Pre-Finals Week or Burnout

Our final week of class was a positive experience to leave on. I think that we are all burned out, that we are all feeling the slow pull of self preservation as a priority, and that we all are feeling a little guilty and a little sheepish about that. At least, I am. I've been rather spoiled and selfish the last two weeks out of end-of-semester stress and nerves. Even though I know to breathe in clean positivity through the top of my head, I still get caught up in the minutia, the petty stuff. 

Playing games was actually extremely rejuvenating. I've never felt comfortable enough to do improv work like that--usually, I'm absolutely terrified of being somehow not enough or not right. When it's comfortable, it turns out, it's a blast! It's also kind of the next step in the image evolution game where one person presents an image that the other person changes by stepping into it back and forth. The Freeze game that Alex led became almost a dynamized, Stop and Think version of that Image game. 

Exploring what we wanted to be and what we never wanted to be was very interesting and very fun, especially gaining that kind of insight into our classmates. Something about it became...easy. It was like, for a few days, we were sort of released from one another. While we were still cautious to not offend anyone, free play was allowed. We were not ourselves for most of the games, so anything we said or did was part of the world of the game. It was nice to take a break from being busy, scared, anxious people to be just...big kids. It was nice to set aside the mantle of the stressed-out grad student and just....play. 

I also feel like I picked up a few tips on teaching acting from those games. I now feel comfortable in leading a game of Freeze--I would totally use that in a class like 1400. We could have a blast! 

Thank you for allowing us to lay down our exhausted, battered little spirits for a while to play. I know it may not have been the initial plan, but I don't think any of us were strong enough or selfless enough to pull through a Rainbow session no matter how much we wanted to. I think if we had tried, it would have ended up being a less productive, resentful situation. So thank you, Dr. B, for letting us tell you our limits.

Class Right Before Christmas Break

Working on and fiddling with creating an inverse Rainbow of Desire was kind of an interesting process to be part of. It's something that, with a bit of work, could probably yield really positive and helpful results, but I think it would have to happen as part of a two-part super detox. Not only the purgation of the bad that came from the situation, not only a reclaiming of the power from the situation, but also a forgiveness or compassion towards the antagonist.

Reflecting on it, I would have liked to have done it a little differently. First, create the version of the man who told Sarah she was not allowed in the program--just as Sarah describes, to her exact specifications. Then, ask Sarah to create an image of him that expresses and dynamizes the version of himself who interacts with his wife. Then, the version that interacts with, perhaps, students. Then, the version that exists with other men. And finally, the version that interacts with children. Sarah could then create a constellation of how his selves were arranged at the time of the meeting, and then one of how she wishes they were arranged. I'd like to see each of these versions deliver the news to Sarah, and I'd like to see her explain to each of them how they hurt her, to (if she feels capable and powerful enough) appeal to them all at once as a jury. I'd like to see her make her case, cry if she needs to, say everything she never got to say, and be encouraged to say the rude and angry things so that they can finally be purged from her system. Once she's said everything she needs to, each version of the antagonist should apologize to her and quietly persist in this until she feels comfortable and safe enough to forgive them. 

I think I'd like to see that someday. 

Rainbow, 150-185

Section 5 (150-173):

As interesting as the Screen Image activity is, I find Rainbow of Desire to be much more useful, particularly when looking at anger--temper flares or losses of patience. Most anger, I find, stems from fear or exists as a poorly manifested fear-based reaction. It is interesting to have an opportunity to re-trace steps that way and, recently, I have found myself imagining a rainbow of Megs every time I feel impatient or angry. I use them as little stepping stones to get back to the fear root of my problem. Usually I pass through indignance, pride, and then into fear--sometimes deeper than fear down into loneliness or fear of insufficiency.

I like the creation of constellations and I especially like the variation that Boal used with one young woman where she was allowed to bring only the parts of herself that she liked into "battle" with her. I want that for my every day life, and I'd love to work on things like this with college freshmen because they are learning to be autonomous and self-sufficient.

Section 6 (174-185):

I'd like to use the Stop and Think exercise (or at least several stages of it) as a director. It seems like a quick way to pull an actor out of her or his head and back into the present, into the body. I'd also like to have a director use it on me, because I know I climb up into my headspace a lot as an actor--I make it a cerebral thing for a very long time and THEN figure out the energy pattern and THEN the body.

For some of the same reason, I am also intrigued by the Somatisation activity wherein each participant physically feels and demonstrates whatever emotion they are experiencing--shivers and quivers and boiling rage and stomping and ANYTHING, so long as it is hyper-realized, magnified, and highly specific. This can pull an actor into her or his body and convince timid or hesitant actors to push the boundaries so they can be reeled in, which we all know is easier than trying to amp up an actor.

