’Donnell feels that most contemporary theater is boring and irrelevant as it remains obsessed with the classics and representational works.
O’Donnell believes that it is difficult to sustain theater because it is a forum where actual bodies encounter one another. In live theater you must have “creators and consumers in the same space (proximity)” and socially engaged spaces are being killed by information-age capitalism. I have witnessed this distancing within society as the preferred method of communication becomes texting and e-mailing as compared to speaking on the phone or face-to-face exchanges. The author is also concerned about how “all socializing and public encounters occur under the banner of consumption” (94), and there are few forums to meet people where “identity and power do not dictate the parameters of discourse.” (53) I cannot think of any significant events or public spaces in my community which allow people to interact physically or mentally that are not based on commerce (selling tickets, food, alcohol, etc.) or managed by a corporate body (school administrations, town councils, church elders, etc.) The author fails to mention whether or not there is a charge for his performances that take place in theater (corporate) spaces.
O’Donnell makes a point to meet and greet the audience as they enter the theater for his performance. He attempts to remove the understood distance located between viewer and performer in order to encourage interaction during his play. He wants audience participation. I am not as disturbed as he with being a “passive” viewer because of many experiences of being deeply affected by the performances I have witnessed on the stage. I think that the word witness is better used than viewer when it comes to naming the audience in a theater. I am participating even though I am not interjecting orally or physically in the event. I am moved by the words, emotions and ideas transmitted by the actors and my silence and stillness allow my eyes, ears and skin to be even more sensitized to the work taking place before me and in the midst of my presence.
O’Donnell writes that the elements of the social body are intertwined (a holistic approach) in which “small interventions at key junctures should affect larger organs to directly engage with social flows.” (48) Theater and art in general can be used to perform social acupuncture as it asks questions and encourages dialogues between the actors and audiences. O’Donnell advocates theater that is unscripted and accidental because it “is often much more beautiful, astonishing and revealing than the rehearsed.” (60) There is a particular beauty in ad lib and improvisation that is attractive to me. I am spellbound whenever I watch an interview with Robin Williams as words and humor pour out of him with every interaction. My favorite show on television is Whose Line is it Anyway? in which comics devise sketches, impersonations and songs based on suggestions and props from the host and audience.
Just like acupuncture performed on the human body, the effects of artistic acupuncture on the social body “will be felt only over a significant period of time and with repeated applications.” (51) In this scenario, the little things that we all do really can make a difference if we continue our work day after day with diligence, consistency and patience. This is a difficult concept, though, for a society that wants immediate gratification and measurable progress and which possesses an attention span of about two minutes.
O’Donnell warns us that social acupuncture, like real acupuncture, will not always be pleasant because “when you’re increasing your social intelligence, you will spend some time in discomfort.” (57) He believes that “discomfort and antagonism are hallmarks of a successful encounter.” (31) He sites many examples of civically engaged art with people on the street by asking very personal questions, the creation of adult spin-the-bottle games and haircuts by children on adults. I am not quite sure how politically and socially engaged these examples are without a more in-depth analysis of the events and the processes. His synopses are brief and allow only a glimpse into the projects he describes. He includes the script of his “Suicide-Site Guide to the City” that is uncomfortable, confusing and even tangential at times. I realize that the script can only give you a taste of the actual embodied performance, but I felt a little disappointed at the work because it was fragmented and hard to follow and understand. I am reminded of Hal Foster’s warning in the first packet in Participation that “at times, the death of the author has meant not the birth of the reader, so much as the befuddlement of the viewer.” I fear that the befuddlement of this viewer was official by the end of O’Donnell’s script because I did not feel connected at all to his words or ideas.
What keeps writers and performers from writing, producing and performing more work that is controversial, uncomfortable or painful? O’Donnell thinks that many theatrical performances are limited creatively by parameters that “use the rhetoric of safety to cloak control.” (56) Many people in power do not like change because it means losing control or power over a situation. I have experienced this very scenario in the past when a principal has pulled the old “safety card” out as an excuse for not doing something new or creative. I requested that the administration allow students to go outside for their lunch time again since the privilege was removed after a series of fights took place last year. I was told that we should just continue keeping the students inside because “the surveillance was better indoors.” I am still trying to understand the equation that being outside means more fighting. The “tradition card” has been pulled a few times in my public school experience when administrators explain how “that is the way we have always done it.” I have determined that tradition in the United States means anything that has happened for two consecutive years. Two years equal always? Another shallow equation, it seems to me.
O’Donnell promotes a neo-philistine work ethic where a person’s “acts of charity also improve the well-being of the donor.” (39) If artists create social good, the author believes that the artist’s motivations do not need to be pure. Why shouldn’t the act of goodness or kindness result in bettering the situation of the artist as well? He warns artists against masquerading as do-gooders in their work and to avoid performing any type of charity because charity “can discriminate and emphasize the classicism, racism, sexism, etc.” (79) that is present in the culture. I think that if you consider yourself a member of the community that you are helping, you are simply working to make things better for everyone, including yourself. I see the destructive qualities of setting up a stereotypical scenario of the artist helping out those “poor and unfortunate people” in the community. Done rightly, however, breaking down the wall between giver and receiver places people on more equal ground.
I identified with O’Donnell’s caution of the new freedom given to artists who work at home. “Working at home brings the opportunity to never escape work opportunities.” (79) I think that it is healthy to have this physical separation from the work world. I leave the school at five in the afternoon each day and drive home to paint, play with my pets, have dinner with my husband or work on the usual house chores that never seem to end. I found myself frazzled about eight years ago, edgy, impatient, unhappy, anxious, exhausted and even a little depressed. It took a little while for me to recognize that I was spending too much of my time at home still working as an art teacher. I was being super teacher; the artist, wife and woman were suffering. I committed myself to leaving my school work at school.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Any Suggestions?
Would any of you have suggestions on some good books and/or organizations on the topics of eco-feminism and eco-racism? We're slightly touched on eco racism in our conversations but never identified it as such.
