Arts and Community Engagement 2018

“I believe that all the truly revolutionary theatrical groups should transfer to the people the means of production in the theater so that the people themselves may utilize the. The theater is a weapon, and it is the people who should wield it.” When one compares this style of theater with Brechtian theater I do not take that comment lightly. This comparison was EXTREMELY helpful for my understanding of this style because I have done my fair share of research into the Brecht style of theater. After reading the article I do see many correlations. Although Brecht never outright stated that his goal was to change the people or even make theater for the people. You can definitely see the influence that his work had. This idea of creating theater whilst the audience gives influence isn’t an entirely lost in today's culture and even vaguely reminds me of how many of our improve troops are set up today. By no means do I mean to sound like I am putting “theater of the oppressed” on th...

“The Joker System provided a perfect aesthetic vehicle to tell not only the story of Rodney King and the ensuing uprising, but a larger, ever changing and ever-the-same, storyo of violence, racism, and resistance in the US. Creating UPSET! In the mode of the Joker System provided a means to incorporate the teens curiosity, dismay, outrage, confusion, fear, and inspiration in relation to the subject matter of the play within the play.” Here's a bit of extra background on the joker system: “The Joker System laid the theoretical foundation for the Theatre of the Oppressed, the umbrella term Boal employed for all his subsequent theoretical developments. Even in the Forum Theatre, his most popular theatrical format, the lineaments of the Joker system are apparent. The Joker System began in 1965, when the Arena Theatre performed Arena Narrates Zumbí. The word “Joker” had, in Boal’s mind, the same significance as the “Joker” playing card, a card which has more mobility than a...

During the reading, I definitely felt the students were given an opportunity to discuss their opinions as well share their feelings and solutions when exploring the lives of Rodney King and Claudette Colvin. When students are given the choice to share their opinions, this encourages the students to interact and connect more with the conversation at hand, this also welcomes the audience to participate in becoming informed. However the joker and chorus roles were without a doubt perfect, these roles play a specific role in which helps convey the message in an inviting way to discuss and provide audience present during the discussions about social issues such as, racism, race, prejudice, and how it was to be an African American during the 50's and 90's.

Inobe~ Schutzman's "What a Riot” was definitely drama therapy and social theater at its finest. It offered the students a choice, an opportunity to tell their stories, share their opinions, express their feelings and solve problems all at the same time as they explored the lives of Rodney King and Claudette Colvin. I found it very therapeutic reading about their process and felt the collaboration portion of the process very powerful. This method allowed the student's interpersonal relationships to be enriched. They could get lost in the characters, lines, and the stories while learning more about themselves and the choices they may have made if placed on either side of history as Rodney or Claudette. The chorus and joker role was brilliant. It helped move to the story along making hard conversations about race, justice and being black in America in the 50’s and 90’s possible with empathy, so it seemed. I will research this piece and work more closely. The the...

Mady Schutzman found a very creative way/tool to tell/create the story. Inspired by TO and it's founder Gustavo Boal she decided to use Joker view to approach the young artists. Joker is someone who in his archetypical nature, tells jokes. His duality and safe dangerous around him is very seductive and that's why it worked well as a turning point in the play. Protagonist - antagonist -protagonist-antagonist = Fast roles switching Black masks - white masks - no masks =  Who cares the masks in society, what is a social mask and how is easy to get one, two, multiple. Is it possible to be alive without the mask? Joker-Joke = what's real?  Chorus= superego in progress (Latino)kids=artists I really appreciate Schutzman first step approaching the material. She asked kids to choose some famous people that they would like to learn more about. That can be an interesting platform for some research about current youth as well as the potential projects in the f...

Assignment: Aesthetic Evangelists - Due 1/30    Three key ideas in the text that resonate with me: The first is the idea of the "new public art," or what we would call "community engaged art." The article discusses the transition from art displayed in public sites to community based projects that have the goal of collaboration and focus more on the process than the end result/outcome. This intrigues me because before this class I was honestly very unaware of this form of art-making and its growing prevalence. Another idea that resonates with me is when the author talked about community based public art of today drawing on the urban reform rhetoric of the past both consciously and subconsciously. This stood out because it's an old adage that history repeats itself and I think it's interesting that the times we live in now call for a callback to this type of work and a more curious examination of what this can do for people and their communities. Th...

