i have read the material on ethical guidelines and whatnot. it all comes down to humans respecting other humans with the purpose of building awareness and understanding of each others' experiences. i value the principles examined in these reports and i am sure i will be involved with work that integrates them in the future. although, for my senior project, i do not see myself engaging in any research activities directly related to the situations discussed here.
but i did take a few concepts from the materials which can be broadened and connected to the form that my project is taking which is that of a participatory group effort. if i wish to create an ensemble of artists and performers to help me portray and literally perform my thesis, the successful process and outcome of this project will be rooted in the cooperation of myself and my voluntary group members. in order to achieve this, there must be an ongoing air of respect for each person, their individual perspective and creative process, as well as a shared commitment to a vision of the whole.
a very beautiful and scary element involved here: i cannot do this project alone. i NEED different individuals to become the group that will form the medium of this project. although i have the seeds, my ideas, visions, and conceptual designs, nothing can grow or come into live being without willing and passionate dancers, musicians, and other artists who will feed and give life to this project. and i need not only them, but the people who will form the audience. they are just as essential. the performers and the audience will affect each other, and any connections made amongst us, any genuine emotions evoked and shared, anything that just makes us feel good to be alive will be the end/beginning product (this is a continual process of us all empowering each other to embody and spread more of what we tend to just hope for in the world).
i like this. i like knowing that i need others to create something together that could only become through collective power and participation. i am excited about this process, but also know to expect artistic and logistic problems, big and small, that will greatly affect and shape this experience. the walls we run into during these kinds of things are usually what teach us most....
Monday, January 29, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
ideas or at least a basis for my thesis
ideas or at least a basis for my thesis:
The expression of the human experience, in any form, becomes an entity in itself, and in its existence, having been expressed, communicated, articulated in any form, becomes a tool to change the very experience from which it was born.
Community-based performance, participatory and collective by nature, is an extremely important and effective forum through which political and social reaction and change can occur. I am interested in community-based theatre and performance art as a medium used by a group of people to directly reflect and engage an audience, with whom the performing group shares an identity or story or struggle.....by interpreting this shared experience in an intentionally created space within it, the public can be, in a way, confronted by themselves and engaged in a conversation and questioning of the legitimacy and appropriateness of the political and social structures which govern their everyday existence.
I wish to explore the possibilities and implications of this kind of conversation, one spawned by live performance, as opposed to written word. Live movement, music and spoken word can capture and express emotions, ideas, stories of the human experience in ways that written dialogue often cannot in its stagnant and concrete form. People can become deeply affected and inspired by the affirmation of their connection and power brought to them through politically and socially driven or just any form of live performance art. And often times, this form of expressive art can shake people out of their passive acceptance of oppressive circumstances simply by creating a space in which they can directly witness and feel a powerful connection amongst them.
For this, I wish to focus on such performances and works brought to public arenas, the streets, bars, town squares, any space which finds the regular joes and workers, THE PEOPLE. We have been so successfully bombarded by an ideology of competition and individuality that discourages us from imagining how we could live and what we could do together, collectively. When a group of people, large or small, experiences a show performed by people who in any way affect them emotionally, mentally, physically, if the audience is brought to just feel something, anything TOGETHER, even if its just laughter, we need to be reminded of our human connection, reawakened to what we share. And when we are, great things happen.
I think this idea and form of reaction/expression/activism shows great power to brighten and broaden awareness and understanding about what is going on in the world, locally and globally, as experienced by individuals and communities. Socially conscious performance art, by the people and for the people, in the name of a world where we can love, respect and embrace ourselves and each other, trusting our ability to live better, happier lives together without the shields we have been conditioned to keep between us.
The expression of the human experience, in any form, becomes an entity in itself, and in its existence, having been expressed, communicated, articulated in any form, becomes a tool to change the very experience from which it was born.
Community-based performance, participatory and collective by nature, is an extremely important and effective forum through which political and social reaction and change can occur. I am interested in community-based theatre and performance art as a medium used by a group of people to directly reflect and engage an audience, with whom the performing group shares an identity or story or struggle.....by interpreting this shared experience in an intentionally created space within it, the public can be, in a way, confronted by themselves and engaged in a conversation and questioning of the legitimacy and appropriateness of the political and social structures which govern their everyday existence.
I wish to explore the possibilities and implications of this kind of conversation, one spawned by live performance, as opposed to written word. Live movement, music and spoken word can capture and express emotions, ideas, stories of the human experience in ways that written dialogue often cannot in its stagnant and concrete form. People can become deeply affected and inspired by the affirmation of their connection and power brought to them through politically and socially driven or just any form of live performance art. And often times, this form of expressive art can shake people out of their passive acceptance of oppressive circumstances simply by creating a space in which they can directly witness and feel a powerful connection amongst them.
For this, I wish to focus on such performances and works brought to public arenas, the streets, bars, town squares, any space which finds the regular joes and workers, THE PEOPLE. We have been so successfully bombarded by an ideology of competition and individuality that discourages us from imagining how we could live and what we could do together, collectively. When a group of people, large or small, experiences a show performed by people who in any way affect them emotionally, mentally, physically, if the audience is brought to just feel something, anything TOGETHER, even if its just laughter, we need to be reminded of our human connection, reawakened to what we share. And when we are, great things happen.