Finally, the Embassy Ball game is awesome. I feel like it would be a good way to explore character--especially in an understated, subtext-heavy kind of show like something by Oscar Wilde--something where the characters are far too proper to ever let loose, but if they did! Whoo!

Rainbow, Section 3 & 4

Section 3 (75-115):

Many of the image games included in this section are mentioned in Games for Actors and Non-Actors. Some of my favorites are Three Wishes and The Image of the Hour--it was interesting to look into some of the variations as more of a step-by-step system and less a use-this-if-it-works system. It's also nice to have a refresher about Image Theatre, though I feel it takes up a vast portion of this section and of Boal's time and energy when he could easily just say, "Please refer to Theatre of the Oppressed or Games for Actors and Non-Actors," but people probably don't typically read as much Boal as we do, either.

The image archetypes found in Alzira's Threat were fascinating--the image of the oppressed as someone unable to use legs or hands--someone looking down or away in ignorance. It highlights the idea that one of the worst forms of oppression is to see it and not try to stop it, but rather to stand by and allow it to persist.

Section 4 (115-150):

I'm specifically drawn here to The Image of the 'Cops in the Head' and Their Antibodies. The facet that intrigues me most is the stage when the protagonist tells each image statue "Remember that time when....and that is why...." followed by the slow movement of the Cops to their original spots, even after being pushed away from them. That slow, surrealist movement is happening at the same time that the protagonist is attempting battle with the very realistic antagonist. In my head, this is gorgeous. I can see it being a very moving experience, particularly the "remember that time" phase of the activity. I like the fact that the protagonist then gets to teach the audience how to fight each cop and gets to watch it all happen--watch peers take up arms for him/her.

Sometimes I fantasize about getting a degree in psychodrama or drama therapy. I feel as though activities like this one would be particularly beneficial. I might use the slow motion surrealism amidst practical realism sometime as a classroom activity to teach about balance and multitasking, though I would probably modify the game to be something like...take care of your little brother so he doesn't get eaten by zombies. Push them off, but they'll come back. The whole time, you have to tell your little brother a story so he doesn't get scared.

I think that would be a very effective multi-tasking game.

Rainbow Pg. 1-74

I know this isn't the order we were supposed to read in, but when I realized that I'd be playing catch-up to read the whole book, I thought it might be easier for me to go in order. I hope this isn't too bothersome. :/

Section 1 (pg. 1-46):

I like the idea of theatre as a mirror where the self recognizes itself on stage and accompanies an other. It's the gateway idea that helps people fall in love with theatre, I think--the idea that the way you interpret something is totally valid and totally unique to you, and other people want to experience it. When my students say things like, "So...even if I don't get what the designer was going for, it's still a good paper?" I explain that if they can tell me why they think what they think, it's valid. Their eyes light up, and some small part within them catches fire. "So even though I might write a totally different paper from him or from you...it's still kinda right?" Even if they never fall in love with theatre, they will learn to understand art in those terms and within those small moments, however fleeting.

I was very drawn to a few quotes, one of which was, "The being becomes human when it invents theatre." It's as though a person is just a vessel, a shell, an empty container until she or he learns to create theatre--to present itself to others and to observe others' presentations of themselves. It's as though that is the moment that the vessel becomes a sentient, capable, soulful creature capable of manifesting, denying, and transforming his or her destiny.

I wonder about the use of the "aesthetic space" of the stage as a "safe space". It is removed from the audience and made magical by its exclusivity, by its telescope effect. Things fall by the wayside and, while watching a performance, we are able to fall away from daily troubles and weave ourselves into the energy of the play and of the actors.

I like this quote as well: "Actors search the depths of the soul and the infinity of the metaphysical." This is in the section where Boal talks about how dangerous it can be to be an actor--how we stumble and rummage through our closets to dredge out all of our demons, embrace them, and show them off for the whole free world to see. It's then up to us to leash them and shove them back into the place that turns fresh cuts into faded scars.

When he talks about the first step of Cops in the Head being Osmosis, or the interpenetration of ideas, I wondered how this might encompass things like microaggressions--the normalization of something other that what one is rather than the idea that anything one is, is normal. "You've lost some weight, huh? You look great!" rather than "Gorgeous as always! As a matter of curiosity, have you lost weight? You look more slender."

Section 2 (pg. 47-74):

I enjoyed the story about the encounter with the mentally "handicapped" adolescents. The idea that Boal treated the assistant the same as the other adolescents because he had viewed everyone as "handicapped" is an encouraging thing. If one prepares oneself every day to encounter only good people, only compassionate human beings, one will treat others as though they are already compassionate and will earn their genuine compassion in return.