Thank you for any input.
Susan
Thank you for any input.
Susan
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Social Acupuncture Treatment Has Been Successful
Hi All, Susan here. I’ve read this book twice in the past few weeks. Not because I’m enamored with the book but it takes two readings to get the benefits from the social acupuncture treatment. In the first part of the book the author is just so freaken open about his thoughts on the arts, and does not tiptoe around the topic of the arts and its many failures to make a difference in the twenty-first century. After the first reading I came away believing the reviews that O’Donnell was schizophrenic and did not really care about how his writing affected the reader. Could he be practicing tough love? Is his agenda to unclog the blockages that society has created in artists or the blockages that artists have created in themselves or in each other? O’Donnell’s approach is rather extreme but interesting, and surprisingly beneficial, but it took the second reading for me to understand this.
What is acupuncture? The Oxford English Dictionary describes the word as a system of complementary medicine in which fine needles are inserted in the skin at specific points along supposed lines of energy. I am assuming, that O’Donnell is assuming, that any person who picks up his book is more open minded than to buy into the dictionaries description “supposed lines of energy”. I should let you know I am a great believer in acupuncture. My treatments have included traditional Chinese acupuncture and acupressure, Japanese’s Jin Shin Jyutsu pressure points, and long distance acupressure treatments (separated from the acupuncturist by one thousand-four hundred miles). In these forms of treatments "what happens in one part of the body is reflected in the rest of the body. It emphasizes the interconnectedness of everything in the universe." So my interest in this book was to learn what would come of Social + Acupuncture + the arts.
Basically, O’Donnell begins the book by letting us know all our worries and protesting, and energy spent and invested in making a difference, is wasted energy. From his point of view, the world is just too busy fighting each other to hear the message of let’s just get along. O’Donnell is introducing us to his social acupuncture technique by getting us worked up, and doubting our worth and ourselves as artists. Then he throws in the line to justify how he has spoken to his audience, “Essentially, I’m a twerp, a powerless pipsqueak, strong enough to push around a few of my dazed and less-informed comrades… This angered me but I pushed through his distancing tactics.
There are moments in this book when I hear sad disillusionment in his voice. For example when he questions, “How did I end up spending so much time believing that culture had some revolutionary potential? What was I thinking?” At that point I stopped reading and shouted “What the Hell was I thinking?” When the Trade Towers fell I became obsessed with waking up the public and reaching them by using the tool of the arts. I believed that art was everything and that art had the power to inform everyone and empower everyone and that art could make a difference. Wait a minute I am allowing O’Donnell to get in my head. I believe in the power of the arts. Yet, I do acknowledge THE general lack of support that the arts face. Are we bringing this on ourselves? As an artist and an arts administrator, this is a conversation that I had with myself too often.
O’Donnell forces the reader to understand we, artists, have a choice. We can choose to be powerful or powerless. There was a period in the twentieth century when artists worked as individuals and together and with the public to bring about positive changes. Today, as Nicolas Bourriaud states in his book Relational Aesthetics, it is simply about maintaining relationships rather than building partnerships. It’s easier to mind your own life and live in isolation than become involved with community concerns. What can one person really do? At this point in reading Social Acupuncture, I became frustrated with that question. As an artist, I have heard this question too often. Well, if we look at that from a negative impact, it took only one Hitler to bring the world to a new level of destruction. Where is that one positive impact that can bring the world to a new level of positive growth? Maybe it is not a person that creates this change maybe it is the arts as a whole. Then again just yesterday the political hope of positive world growth was placed squarely on the shoulders of President Obama with his recent Nobel Peace award. Positive growth takes a team.
Thus far, this social acupuncture has been an interesting treatment. When receiving an acupuncture at a traditional office visit, thought is given to the physical, spiritual, and emotional environment. The mood is calming. This is important since the affects can be unpredictable. Darren O’Donnell’s book has not been calming. The author appears to be using the symbolism of acupuncture to rattle our isolated studio cages. He knows that social engagement is difficult to maintain in this busy world but as artists we have a responsibility to get out there and participant in creating connections and maintaining communications with the global community.
Back to Mr. O’Donnell, I was impressed with his walking the social acupuncture walk of implementing the project The Talking Creature, a participatory event examining the art of conversing with strangers in public. This project was implemented in the summer and fall of 2003 in Toronto, Canada. The city was quarantined due to threat of SARS. Although many residents evacuated the area, there were those who stayed behind for a multitude of reasons. O’Donnell had the truly brilliant idea to bring together the public by crossing a an uncrossable boundary. He held five “participatory events examining the art of conversing with strangers in public.” The words used to describe this project are manic, urgent, catalyst, risk taking, energy. All rather dramatic words but talking to strangers is moving the energy. Moving energy is the goal of acupuncture. It was this experience that brought about his writing the play A Suicide-Site Guide to the City, an autobiographical play of multiple situations that came to life over the summer of 2003.
How do you know if you have been affected by a social acupuncture treatment? For me, it has the visual of my handwritten notes on the sides of the pages of the book Social Acupuncture. My writing became larger and larger as I traveled deeper into the book. I became and more and more annoyed yet more focused. Then, I was suddenly right there with O’Donnell. Right there with him in the theater of imagination. Provoking the unexpected. Breaking with theater traditions of maintaining the fourth wall. Providing the catalyst in a safe environment was energy needed to encourage the audience to participate. I was right there with him, the playwright creating an open-ended situation of control/non-control. A potential place/site/community constructed by the artist where trust, creativity, and growth could occur and where the materials of engagement flourished.
Social Acupuncture lighten my spirit by playing with my mind, which in acupuncture terms could be said to have unlock energy that is stagnated, thereby creating harmony!
I like this O'Donnell guy.