I think this idea and form of reaction/expression/activism shows great power to brighten and broaden awareness and understanding about what is going on in the world, locally and globally, as experienced by individuals and communities. Socially conscious performance art, by the people and for the people, in the name of a world where we can love, respect and embrace ourselves and each other, trusting our ability to live better, happier lives together without the shields we have been conditioned to keep between us.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
hey guys,
a bit about what i am thinking or seeing or feeling or doing at this time, in this place......
since falling into watauga the first day here at app, i have found myself within a space of constant exploration of what and how it means for us to experience this world from our specific personal, familial, cultural, economic, geographic, political and social spheres......how these aspects of our existence form different personal spectrums through which our worlds, both as individuals and as cultural beings, are colored. i am fascinated by the myriad of truths, norms and rules that we all believe, follow, and perpetuate through our acceptance, as realized through our thought processes and actions, ones that we are aware of or just take for granted as 'regular' or 'normal'.
in this world, right now, we are witnessing the intersection of people from all kinds of cultural spaces. this is exciting and extremely scary often times, because of the lack of awareness and understanding of the diversity of cultural bases through which we all perceive this world. judgements and assumptions are far too easy make of 'the other' and can serve to only further existing myths and falacies which i believe are the root of so many of our problems in this fucked up globally interconnected world.
developed, underdeveloped.........first, third.........
masses of human beings are being trained to believe in a very simple formula: us, them=better, worse.
it is especially dangerous when cross-cultural interactions occur where the relationships are formed with the purpose of one party supposedly trying to 'help' the other. there must be exchange and the entrance into these very fragile situations must be one of openness, humility, and eagerness to LISTEN and WATCH and ASK. our desires to affect positive change must not guide us to jump in and TELL and SHOW people how to live, as the concepts of success and the best process through which to reach it are very relative to the specific community.
the potential to demean and damage a people is huge, but on the other side, the potentiality that lies in breaking through the barriers of cross-cultural understanding and communication are incredible.
i am individually designing a 'cross-cultural studies' major and minoring in sustainable development and spanish, because of this potentiality i see in us, as cultural beings to connect as human beings. with all of our different scales of time and space, our understandings of our bodies and how we use them, the food we eat, our modes of communication, our histories, perception of the earth and everything else.......there is such beauty in the different ways we experience this world and an even greater beauty arises when we can share and respect this with openness to make change within ourselves and in the world together.
and as i often feel stifled by the medium of just words to express or exchange with others, i am so grateful to have my body as my instrument in receiving, processing my experience of the world and moving in response to and expression of this experience. the manner in which people are reached and affected, the connections that can be made between us are very different when the forum is through movement or music. there are limits to WHO (access) and how people can be affected by an essay or an article. i am exploring ways through which i could possibly bring awareness to the issues i feel need more attention, ways to awaken empathy and remind the disconnected and discontent what power we have together, what amazing creatures we are and how we need each other, not the shit they are feeding us........i wish to put out these ideas through performance and expressive art, brought to the commons and public spaces by and for the PEOPLE not the elite in theatres and not through writing essays which only reach the tiny bubble of acedemia. while i am so grateful to have been lucky enough to have access to and benefit from the academic world, i feel i can give justice to this incredible education by jumping out of the bubble and bringing it to those living other stories.
a bit about what i am thinking or seeing or feeling or doing at this time, in this place......
since falling into watauga the first day here at app, i have found myself within a space of constant exploration of what and how it means for us to experience this world from our specific personal, familial, cultural, economic, geographic, political and social spheres......how these aspects of our existence form different personal spectrums through which our worlds, both as individuals and as cultural beings, are colored. i am fascinated by the myriad of truths, norms and rules that we all believe, follow, and perpetuate through our acceptance, as realized through our thought processes and actions, ones that we are aware of or just take for granted as 'regular' or 'normal'.
in this world, right now, we are witnessing the intersection of people from all kinds of cultural spaces. this is exciting and extremely scary often times, because of the lack of awareness and understanding of the diversity of cultural bases through which we all perceive this world. judgements and assumptions are far too easy make of 'the other' and can serve to only further existing myths and falacies which i believe are the root of so many of our problems in this fucked up globally interconnected world.
developed, underdeveloped.........first, third.........
masses of human beings are being trained to believe in a very simple formula: us, them=better, worse.
it is especially dangerous when cross-cultural interactions occur where the relationships are formed with the purpose of one party supposedly trying to 'help' the other. there must be exchange and the entrance into these very fragile situations must be one of openness, humility, and eagerness to LISTEN and WATCH and ASK. our desires to affect positive change must not guide us to jump in and TELL and SHOW people how to live, as the concepts of success and the best process through which to reach it are very relative to the specific community.
the potential to demean and damage a people is huge, but on the other side, the potentiality that lies in breaking through the barriers of cross-cultural understanding and communication are incredible.
i am individually designing a 'cross-cultural studies' major and minoring in sustainable development and spanish, because of this potentiality i see in us, as cultural beings to connect as human beings. with all of our different scales of time and space, our understandings of our bodies and how we use them, the food we eat, our modes of communication, our histories, perception of the earth and everything else.......there is such beauty in the different ways we experience this world and an even greater beauty arises when we can share and respect this with openness to make change within ourselves and in the world together.
and as i often feel stifled by the medium of just words to express or exchange with others, i am so grateful to have my body as my instrument in receiving, processing my experience of the world and moving in response to and expression of this experience. the manner in which people are reached and affected, the connections that can be made between us are very different when the forum is through movement or music. there are limits to WHO (access) and how people can be affected by an essay or an article. i am exploring ways through which i could possibly bring awareness to the issues i feel need more attention, ways to awaken empathy and remind the disconnected and discontent what power we have together, what amazing creatures we are and how we need each other, not the shit they are feeding us........i wish to put out these ideas through performance and expressive art, brought to the commons and public spaces by and for the PEOPLE not the elite in theatres and not through writing essays which only reach the tiny bubble of acedemia. while i am so grateful to have been lucky enough to have access to and benefit from the academic world, i feel i can give justice to this incredible education by jumping out of the bubble and bringing it to those living other stories.
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