I want to note the major rules of Rainbow improvisation here so I don't forget them and so I can refer to them later:
-The protagonist chooses the participants
-The protagonist fulfills the duties of a dramaturg
-The protagonist corrects or compensates for missing information

I found the Morenean Catharsis very interesting. Sometimes, when people are angry, they need to be angry until they burn out--they need to burn until there's no fuel left for the fire. Fiery people seem to be like that--people with a tendency towards anger or rapid temper or frustration. If they are angry, they don't want to be soothed--they want to be as fiercely angry as possible for as long as it takes to feel that they've burned through everything and can start clean.

Oops/Ouch Blanket and Rainbow

Last Thursday, we did our oops/ouch activity. I found it very helpful, actually. I needed a bit of resolution, and I certainly can always use a lot of hugs. I got to resolve my one outstanding conflict, and I hope the other party feels less weighed down by how that all went. Good juujuu all around! I think it was especially important to engage with something like that before heading into Rainbow. My goodness. I think we all would have felt really up tight if we hadn't done something like that. It also had a wonderful effect on the rest of my life--it's good to make a space for peace to happen instead of relying on it to happen spontaneously. I think that's important and a good lesson for a lot of us to learn and re-learn.

I like Rainbow. A lot. It's rough, it's rocky, it's personal. It's kind of all of the things that I love most about theatre. It puts theatre-making in the hands of any person. It doesn't rely on much privilege, and it offers an opportunity to resolve the unspoken or to rehearse (as Melissa used her experience) for future conflicts along the same vein. What I love most is that Rainbow takes this high-art, abstract idea of making theatre and turns it into an accessible, useful practice even for people who have never done theatre before.

Melissa's particular experience is something I greatly identified with. It was almost the exact conversation I was waiting to propose. I don't have a whole lot of unresolved conflict in my life, thank goodness. I didn't open my particular can of worms, though, because my mother got into town on Tuesday and I was in no place to be vulnerable to something like that right before encountering her. The relationships we have with our mothers...they're tough. It's difficult to recognize that someone loves you when what they're doing or saying is so obviously hurting you. Conversely, I imagine it's difficult to recognize that you're hurting someone when you're trying so hard to prove your love to them.

It was helpful to see Melissa's rainbow pan out. I felt that a small part of my own conflict was resolved. I hope that she does well when her mother and aunt come to town for Thanksgiving. I think I'm going to tell her that she can text me for encouragement while they're here--like if she needs emotional back-up.

One thing about Rainbow that really intrigues me is the audience spotter. I'd like to give that a try, so I'll probably volunteer for it in class today. I feel like I want to be a professional spotter. It would be interesting to practice that in conjunction with energy healing, even if only to sense disturbances and "ruffles in the field". I feel like it could be very useful and very productive--I also think that it would be difficult to know what will help certain people. Joshua, for example, is an introvert and needs people to go away when he's upset. Jennie, though, would probably welcome physical contact and a soft voice of reassurance.

Forum Project!

 I thought our forum piece went so well!

It was surprising to me that people told us we were right to stick to our guns--we proved ourselves and proved that our vision can work. Even if that vision is non-realistic. We proved that a non-realistic style of forum can be functional. I was SO happy that it went well.

At one point, it was suggested that we should use a powerpoint to communicate our information about cops in the street versus cops in the head. Looking back, I find this idea uncomfortable. It delineates a certain amount of privilege, yes, but it also implies that I should put my audience in the dark, show them words and images, and then try to play forum games with them. Forum is about communication, about confrontation, about person-to-person being. So why would I want to miss out on an opportunity to look my audience in the eye? Why would I want to avoid exchanging energy with them, smiling at them, welcoming them to a new world of emotional exploration? It just seems like an odd suggestion to me.

The interventions were interesting--it seemed like everyone got an opportunity to combat a specific facet of oppression that they have felt more than the others. I was surprised when V responded and dove in as quickly as she did. I thought there would be more hesitation--I didn't expect her to intervene at all, to be honest. Her intervention seemed almost a little helpless, a little meek. I think Rumor Girl is also one of the trickier interventions for our triad, though, because she doesn't care if what she says is factual. She doesn't care if anyone likes her or not. She just wants to seem knowledgeable and feel confident, probably because some not-so-great things happened in her past.

Joshua's intervention went beautifully, and I am SO happy that he got something out of it, so happy that there could be a learning experience and that Ben was able to dive in like that. I mean, Joshua has a lot of knowledge on conducting a confrontation with a person and handling himself rationally. I would have been terrified if he had chosen me. I am SO proud that Ben just did the damn thing. So proud.

Dylan conducted himself beautifully and genuinely in his interaction with you--finding a common language and agreeing on topics of discussion and prohibited conversation may be the best we can do with Nanas. I thought it was very brave of you to intervene, Dr. B. Knowing that this is one of your hot-button issues and very personal to you means that we know the courage it probably took for you to intervene, particularly with someone as immoveable as Nana. I hope that it was a productive experience and that it helped absolve or lay to rest some of the poisonous things that were said or handed down to you.