Susan
What is acupuncture? The Oxford English Dictionary describes the word as a system of complementary medicine in which fine needles are inserted in the skin at specific points along supposed lines of energy. I am assuming, that O’Donnell is assuming, that any person who picks up his book is more open minded than to buy into the dictionaries description “supposed lines of energy”. I should let you know I am a great believer in acupuncture. My treatments have included traditional Chinese acupuncture and acupressure, Japanese’s Jin Shin Jyutsu pressure points, and long distance acupressure treatments (separated from the acupuncturist by one thousand-four hundred miles). In these forms of treatments "what happens in one part of the body is reflected in the rest of the body. It emphasizes the interconnectedness of everything in the universe." So my interest in this book was to learn what would come of Social + Acupuncture + the arts.
Basically, O’Donnell begins the book by letting us know all our worries and protesting, and energy spent and invested in making a difference, is wasted energy. From his point of view, the world is just too busy fighting each other to hear the message of let’s just get along. O’Donnell is introducing us to his social acupuncture technique by getting us worked up, and doubting our worth and ourselves as artists. Then he throws in the line to justify how he has spoken to his audience, “Essentially, I’m a twerp, a powerless pipsqueak, strong enough to push around a few of my dazed and less-informed comrades… This angered me but I pushed through his distancing tactics.
There are moments in this book when I hear sad disillusionment in his voice. For example when he questions, “How did I end up spending so much time believing that culture had some revolutionary potential? What was I thinking?” At that point I stopped reading and shouted “What the Hell was I thinking?” When the Trade Towers fell I became obsessed with waking up the public and reaching them by using the tool of the arts. I believed that art was everything and that art had the power to inform everyone and empower everyone and that art could make a difference. Wait a minute I am allowing O’Donnell to get in my head. I believe in the power of the arts. Yet, I do acknowledge THE general lack of support that the arts face. Are we bringing this on ourselves? As an artist and an arts administrator, this is a conversation that I had with myself too often.
O’Donnell forces the reader to understand we, artists, have a choice. We can choose to be powerful or powerless. There was a period in the twentieth century when artists worked as individuals and together and with the public to bring about positive changes. Today, as Nicolas Bourriaud states in his book Relational Aesthetics, it is simply about maintaining relationships rather than building partnerships. It’s easier to mind your own life and live in isolation than become involved with community concerns. What can one person really do? At this point in reading Social Acupuncture, I became frustrated with that question. As an artist, I have heard this question too often. Well, if we look at that from a negative impact, it took only one Hitler to bring the world to a new level of destruction. Where is that one positive impact that can bring the world to a new level of positive growth? Maybe it is not a person that creates this change maybe it is the arts as a whole. Then again just yesterday the political hope of positive world growth was placed squarely on the shoulders of President Obama with his recent Nobel Peace award. Positive growth takes a team.
Thus far, this social acupuncture has been an interesting treatment. When receiving an acupuncture at a traditional office visit, thought is given to the physical, spiritual, and emotional environment. The mood is calming. This is important since the affects can be unpredictable. Darren O’Donnell’s book has not been calming. The author appears to be using the symbolism of acupuncture to rattle our isolated studio cages. He knows that social engagement is difficult to maintain in this busy world but as artists we have a responsibility to get out there and participant in creating connections and maintaining communications with the global community.
Back to Mr. O’Donnell, I was impressed with his walking the social acupuncture walk of implementing the project The Talking Creature, a participatory event examining the art of conversing with strangers in public. This project was implemented in the summer and fall of 2003 in Toronto, Canada. The city was quarantined due to threat of SARS. Although many residents evacuated the area, there were those who stayed behind for a multitude of reasons. O’Donnell had the truly brilliant idea to bring together the public by crossing a an uncrossable boundary. He held five “participatory events examining the art of conversing with strangers in public.” The words used to describe this project are manic, urgent, catalyst, risk taking, energy. All rather dramatic words but talking to strangers is moving the energy. Moving energy is the goal of acupuncture. It was this experience that brought about his writing the play A Suicide-Site Guide to the City, an autobiographical play of multiple situations that came to life over the summer of 2003.
How do you know if you have been affected by a social acupuncture treatment? For me, it has the visual of my handwritten notes on the sides of the pages of the book Social Acupuncture. My writing became larger and larger as I traveled deeper into the book. I became and more and more annoyed yet more focused. Then, I was suddenly right there with O’Donnell. Right there with him in the theater of imagination. Provoking the unexpected. Breaking with theater traditions of maintaining the fourth wall. Providing the catalyst in a safe environment was energy needed to encourage the audience to participate. I was right there with him, the playwright creating an open-ended situation of control/non-control. A potential place/site/community constructed by the artist where trust, creativity, and growth could occur and where the materials of engagement flourished.
Social Acupuncture lighten my spirit by playing with my mind, which in acupuncture terms could be said to have unlock energy that is stagnated, thereby creating harmony!
I like this O'Donnell guy.
Susan
Friday, October 9, 2009
Insider/Outsider...let's talk
Laura Berlage
Greetings all! Hope your finishing touches on packet 3 are going well.
I wanted to ask a question that has been pestering me during this semester of looking at the ethical issues of non-Native artists producing Native inspired art. What do you think the issues behind being and insider and being an outsider are? Why do you think that social structure exists? Do you think it is a phenomenon of cultural hurts, or has it been around as long as there have been people? What does it mean to be an insider? What does it mean to be an outsider? Can you cross that threshold? If so, what do you gain, and what do you lose?
These are all questions I'm interested in discussing. Please respond to the post if any of these spark ideas (or more questions) for you!
Thanks,
Laura
Greetings all! Hope your finishing touches on packet 3 are going well.
I wanted to ask a question that has been pestering me during this semester of looking at the ethical issues of non-Native artists producing Native inspired art. What do you think the issues behind being and insider and being an outsider are? Why do you think that social structure exists? Do you think it is a phenomenon of cultural hurts, or has it been around as long as there have been people? What does it mean to be an insider? What does it mean to be an outsider? Can you cross that threshold? If so, what do you gain, and what do you lose?
These are all questions I'm interested in discussing. Please respond to the post if any of these spark ideas (or more questions) for you!