Augusto Boal brings the audience into the spotlight and creates a platform for them to engage freely in the discussion and dialogue as well as contribute to the event. It adds the spectator as a player in the game. Seeing the process of creating theater as a language in which one should be literate in is fundamental as an artist. Especially one trying to dissect an issue, the process or development of the piece is seen as the language of telling the story. Thus not being in any way passive but rather through inviting the audience in on the story, we place a responsibility on them to come forward and engage in the work. They are being asked to continue the dialogue or story in the moment as we perceive it. I do wonder if giving so much freedom and responsibility to the audience can sometimes backfire when a discussion turns into an argument or when it deters from the story? How is this dealt with?

1. How often are international works and texts put up as well as how many international actors are part of the company? 2. What do you have to say about the stereotypes of La theatre? 3. What were some of the difficulties you faced in starting the theater? And how were they navigated? 4. How many productions are put up a year?

Many people are asking why mass shootings happen more frequently in the United States. Researchers state owning a gun provides some people with a sense of identity. They also said no other country has so many guns available and so easily available as the U.S.  And that, is as the heart of the problem. I wanted to look at Americas excessive interest in guns, and what the gun means to them.“America does have a fascination with guns that is unlike what we see in any country in the industrialized world,” Alexandra Filindra, University of Illinois at Chicago associate professor,had said about the sate of the issue.  Filindra said it’s estimated there are between 300 and 350 million guns in civilian hands in the United States.Even though gun ownership in America has declined from 49 percent of households in the early 70s to 36 percent in 2016, that also means on average a gun-owning household has 8 to 10 firearms. Filindra’s research has led her to believe that it’s not about securi...

Questions for the Cornerstone Theater: On your website it says you like to include people who have never done theater, do you find that these people typically tend to resist or accept being vulnerable for the stage? Is this a profit or non-profit organization? Do you perform outside of California? Or outside of USA even? What message do you have to privileged communities who are freely able to create art?

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-gun-policy-global-comparisons Statistics of homicide rates, gun usage rates within USA. https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/03/americas/us-gun-statistics/index.html CNN gun facts about gun ownership within the USA. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-death-rates-the-us-is-in-a-different-world.html More gun death facts shoing differences between USA/Canada vs World. http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2016/06/visualizing-gun-deaths-comparing-u-s-rest-world/ USA vs World deaths by guns.

I was a little confused...so is What a Riot! a piece of its own talking about Upset!? I suppose I will first talk about the theatrical mechanisms that were interesting about this reading. The Joker system first and foremost is classic Boal. This allows the reader/audience to be directly engaged and involved with the discussion at hand, in this case it is systematic racism in the United States. I personally, love this kind of theater. Oddly enough I have noticed that my training at CalArts strays away from these kinds of mechanisms. Even for something like showcase, I was told to not break any walls or address the audience in any way, as it would put pressure on them and "take them out of the performance". Does this mechanism put too much of a strain on the audience? Taking them out of the theater and putting them in real "Danger?" As the Joker says on page 7 "Is it here? Or is it gone? That is for you decide!" I think that no director, no matter how sk...

I grew up a lot hearing and learning about Augusto Boal. Theater of the Oppressed is basically theater that brings about social change. In Lebanon, I grew up seeing a lot of street theater that would be heavily influenced by the country's political climate. As a child I had a vague understanding of what it truly meant to be performing the way they were. It wasn't until high school that I started to view Lebanese street theater/art differently. My theater teacher at the time was very aware of Lebanon's political state and introduced us to Augusto Boal and his practices. Since then, I started looking at theater, film and art in ways I could not have before. Almost everything for me became political from then on. I felt that the urgency of art that fits into Theater of the Oppressed is one that is necessary for social, political, and economic change. I try to emulate or reflect the Lebanese struggles of war, poverty and corruption in nearly everything I create, be it satiri...

What a Riot. Upset!  Was created with the Latino students enrolled in the Plaza de la raza program with CAP. This process encouraged the students to look deep into history and highlighted their views and understanding of it. The “Joker system” allowed their ideas to be presented encouraging the audience to participate which started a deep dialogue in which all parties could feel that their ideas mattered. the purpose of this system is to raise questions.  I found the use of this device from theater of the oppressed to be very successful, because it brought the attention to  the process of people’s find their way to understanding not just the outcome of already crafted opinions.  I do wonder what this might have been like if the students themselves created their own material through this process instead of using the layout that was given to them?