I felt seriously empowered that we created a functional, brave, non-realistic, non-ITT format and that our piece as a success. YAAAAAAAY! Snoopy dances! Kermit arms!

Group Work

Last Thursday was certainly eventful. I just referred to it with Josh as "The Alex and Vanessa Yelling Show". We all get caught up sometimes in what we're passionate about, but they were wild, man! I've never had a rolled up piece of paper shaken at me before. Wiiiild. I'll just never understand why people treat classrooms like gladiatorial arenas. If that's how some folks do academia, though, they're welcome to it. It's just not for me--that's all.

So, after the weekend, my group met again on Tuesday. We decided to go to the Berg to talk through some script issues and de-compress. We all felt the same way: we love our script. We're not going to change it just because other folks didn't get it. It's a working system. Yes, it's difficult to demonstrate cops in the head. It's a challenge. And it's not in ITT structure, which seems to be the structure everyone is going for besides us. We altered a few lines to make things clearer, but we're happy with it the way it is.

It seems to Shannon and I that the other groups may be jealous of our group's ability to make "work" and "play" into the same thing. It occurs to us that the other groups may feel threatened or that our pleasant group dynamic may be recalling some fear or triggering some kind of anxiety in them.

I wonder about the bullying group. Their idea requires projections and lights and spectacle. It requires the audience to read social media. It seems to rely on a lot of privilege that may have gone unrecognized. If it were to tour to schools, it would require that the schools have a projector and projection screen as well as internet access to transfer the appropriate documents. It demands a certain familiarity with social media as well as a certain reading level. It just...makes me uncomfortable. I think forum theatre should be as simple as possible. As few props and set pieces as necessary. No person should feel so out of their element that interjecting feels impossible. Difficult, yes, but not insurmountable.

Then I begin to wonder about out piece. It's very non-realistic. I think, though, that when we address that in our facilitation/joker speech at the beginning, it might help prepare the audience for what they are about to see. I think it will also help for us to incorporate our intervention proposals. Our plan is to offer up two suggestions and then issue the disclaimer that these are NOT the only ways to intervene. We will tell our audience that they may intervene in whatever way feels most natural or most beneficial.

We'll see.

Group Work

Group work is a challenge in and of itself. I'm very happy to be in the group I'm in, though. Our meeting today was calm and reframing--we established a time table to get all of our work done and have something really polished to present in class.

I feel like we got a little reamed on Tuesday. I think there were one or two people in particular who have trouble allowing space for mistakes. It seems to be a common theme among a certain strand of people, actually--thinking of things as finished products and handling them as such. I appreciated that you were able to remind all of us that what we were looking at was not a finished product but rather a jumping off point. Even at the stage in the process when we feel like something could be called "finished" it seems inappropriate to treat it the way that I feel some of my fellow students treated some of the work seen on Tuesday.

I think most of that--as I imagine I've probably discussed before--comes from a place of fear. My suspicion is that the fear that brings on that brand of quiet hostility finds its epicenter in the fear of inadequacy.

Today as we were re-framing our piece, we started by building a protagonist. We decided that our protagonist's struggle should be one about seeking information. While that doesn't feel very physically active, it strikes me that many oppressions have been aided by a refusal to supply the oppressed with knowledge--a disinclination to arm the people with the tools of rhetoric they would need to advocate for themselves.

So now our protagonist is a young woman struggling with misinformation and peer pressure on her quest for the truth. The piece begins in a sex ed classroom where a lot of misinformation is being suggested. The scene morphs into a second movement that takes place inside the protagonist's head wherein all of the misinformation manifests itself rather grotesquely in the form of three archetypal personas--a physician, a crone (though we've been calling her a "nana"), and a gossipy best friend. The spect-actors will be offered the chance to choose which entity they would like to combat in a quest for the protagonist's agency in sexual health education. At least, that's what we have for now. It's kind of like Iron Chef, but with TO.

Yowza! Falling Behind Pt. 2!

The train car exercise is like...the coolest thing I've ever seen. What a wonderful construction! It's the most relatable thing I think I've ever seen. Being theatre majors, we probably all had some Dutchman discomfort going into it, but it was wonderful.

I found it uncomfortable when the characters were silenced because I personally find it more difficult to negotiate physically than verbally. This seems like it would be a very valuable exercise for groups of young people. Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops. It seemed like an excellent model of the three-prong structure of writing a Forum piece. Although we didn't get to that point, I can see the initial performance of a piece like this resulting in violence or verbal abuse.