Thanks,
Laura
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Conversations On Engaged Arts, Nancy V.
Access All Areas, Conversations On Engaged Arts
“Home at Home Are We Really,” By Devora Neumark
“I cannot imagine that peaceful co-existence is possible in the Middle East any more than it is here on Turtle Island. Without a commitment to rectify the wrongs of colonialism and imperialism on both sides of the Atlantic.” (Access All Areas, Pg. 32).
Colonialism and Imperialism has separated many countries and people by the control of others land, indigenous lifestyle, and beliefs thus exploiting the people and land physically, emotionally, spiritually and economically. This intrusion is still going on around the world. I think that instead of getting caught in the past, it might be a time to make changes in the present based on actions of the past. Acknowledging the past and wrong doings to cultures that have and had established roots, values, lineages and lifestyle is what I believe the above quote is expressing. I agree with Devora that shifting ones relationship to the past does embrace letting go of perceptions, acknowledging feelings, and forgiving those that created the disconnect with people, land, place, and home. Yes, it is a symbolic death. A death that is difficult and uncomfortable when self-identity, self-respect, integrity and belonging have been confronted and lost. When self-identity, lifestyle, values, and belonging are in upheaval, briefly or for decades the discontent creates a history of imperialism, colonialism and resentment. This on going colonialism and imperialism reveals the oppression, which can become a forced assimilation that interrogates a person’s ethnic background, religious choice, lifestyle and sexuality.
“So afraid of relinquishing old thought patterns and belief systems that seemed so central to my core identity. I tried to circumvent this process for as long as I could.” (Neumark, Pg, 44). I think that Devora’s words are crucial to healing on so many levels individually, as a community, and globally. But it does start individually, and then the metaphor of the ripple in the pond can become a possible reality one step at a time. Can I/we as part of a global village change belief systems and old thought patterns that keep us separated in a way that provokes fear, which then provokes violence. I believe both fear and violence becomes an ingredient for control in order to mend a broken spirit. Only this ingredient of fear and violence is an illusion. Why is there a need for every thing to be the same? Is gentrification in American communities a modern act of colonialism and imperialism?
I am now teaching a residency in Brownsville, NY, which is one of the five boroughs of NYC. I got off the train and started walking and was shocked that I was the only white person walking five blocks to the school where I was teaching. I was also the only white teacher in the building. I never have felt such a separation before and I have lived in NYC for over 20 years. I was so aware of the separation that it was uncomfortable at first until I started teaching. I was sadly an outsider. Is this separation due to gentrification, racism, or economical status? I think it was all of these issues and I think these separation manipulates and disturbances our psyche. I could feel tension in the neighborhood. I did talk to one of the teachers and asked her about the community. She said, “ This is not my community.” I left it at that. I entered this community feeling very out of place not because I have an issue with difference but because society has placed this insider/outsider mentality within my collective unconscious. I hold compassion in my humanness that we can still be treated equal within the different status compartments we are living in or put in for unfair reasons and false judgments.
I think when Devora speaks of shifting ones relationship to the past; she is speaking the truth on a fundamental humanistic level. Until we can deeply reflect in the truth of the wrong doings to fellow human beings there is no peaceful co-existence anywhere on this planet. I often wonder when the separation will transform between the different ethnic backgrounds and economical status. Can we open ourselves to change in hopes that we can bare the pain of humanity and transform as a global village? Or will our fear, which creates a false sense of empowerment hold us in a pattern of separation that confronts ones race, religion, home, lifestyle and sexual orientation? This confrontation challenges our sense of belonging, which challenges are group and self-identity, which then affects being at home in our mind, body and soul.
“The past went that-a-way, when faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” Marshall McLuhan
“Spaces and Places” by Jules Rochielle
“Interstice: An interstice can be defined as a space between things or parts, especially a space between things closely set; a crack; a crevice; and interval.” (Rochielle, Pg, 102).
If I may, I think we all struggle at times in our lives to find a place and voice in society, community and feeling comfortable within our own bodies. When does taking up space within society become meaningful personally and socially? This is truly the journey of life. Jules Rochielle says that she was exposed to art forms…that were not driven by commerce, but by the desire to create social change. I do think both approaches to the artistic life are valid and need to be acknowledged as an important part of society, history and everyday living. I am personally drawn to art that has a great potential for social change, connection and reflective thought that leads to a creative outcome.
“Our projects explored relevant contemporary issues dealing with racial and inter-racial tensions, violence, class, displacement, memory and belonging.” (Rochielle, Pg, 105). I am personally interested in all of the above situations and issues that can affect community life and personal life. The short documentary Collective, which I am doing for this semester, connects to memory, environment and lineage. It has been fascinating to hear about people’s values, lineage, and memories around the art of hanging and doing laundry in relationship to culture and life. It has also questioned my lineage, and stimulated memories of family in my own life. I have found that listening to people that I have interviewed that the memories of doing an everyday task that has a commonality to our humanness shapes values, morals and sense of belonging within family, community and culture.
“Creating opportunities for access within communities is shaping these spaces, inspiring stories, and connecting people to each other and to place. These stories map social and cultural demographics of space, mobilize community through shared experiences and reinforce senses of memory and belonging.” (Rochielle, Pg, 106).
“The problems facing the world today cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” Albert Einstein
(Lukensmeyer, J. Carolyn, Dr., Measures and Milestones, Citizen Engagement, The Conference Proceedings. pp, 33-34).
Work Cited:
Marshall McLuhan, Think Exist, 1999-2009,
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/marshall_mcluhan/
Citizen Engagement, From Measures and Milestones: The Conference Proceedings pp. 33-40, published 1997, http://www.kltprc.net/books/mmconfproc/Chpt_4.htm
“Home at Home Are We Really,” By Devora Neumark
“I cannot imagine that peaceful co-existence is possible in the Middle East any more than it is here on Turtle Island. Without a commitment to rectify the wrongs of colonialism and imperialism on both sides of the Atlantic.” (Access All Areas, Pg. 32).
Colonialism and Imperialism has separated many countries and people by the control of others land, indigenous lifestyle, and beliefs thus exploiting the people and land physically, emotionally, spiritually and economically. This intrusion is still going on around the world. I think that instead of getting caught in the past, it might be a time to make changes in the present based on actions of the past. Acknowledging the past and wrong doings to cultures that have and had established roots, values, lineages and lifestyle is what I believe the above quote is expressing. I agree with Devora that shifting ones relationship to the past does embrace letting go of perceptions, acknowledging feelings, and forgiving those that created the disconnect with people, land, place, and home. Yes, it is a symbolic death. A death that is difficult and uncomfortable when self-identity, self-respect, integrity and belonging have been confronted and lost. When self-identity, lifestyle, values, and belonging are in upheaval, briefly or for decades the discontent creates a history of imperialism, colonialism and resentment. This on going colonialism and imperialism reveals the oppression, which can become a forced assimilation that interrogates a person’s ethnic background, religious choice, lifestyle and sexuality.
“So afraid of relinquishing old thought patterns and belief systems that seemed so central to my core identity. I tried to circumvent this process for as long as I could.” (Neumark, Pg, 44). I think that Devora’s words are crucial to healing on so many levels individually, as a community, and globally. But it does start individually, and then the metaphor of the ripple in the pond can become a possible reality one step at a time. Can I/we as part of a global village change belief systems and old thought patterns that keep us separated in a way that provokes fear, which then provokes violence. I believe both fear and violence becomes an ingredient for control in order to mend a broken spirit. Only this ingredient of fear and violence is an illusion. Why is there a need for every thing to be the same? Is gentrification in American communities a modern act of colonialism and imperialism?
I am now teaching a residency in Brownsville, NY, which is one of the five boroughs of NYC. I got off the train and started walking and was shocked that I was the only white person walking five blocks to the school where I was teaching. I was also the only white teacher in the building. I never have felt such a separation before and I have lived in NYC for over 20 years. I was so aware of the separation that it was uncomfortable at first until I started teaching. I was sadly an outsider. Is this separation due to gentrification, racism, or economical status? I think it was all of these issues and I think these separation manipulates and disturbances our psyche. I could feel tension in the neighborhood. I did talk to one of the teachers and asked her about the community. She said, “ This is not my community.” I left it at that. I entered this community feeling very out of place not because I have an issue with difference but because society has placed this insider/outsider mentality within my collective unconscious. I hold compassion in my humanness that we can still be treated equal within the different status compartments we are living in or put in for unfair reasons and false judgments.
I think when Devora speaks of shifting ones relationship to the past; she is speaking the truth on a fundamental humanistic level. Until we can deeply reflect in the truth of the wrong doings to fellow human beings there is no peaceful co-existence anywhere on this planet. I often wonder when the separation will transform between the different ethnic backgrounds and economical status. Can we open ourselves to change in hopes that we can bare the pain of humanity and transform as a global village? Or will our fear, which creates a false sense of empowerment hold us in a pattern of separation that confronts ones race, religion, home, lifestyle and sexual orientation? This confrontation challenges our sense of belonging, which challenges are group and self-identity, which then affects being at home in our mind, body and soul.
“The past went that-a-way, when faced with a totally new situation, we tend always to attach ourselves to the objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” Marshall McLuhan
“Spaces and Places” by Jules Rochielle
“Interstice: An interstice can be defined as a space between things or parts, especially a space between things closely set; a crack; a crevice; and interval.” (Rochielle, Pg, 102).
If I may, I think we all struggle at times in our lives to find a place and voice in society, community and feeling comfortable within our own bodies. When does taking up space within society become meaningful personally and socially? This is truly the journey of life. Jules Rochielle says that she was exposed to art forms…that were not driven by commerce, but by the desire to create social change. I do think both approaches to the artistic life are valid and need to be acknowledged as an important part of society, history and everyday living. I am personally drawn to art that has a great potential for social change, connection and reflective thought that leads to a creative outcome.
“Our projects explored relevant contemporary issues dealing with racial and inter-racial tensions, violence, class, displacement, memory and belonging.” (Rochielle, Pg, 105). I am personally interested in all of the above situations and issues that can affect community life and personal life. The short documentary Collective, which I am doing for this semester, connects to memory, environment and lineage. It has been fascinating to hear about people’s values, lineage, and memories around the art of hanging and doing laundry in relationship to culture and life. It has also questioned my lineage, and stimulated memories of family in my own life. I have found that listening to people that I have interviewed that the memories of doing an everyday task that has a commonality to our humanness shapes values, morals and sense of belonging within family, community and culture.
“Creating opportunities for access within communities is shaping these spaces, inspiring stories, and connecting people to each other and to place. These stories map social and cultural demographics of space, mobilize community through shared experiences and reinforce senses of memory and belonging.” (Rochielle, Pg, 106).
“The problems facing the world today cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” Albert Einstein
(Lukensmeyer, J. Carolyn, Dr., Measures and Milestones, Citizen Engagement, The Conference Proceedings. pp, 33-34).
Work Cited:
Marshall McLuhan, Think Exist, 1999-2009,
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/marshall_mcluhan/
Citizen Engagement, From Measures and Milestones: The Conference Proceedings pp. 33-40, published 1997, http://www.kltprc.net/books/mmconfproc/Chpt_4.htm
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A New Creative Community
Hello Again,
See, I told you I had a few posts for the evening. Hope I'm not overwhelming you with my responses. :)
See, I told you I had a few posts for the evening. Hope I'm not overwhelming you with my responses. :)
Navigating a New Creative Community
Artistic work done collaboratively and in the public for the public has and continues to be an evolving canon of work. Since the rise of the Post Modernist era, artists have been finding ways to integrate art back into daily lives to find ways of connecting meaning to the world in which we live.
Arlene Goldbard brings theory, practice, and social development into the forefront with A New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development. Goldbard’s work traces the roots of her own artistic/culturally-focused practice while connecting with practitioners across the globe in a process that she coins as “Community Cultural Development”.