With that knowledge and that experience, we moved into developing our own images for our topic. I thought that our group worked really well together. There's a bit of awkwardness and stiltedness that I think comes from existing in the world of academia--we're scared to step on each other's toes or to do anything that would lead one of our group members to feel discounted or discredited. The fact is, though, I think we're all at ease with expressing ourselves and are all VERY receptive to one another's ideas. Maybe I'll ask that we discuss it on Tuesday. "Assume good will". I think we came quite far in our images, though. I was surprised by how many ideas we had and how fluidly we moved for a few moments at a time. It was lovely--I adore my group.

Shannon joined our group specifically because she sought out the people that she knew she would not fight with. I think we work together well, and we were surprisingly efficient! I'm not usually a cog in the efficiency machine--I'm more of an idea person.

Overall, I think the challenge with our piece will be creating a long enough moment of Chinese crisis that we can entice a spect-actor to participate--they need time to think, Yes! I want to participate--I should go in there and stop this, but...but I'm nervous and maybe I talk too much and maybe someone else needs a chance to talk............no? Well, maybe I'm the only one. OKAY! Long story short, we need to buy ourselves some time in those early moments of Chinese crisis. This will be an interesting writing challenge, although I'm not sure entirely how the writing of the piece will come together. Through images, I imagine. And I'm guessing we'll probably have lots of non-negotiable trait discussions for each of the characters.

Shannon's going to be our joker, which is probably a good thing. She's adept at handling a room of people. Mostly, the writing part is what worries me. If we can get through that without making anything a cliche or making anything too obvious, I think we'll be fine. Here's hoping.

Yowza! Falling Behind Pt. 1!

Yyyyyyikes! I've fallen so far behind now that we only do one blog for reading and one for class each week. Whoops!

So last week, we watched Jana Sanskriti, which was really incredible to me. It was astounding to see into the lives of Indian performers doing exactly the work we're being trained to do. Their performances were beautiful and maintained a lot of Indian theatre traditions. I realized that Forum Theatre is not a style, but is more of a canvas--a structure. It is the bones that the styles and techniques are stretched over. Forum Theatre is a method, a way in--a set of almost universal conventions that allow for different subject matter handled in the most appropriate way. It is a guide to creating a safe space.

I wonder if that part is more difficult here in the United States. It seems that we have a more difficult time succumbing to a safe space for fear that it is not genuinely safe. We spend so much of our lives as Americans being advertised to and spoken subversively to, coerced and convinced. We learn as a second nature to be wary of anyone who tries to lure us into a sense of security and safety because as soon as we unclench, that's when they'll rob us blind or try to sell us on a new religion.

Additionally, the travelers in Jana Sanskriti spent a lot of time in the villages they performed for--they learned the customs and the problems. They learned the people by working alongside them and building that show-me-don't-tell-me trust. I wish we had the opportunity to do that with ITT. I think people would be more comfortable volunteering--it never seems to be a space that is quite safe enough to entice anyone. And using patient silence as a pedagogical tool requires a lot of confidence. Being able to stand in front of a classroom and wait patiently and silently, locking eyes with each student and silently encouraging them to take a risk and chase down an education...that's exhausting! And difficult! I wonder if that would help make the space feel safe, though, or if it would be a situation where spect-actors felt pressured to comply and participate.

I think a lot of it has to do with the energy of the room. I think a joker or facilitator has to be able to read and receive the energy of the room, match it, and guide it upward--out of a place of fear or insecurity or boredom and into a place of confidence and fun and excitement. I hope we can accomplish that with our Forum piece. Shannon would like to be the Joker, and I know she has experience in classrooms, so I think that will be helpful and beneficial.

Once the safe space is established, it seems like everything flows really nicely--like that skeleton of Forum Theatre takes over and guides the story through to the end. The whole process has to take place in an environment of support. It's almost like one needs to lighten the mood and keep the audience entertained while guiding them through their own process of pulling together their solutions to the posed problems.

I feel like there's not as much of a possibility to work side by side with our audiences in structures like ITT as there would be if we were something more like the Jana Sanskriti troupe. I recognize that there's no way we could afford the time and there's no way we have the budget to pull something like that together, but it does leave a kind of nagging longing in me. I'd like to someday try my hand at facilitating. I feel like it might be something I'd be good at. Addressing large groups of people is a stand-by strength of mine, particularly if I know what I'm talking about and have a structure in place for it. Maybe someday.

Until then, the work deserves to be done in any capacity I can assist in.

Class 10/1

I was nervous. I mean, I think we were all nervous. I was especially nervous about the abortion discussion. I know this was mentioned, but it really is a discussion that has SO much to do with language that it becomes almost a roadblock at every word. We want to find the most correct, most inclusive way to discuss the issue without causing anyone unnecessary pain. It's tricky.