Goldbard’s work breaks down the barriers between art as a commodity and art as a vehicle for social change. She discusses the need for active community and cultural development through the arts. She speaks of the desire that many artists have to create awareness through their work.
In her introduction, Goldbard recalls a dream that she had in 1968 where she was painting a picture that could put a stop to the Vietnam War. When she awoke and tried to recreate the image on the canvas, it had disappeared. She recalls her feelings of frustration and helplessness. It was at this moment that she realized the power behind collective dreaming. A dreaming that when united could shape and change the world. This dreaming was a way of collaborating to develop culture through community. She writes, “One artist’s dream cannot end a war, but when enough people dream together – when enough people have a taste of wide-awake dreaming to create critical mass – who knows what might happen?” (Goldbard 14)
This notion of collaborative-dreaming, connecting to community and banding together to bring social change through our artistic practices is where I find voice in Goldbard’s work. This is something that I am extremely passionate about in my work. I truly believe that if we find ways to connect with community using our artistic practices and abilities, we can promote a shift and change in our world.
I am interested in community-based work as a way of understanding the world in which I live. I am interested in listening to people’s stories and opening my own mind to these experiences and vantage points. I am committed to being an observer of these narratives and lending my abilities to bring it into the public forum.
I believe that through this type of community-based artistic approach, we can heal together and learn how to live openly and honesty. That is why I think that Goldbard’s explorations are so important to the development of our socio-artistic world. She writes, “…Who has not heard the frequently repeated assertion, ‘In Bali, there is no word for art; everything they do is art’…” (Goldbard 103)
That quotation speaks so intimately to me. As I continue to grow ad explore through my artistry, I see the correlations between my practice and the world in which I navigate. As time progresses I see more and more blurring of the lines between art and life. I used to, and still sometimes do treat them as separate entities; but as I refine and explore, I find the connections to my art in my everyday life. That is why I am so interested in using my abilities to promote the kind of cultural development that Goldbard speaks of.
Goldbard talks of the importance of this kind of cultural development happening in communities of oppressed people. It is here where this type of work resonates the most and is most effective (in my opinion). By collaborating with persons who have been squelched, and providing them with an open ear, heart and methods and/or tools to create can start a very meaningful dialogue; a dialogue that opens a door to understanding and growth.
Goldbard connects the theory of her practice to two monumental Brazilian theorists, Paulo Freire and Augosto Boal. Freire, and educator and Boal, a theatre practitioner both facilitated practices dealing with oppressed persons. Freire brought his work to light in the book titled Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Boal brought his forth in Theatre of the Opressed. (Goldbard 117)
These theories create the foundation of Goldbard’s exploration of Cultural Cmmunity Development. Freire’s theories around literacy shaped the views of oppressed individuals taking their power back. Goldbard summarized the main themes of Friere’s work as, “…without the ability to read and write – to comprehend and interpret the modern world- individuals become objects of others’ will, rather than subjects of their own history.” (Goldbard 116)
Boal’s theories take similar themes and put them into theatrical action and discourse. Goldbard discusses the most influential aspects of Boal’s practice, Forum Theatre. This process embodies collaboration by blurring the lines of actor and spectator. All of the participants are actors as well as spectators.
This approach allows the group to have an active dialogue around the issue that they are facing (whether it be social, political, or personal). Out of this conversation comes the creation of a skit around this issue. This compliments the discussion and allows the participants to have a dialogue through the improvised action that ensues throughout the collaborative theatrical experience. (Goldbard 118)
I align with these theories and practices. I identify with the oppressed from my own personal experiences. I am a person who has been squelched in the past. I have encountered situations where I felt like a complete outsider in society. My experiences with oppression date back to when I came out as a gay man and then got more complex when I re-defined myself as multi-faceted queer person (loving and being attracted to people – not gender).
This identification process was and still is filled with constant struggle. Trying to live in a society that is structured around labels and categories is not an easy place to navigate when you don’t fit nicely into a category. Through these interactions and struggles, I always found my solace in my art. It was the only place where I was completely safe.
Through my theatrical practice I was able to lend voice against the oppressors that I faced in an environment that was safer than the “real world”. I find this vehicle to be one of the most healing and opening processes I have ever navigated.
By engaging in this kind of theatrical dialogue I have been able to open my own heart and share the stories and experiences that are important to me; the stories that were squelched both by the community in which I lived and my own personal barriers or resistances.
This is why I wish to be in an artistic dialogue with as many people and communities as I can. I want to be able to find ways to bridge gaps of understanding through theatre. I want to perhaps foster this process with others so that they can feel the holistic power of the arts.
Goldbard quotes Maryo Gard Ewell and writes, “The true ‘people’s theatre’, as I see it, will be the creation for the community of a drama in which the whole community may participate…” (Goldbard 114)
How true this is! The arts are a way of giving back to the communities in which we live and serve. It is a constant exchange of dialogue and energy. As Goldbard explores throughout her work, it is a way to connect the world. It is a way to bring people together and proactively assist in developing a global community of understanding through the arts.
Participation
Hi Gang,
Below is the essay I wrote about "Participation" for my first packet. I must agree with Laura - I had a difficult time getting through this book; but feel that I was able to get some real good worth out of it.
Below is the essay I wrote about "Participation" for my first packet. I must agree with Laura - I had a difficult time getting through this book; but feel that I was able to get some real good worth out of it.
Collaboration: Intersections with Participatory Art
In Participation: Documents of Contemporary Art, Claire Bishop weaves together narratives and explorations around the meaning of art that engages and is collaboratively created. This series of essays on the theories and practices of participatory art inspire an excellent dialogue around the purpose of art and its abilities to connect community and engage in active discourse.