Developing a useful and agreed upon vocabulary, though, must be one of the most important parts of a large-scale debate like this. Otherwise, like Chee said, we just end up standing outside of each other's buildings screaming. Which is useless and rude and more about shame than about listening to someone's feelings. How useless and how heartless!

As far as gay marriage goes, it IS an issue of choice. I can say that the only gay wedding I've ever been to brought me to absolute tears. It was my cousin's wedding, and it was over the summer. It was at a place in New Hampshire called Alyson's Orchard--it's a private property that rents out a guest house and a large reception room with huge windows and light colored pine wood everywhere. It was gorgeous. My cousin and her wife looked stunning, and my cousin-in-law's little sister carried a parasol down the aisle before the women entered for the ceremony that said, "Here Come the Brides!" My father was the Justice of the Peace, and I have never seen two people more in love than Barbara and Briony. Nobody in the small town hassled them when they went to pick up the papers for their marriage license. Nobody treated them any differently at the little restaurant on the square or gawked at them when they showed wedding photos to the ladies at the courthouse. For those few days, everything was totally blissful and utopian. I felt proud of that town and doubly proud of my cousin and my new cousin-in-law. I sang Etta James' "At Last" to them while they sat for dinner, and the song has never felt more real to me than it did in dedication to my beautiful cousin and her beautiful bride.

I don't get how that could be wrong. I just...don't. And I'm honestly 100% disinterested in anyone ever trying to explain it to me as something wrong. And I'm okay with being pigheaded about that.

Daily Life

My best friend told me recently that she's been experiencing a lot of anxiety. She's been having panic attacks in her car. Fortunately, she's been going to a doctor to see if she can solve the problem through diet or mild medications. Her next step is finding a counselor that she feels comfortable talking with and  making a steady appointment with that person.

I'm proud of her, y'know? Because a lot of people brush off things like anxiety. They make it out to be a part of life. They make it seem like everyone is SUPPOSED to be anxious and at their breaking point ALL THE TIME. There are people in the business world who think that if someone is NOT freaking out, that the person isn't taking things seriously. WHAT?!

This happens a lot in the university setting, too. I've noticed that we joke about these things more and more. Shannon asked me one night at Life and Lit, "What are you up to tonight?" I replied, "Ah, y'know. The usual. Crying and reading." It's a joke between us now, but I've heard countless people say things to me like, "Well. THAT's grad school for ya," when I talk about being constantly tired or talk about forgetting what it's like to go to a party where nobody talks about work. How odd that we allow ourselves to be oppressed in this way! Why are we built to believe that we must suffer in order to be happy?

When did someone ever say, "You really like theatre, huh? Oh! You like teaching, too? Well. Buckle up and make sure you're perfect at everything or you will be murdered!" Never! So why are we all freaking out?! I have to say that things have become more comfortable in the department--among the grad students, I mean. Something changed in all of us over the summer, I think. Maybe we all realized that it's not worth a damn thing if we're mentally ill by the time we get there. It's an interesting thing to recognize a systemic self-oppression. Like...like a web of people oppressing themselves and all telling one another that it's normal and okay and GOOD. How wild is that?!

Class 9/26

Shannon and Pam were today. I have to admit that I felt largely disconnected from the subjects of discussion. Even having been in some of the images, I just sort of...felt disconnected. I've never had a baby or even been close to someone pregnant. I mean, not enough to be invested in their pregnancy.

And I've never paid for health insurance. I've always been covered by a parent's plan or by insurance through a university. There were a few months between my undergrad and my time at Mizzou when I didn't have insurance, but I'm a very healthy person. I'm VERY rarely ill. If I vomit, it's a big deal. During my entire undergraduate career, it happened maybe three times? And since then, only once. I have some semi-intense allergies and sinus stuff happens, but I'm very rarely sick to the point that I need a doctor.

The alarming part of discussion for me was when the issue became about obesity as a disease. It's not a disease. Fat isn't something I caught from anyone, and it's not something I can give to anyone. It's not something that I can be vaccinated against and not something I can take medicine for. Furthermore, it's not something I feel the need to recover from. That's absurd. And yet, I'm consistently treated like a second-class citizen by medical professionals. Over the summer, I went in to ask about birth control. I've never had sexual intercourse and was primarily interested, I explained, in regulating my menstrual cycle because I had tried holistic medicines and found no success with them. I explained that my diet was better, if anything, than the last time I'd menstruated and that I was getting more exercise daily than the last time. The doctor checked my blood pressure, which was at an ideal place for my age. Subsequently, I was subjected to my SECOND pap smear of the year and was asked to have blood work done. I was told that it was urgent and should be done the next day. I was told that for MY best results, I should begin fasting when I left the office rather than a resting fast during my sleep. My blood work came back beautifully, but I couldn't bring myself to work with that particular doctor again. I felt disgusting and disrespected--I felt ashamed of my body and my blood and my uterus. I felt ashamed of my whole self. For the first time in quite some time, I felt guilty for being hungry. The whole experience was massively triggering, and I still haven't convinced myself to go back, even though I know I can request a different doctor.