There has been much discussion around the audience of art and whether art is created to emulate life or vice versa. There has also been much discussion around the separation of life and art. Peter Burger theorizes that art and social praxis can be integrated in society. He states:
For an art that has been reintegrated into the praxis of life, not even the absence of a social purpose can be indicated, as was still possible in Aestheticism. When art and the praxis of life are one, when the praxis is aesthetic and art is practical, art’s purpose can no longer be discovered, because the existence of two distinct spheres (art and the praxis of life) that is constitutive of the concept of purpose or intended use has come to an end. (Bishop 50)
This notion is fascinating to me. As a performance artist, I strive to find ways to engage my art with society. My art is geared towards social involvement and collaboration. There is no question as to whom my art is serving; it is serving humanity. It is a living, breathing entity that can change with the cues of the audience. It is part of the community. it is an active dialogue. It is a complete collaboration.
The thought of art in our world as a way to serve humanity is an enlightening and exciting concept. That is what I feel modern art and participatory art movements are supporting.
We have an innate need as a species to co-exist with the art we create. This co-existence allows the art to take shape and form our thoughts, feelings, and community. That is why Burger’s work is so relevant. If we strive to make connections with our art into our everyday lives, we’ve answered the important questions of what our artistic and social purpose and intent are. For me that intent and purpose is to serve the community in ways that promote and encourage active exploration of self and social awareness.
In my opinion, the focus of art as a social tool, weaving together many different ideas and mediums has allowed us to make much progress in our craft. For example, before coming to Goddard I was set on only being a theatre practitioner. Once I started the MFA-IA program, I started to become enlightened and open to the possibilities of branching out in new artistic practices.
Suddenly, I was not confined to one medium or mode of artistic investigation. I was able to start to take my socially conscious practice and evolve it. Suddenly, I was working in a more interdisciplinary sensibility. I was interested in trying my hand at different mediums of exploration and weaving them into my current practice.
This is what I think the future of art is. It is about constantly finding ways to connect with people and discovering new ways to interact artistically and personally.
Collaboration has always been at the forefront of my artistic practice. Interdisciplinarity is the new road I am embarking on to find new mediums and modes of connecting to the communities in which I serve.
By connecting life and art, it is possible to bridge gaps of understanding through collaborative means. By making art a social practice, it allows us to live and breathe art throughout our daily interactions.
This socio-artistic responsibility is the bridge between life and art. It is how we can make a difference and find meaning throughout the human experience.
Using Art to Engage in Social Discourse
Building off of Burger’s theories around art and social praxis, it is important to look at what artist’s are doing to bridge these two worlds. One excellent example of this is the work of Adrian Piper. Piper used her “Funk Lessons” practice to explore racial issues within the white community, while teaching the basics of funk music and dance to the participants.
Piper used this technique to spark a dialogue and expose her audience to a cultural experience that was foreign to them. This end result of this practice was a collaborative performance piece of funk dance.
Piper used this medium as a way of connecting the participants to black culture and the issues that related to the exposure of this social idiom. Throughout her collaboration with these groups of white participants, there were many intense reactions to the content and themes. Piper writes:
The intimate scale of the dialogue permitted a more extensive exploration of individual reactions to funk music and dance, which are usually fairly intense and complex. For example, it sometimes elicited anxiety, anger or contempt from middle-class, college educated whites: anxiety, because its association with black, working-class culture engenders unresolved racist feelings that are then repressed or denied rather than examined...
(Bishop (Kwon)(Bishop)(Bishop)133)
The above is an excellent example of how participatory art can engage discourse and become a healing vehicle. Through the exposure of a specific art piece or practice, we can collaborate with diverse groups of people and find ways to progress socially.
As Piper illustrates through her “Funk Lessons”, the participants were able to collectively get to a space of catharsis and start to process the intense feelings they were experiencing while being exposed to the cultural elements that induced their reactions. (Bishop 133)
This is most excellent. This is why I create work that engages collaboration within community. I am committed to creating work that asks the audience to be part of the exploration in hopes that it will open their minds and allow them to ponder or progress socially. It is my hope that through my art I am able to promote a space of critical discourse on the social theme in which I am presenting or living with my audience.
Participatory art is a socially responsible way of exploring the cadences of human struggle. It is a way to interact in a collaborative space to create and learn in ways that speak louder than words. It is a way of living artistically and socially. It is the bridge between art and life.
Social Acupuncture
Hi Gang,
So sorry for the long delay since my last communication with all of you. It has been a hectic few weeks. I just closed a fantastic run of "The Producers" and have been trying to get caught up on everything. :)
I have logged on a few times in the past few weeks and must say that I am really enjoying the conversations and writings I have encountered. It is so wonderful to be part of this group.
The talent, thoughtfulness, and mind expanding is running amok on our blog - this is GREAT!
Tonight I will be posting a few of the essays I wrote around some of the readings we have been exploring.
Please feel free to give me any feedback (if you desire - no pressure - just as Darren O'Donnell sets up his audience interaction).
I hope that you all are doing well and that your "packeting" goes well. Let's keep up these fantastic conversations.
Here's my essay on "Social Acupuncture":
So sorry for the long delay since my last communication with all of you. It has been a hectic few weeks. I just closed a fantastic run of "The Producers" and have been trying to get caught up on everything. :)
I have logged on a few times in the past few weeks and must say that I am really enjoying the conversations and writings I have encountered. It is so wonderful to be part of this group.
The talent, thoughtfulness, and mind expanding is running amok on our blog - this is GREAT!
Tonight I will be posting a few of the essays I wrote around some of the readings we have been exploring.
Please feel free to give me any feedback (if you desire - no pressure - just as Darren O'Donnell sets up his audience interaction).
I hope that you all are doing well and that your "packeting" goes well. Let's keep up these fantastic conversations.
Here's my essay on "Social Acupuncture":
Poking and Probing Social Acupuncture
Darren O’Donnell’s work Social Acupuncture is an excellent source for theatre practitioners looking to communicate and connect with audience. His experiments actively explore ways in which to engage audience and community in meaningful discourse while not focusing on the need to dramatize or “create” theatrical situations.
I find O’Donnell’s work quite inspirational. I have been struggling with the way in which to engage audience and collaborate in a dialogue that transcends the theatrical event. I have been stuck at a fork in the road of creativity. I have felt bound to a traditional practice that is dying to be set free into a more meaningful, experimental practice.
When I started reading the words of O’Donnell I felt immediately connected. I felt aligned with the need to use my artistic abilities in a way that could engage. I asked myself, “How can I achieve this lofty goal of promoting social change through my artistic practice?” “Why do I want to engage in dialogue or expose my audience to issues that are important to me?” “What is the payoff in this kind of artistic expression?” and most importantly, “how do I challenge the way things have been done in my formal training of representational theatre?” “How can I innovate my practice to find open and honest dialogue and collaboration?” “How can I make this practice not about ‘me’ or my ‘craft’?”
That last question seems to resonate the most with me right now. Being that theatre is an art form that can and a lot of the time does promote self-centeredness and an over abundant ego, it can be extremely difficult to get to a space where you can remove self-indulgence from theatrical practice.
I think the reason for this is, as theatre practitioners we are taught methods of interaction and falsified realism through our art. What can happen is that when we get really good at this, we can sometimes struggle with shutting this ability off; or, on the other hand, we receive so many accolades in response to our refined skill and craft that we let it get to our head.
How’s that for self-indulgence? By no means am I saying that my craft and/or skills are better than any other theatre practitioner; I am trying to frame a sensibility that I find rampant and problematic with the collective theatrical craft.
I think perhaps this is why I have been interested in working with inexperienced performers. I have found from my own experiences that the more inexperienced performer is more open and willing to take chances. My collaborations with such actors have afforded a deeper connection and collaboration than I have had with some more experienced performers where the ego gets in the way.
At times I have been able to find a collective honesty while working with these actors. I know this all sounds like a lot of generalization; and it probably is; however, I think there is some truth in this. This is not to say that I haven’t had amazingly open, effective, honest, and devoid-of-ego experiences with more tenured theatre practitioners – there is just a rawness that is appealing to me when working with performers who have limited experience. I think this is why I am interested in collaborating with diverse communities and creating work together.
With that being said, I have often struggled with how to approach this. How do I step away from the traditional ties that bind me within my art? How do I get away from me (the traditionally trained actor longing to be in theatrical dialogue with community) and create completely openly, honestly, and collaboratively?
I found many of these answers in Social Acupuncture. O’Donnell’s work has opened a gateway to a world of possibilities for my artistic practice. His framing of theatrical expression through the metaphor of Chinese medicinal practices makes so much sense. This Eastern way of healing and O’Donnell’s use of the art as an apparatus for probing social wellness and discourse is exciting!
O’Donnell writes, “What theatre is really about – like any other form – is generating affect and that’s it.”
What I have questioned frequently within my practice is how to keep this dialogue alive. How can we keep the candle of interest lit? How can we truly make a difference? Until I read of O’Donnell’s techniques of Q&A and The Talking Creature, I was feeling stale within my technique.
I have used my formal training in theatre; a training that embodies created characters that recreate emotion and react to predetermined situations. Though I have found that the traditional practice of theatre has opened a dialogue; I have often pondered how I could take a step further and move into a deeper space and dialogue.
I got very excited when I read of O’Donnell’s engagement with his audience. I felt that his way of interacting and getting to know his spectators was a brilliant way of breaking down the fourth wall. By engaging in conversation with the spectators he was able to bring a personal connection to the performance.
The gentleness of his interaction was something that resonated with me. His audience does not need to respond. His audience is in the driver’s seat and can either take the driver’s or the backseat in his theatrical vehicle. Wow! What an innovative way to mitigate vulnerability and gently encourage the dialogue and interaction. This is the power of theatre in action!
O’Donnell writes, “…the need to divide the experience into ‘part of the show’/’not part of the show’ reveals the desire to keep art locked securely in a category that is ‘not life’.”
O’Donnell partners traditional Eastern medicinal theory to a contemporary western theatrical practice that finds its roots in traditional aesthetics. By reframing and articulating these artistic metaphors and practices, O’Donnell is challenging the way in which we communicate through our art.
He has successfully created a practice of life-infused art that encourages us to look deeper and maintain connection through our theatrical sensibilities. These socio-theatrical experiments and practices have inspired me to branch out in the way in which I use my craft to encourage dialogue.
O’Donnell has opened a can of artistic worms for me; one that encourages me to branch out in different directions and actively explore community through a socio-theatrical and engaging practice. This new facet of practice will continue to open doors and bridge the gaps between life and art.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
A thrilling ...interdisciplinarian--and my new project
Hi folks, Ju-Pong here with another link to an amazing speaker, Margaret Wertheim. I called her an interdisciplinarian because she does not call herself an artist, though what she and her sister have created is certainly art. I discovered the Institute for Figuring a couple years ago when I was surfing the net learning about cocheting natural forms. But I had no idea what a viral phenomenon it had become. This is a wonderful talk, and I think very related to social acupuncture and community engagement. Margaret Wertheim talk
Also I wanted to share what's become of the Abstract that I posted in August. I proposed it for the conference of the Association of Research on Mothering in Toronto and got accepted. But they didn't have room for me in the embedded conference on the gift economy, so I had to revise my proposal quite a bit. I've posted what I came up with on my blog. Please check it out, pass this around and send me leaves! Ju-Pong's blog
By the way, you can view several of my videos if you scroll down, down, down.
Hope all is going well with you,
Ju-Pong
Also I wanted to share what's become of the Abstract that I posted in August. I proposed it for the conference of the Association of Research on Mothering in Toronto and got accepted. But they didn't have room for me in the embedded conference on the gift economy, so I had to revise my proposal quite a bit. I've posted what I came up with on my blog. Please check it out, pass this around and send me leaves! Ju-Pong's blog
By the way, you can view several of my videos if you scroll down, down, down.
Hope all is going well with you,
Ju-Pong
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