I think people underestimate the impact that they have on others. It seems that particularly in high-anxiety jobs, a professional would take an interest in perfecting their "bedside manner". It seems like a person responsible for loving human bodies back to health would take the time to love the person inside of those bodies. At least enough to listen. At least enough to not think my fat is causing a malfunction in every piece of equipment you use on me. And if you stop being able to love those bodies...why be a doctor?

Class 9/24

What really hit home about this class' presentations was the game that Sarah led. I consider myself to be a geek. A reformed geek. I don't know every little thing about every series of Star Trek, but I do love it. There was a time when all I wanted was for my letter from Hogwarts to have just been accidentally delayed. I knew already that I would send back a correspondence that would say, "It's okay! I'll just be the oldest in my class--I'm alright with that!" I knew that I would sell all of my earthly possessions to shop for school robes and nifty secondhand books that would try to bite my hands. I knew that I would study and go to Quidditch matches and scream my lungs out!

So moving through that culture is a familiar thing. I've never been to a Con, but I've been invited by friends. I've seen photos, I know what the experience is. The label I got was Geek Guy. I felt disturbingly powerful. I knew who I was better than, and I knew that people were treating me well. I even tried to pick up a couple of women. I felt kind of infallible. I felt powerful. Nobody was neglecting me, nobody was rude to me. I started to strut. I clapped other people on the shoulders and helped other people avoid the Fake Geek Girl. I sat down to try to help a Geek Girl, but she wouldn't communicate with me, so I left. And I didn't feel bad about leaving. I just thought, "Well, fuck her. I'm gonna go hang out with Nimoy."

When the game stopped, I felt kind of sick. I realized that none of my friends try to accuse me of not being a geek, but they have in the past. I lived with four guys--all geeks in their own rite. Rick and James, who are brothers, were sci-fi geeks who could just be totally absorbed in a new world watching TV or movies. They loved video games. Tristan was a film geek who obsessed over Buffy the Vampire Slayer and could name directors and screenwriters of movies quicker than actors in them. And Adam was a sort of fluid geek. He was up for playing video games or watching sci-fi or geeking out over articles on Huffington Post. And then me. I thought that I was on par with Adam. I hated video games, but I watched TV with the guys and watched movies with Tristan. I even sat around and just hung out doing my own thing while they played video games.

And looking back on it...I'm kind of remembering things. I'm remembering a power dynamic that I perceived. Tristan was very popular and kind of mysterious for a while, but I became quite socially popular in my undergrad theatre department. I didn't fight with anyone and was good at making people laugh or making them feel loved, so they wanted me around. So I became the social one in the house. A kind of socially-capable ruler who passed judgment on what was clean enough and what behavior was unacceptable. But now, looking back, I remember how comfortable my roommates were with me and how sometimes they would joke around, quizzing me about sci-fi. They took the tone of agreeing that things like quizzing girls were ridiculous and joked that I was a girl, so I couldn't play video games with them even if I wanted to. It was funny--they were funny jokes. But now...I wonder if that's how they felt--the way that I did walking around that fake Convention. Maybe they're just good people, like too good to make me feel degraded or shitty and too good to be totally unaware of the inequities in Geek Culture. But they still don't know any other way. There's still a lack of other-shoe-filling. And it makes me wonder if I would have been more of a Geek if I hadn't had to evolve in order to claim my own space and power in the household.

Babbage Chapter 4

Today is the first day of an ITT performance for me. I'm excited and nervous, and there's a tiny little piece of me that doesn't quite trust the process yet, even though I've seen it unfold flawlessly before. Reading the final chapter in Babbage helped a lot to allay some of those insecurities.

I like her compressed version of image theatre moving into forum theatre, and I admire that she includes her own experiences. It makes me feel comfortable as a scholar being in her "presence". As a side note, I will say that most of the class has been referring to Frances Babbage automatically as "he," which is somehow bothersome to me. Not in a hurtful way, just in a kind of sad way. Like...even young women in the class have called Babbage "he". How strange! A highly critical analysis of Boal's work is assigned and we consent to assuming the author of any such book is male. It's sad to think that we've been taught, as women, that these are the things men write. That men write with forceful, opinionated, educated voices. Or just that men write and we don't. It's such a sneaky paradox, because most of our graduate program here is made up of women. Brad, Joshua, Chris, Will, Lawrence. I think that might be all. All the men in our department. There are EASILY triple that amount of women in our grad program, and yet we are all still unknowingly consenting to the idea that men are the ones who write books and men are the ones who can be critical of an established form of theatre. How subversive. How suspect. On some level, that's degrading, and it's not something we even realize.

Sorry. That was a tangent. A useful one, but still a tangent.

I like how Babbage details the warm-up games and tends to qualify her chosen games or activities based on a flexibility of space and bodies and abilities. She kind of hit all of the bases for me--"this can be done with a LOT of people" or "this can be done with people who are physically or mentally disabled" or "this can be done with very few people". Stuff like that. It's a very good resource as it stands for us moving forward into our community workshops. Very exciting and a very quick reference should things function differently. There would be no use in saying, "Oh. We only have five people. Nevermind." I think the spirit of TO dictates that we instead react with, "Excellent! We have a nice, cozy group of five people! Let's do something we'll get more out of as a small group!"

Daily Life Entry

At ITT training on Sunday, we did a step-forward/step-back game. Brad read off a list of statements which seemed to be statements about privilege. I was aware that I stepped backward a little more frequently than I stepped forward. Sometimes I didn't get to move at all. I was aware of a lot of shuffling around me as well--my eyes were closed so I wasn't sure. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised at the number of people in front of me. Astonished, actually. I thought that probably everyone had experienced at least some of the things that I had. Surely everyone has been laughed at or ridiculed because of their body, right? Surely everyone has had to skip a meal or two when money was tight, right? Surely it took everyone a moment or two to decide if their parents really told them that they could be anything they wanted. Right?

Wrong. I don't consider myself an unhappy person. I don't consider myself to be a person who has led an unfortunate sort of life. I didn't expect so many people to be so far out in front of me. I didn't expect to see the pain in Emily's face when we locked eyes from opposite ends of the room. I didn't expect her to cry and to apologize. I didn't expect to have to hold her and tell her that she has no reason to apologize but many reasons to be aware. I've never been aware that so many people had so many more benefits and privileges than myself because I consider myself to be pretty damn privileged.

It blew my mind. It was painful to see Emily so hurt. I saw it, felt it, heard it emanating off of her and out of her. This scared little girl voice that just said, "I'm sorry that people like me have hurt people like you." I wanted to hold her forever and pet her hair and tell her that I don't mind. I wanted time enough to empower her to use her privilege for good--to keep herself healthy and happy enough to give some of her light to others when they need it. I didn't want her to feel so hurt or so ashamed of her privilege. It can be a painful thing to realize for the first time that you have access to more resources and opportunities than the people you love and the people you view as peers and the people you respect and look up to. It can be devastating. I hope that the experience was valuable and that I was able to help her process some of that shock and frame it in a healthy way. She's never abused her privilege and is nothing but generous--I hope she doesn't still feel called out or ashamed.

I'm still trying to process my position in that room. I take such ownership of my size and my appearance that I rarely notice any of it as an "abnormality" or "outlier" position. I don't feel much of anything other than a distanced curiosity. A kind of, "Huh. How 'bout that." I feel the lack of feeling. I wonder if that's healthy? That detachment?

Class 9/19

Some of the images we constructed today really spun some gears around in my head. Particularly the one that I was involved in. I think that being a child victim of sex trafficking is a rough role to fill, but it was very revealing, particularly when Joshua's hand was on my face. As we discussed it afterward, I couldn't really find a way to express the dualities I was thinking of. I hope that this entry is acceptable--I'd like to write a piece. A monologue. There's a lot of duality and a lot of guilt and a lot of misuse of power that can't transform people's thinking patterns, especially if they're young. So here's this.


(A young girl--maybe sixteen? In a safe space some years after being extracted from a sex trafficking scenario. Addressing God or a very talented therapist.)

I know that he's...bad. Evil? I know that I should probably hate him. Want him dead or some shit, y'know. I know that. Like, up here in the front of my head. I know it up front, and I can say the words and tell everyone around me that I'm a new person or whatever--that I'm turning my life around and "just don't want him to hurt any other little girls" or something. I know that. The thing is, though, like--well, look. He was my mom's boyf--no. He was like...probably just a friend or a sure thing or something. Not a boyfriend. So he was like always around, y'know? And it was kind of like he was an uncle or my new dad or some shit like that. And, like. He took me in. Mom left. She just took off one day, and there was like half a package of hotdogs in the fridge and all of the lights were shut off. And water too, and heat. So it was like fuckin' freezing or whatever and I'm like...this nine year old kid living off of some bullshit hotdogs. So when he came by, I let him in. I mean, why the fuck not? Right? He comes in and is like crying and telling me he's sorry and shit. It was scary, y'know? 'Cause I was a little kid, right? And, like, I knew something was wrong. I mean--that I was not in a good situation. I knew something bad was gonna happen. It felt like...whaddayacallit? Yeah. Ominous. And, um. And he just kept saying he was sorry. And he was crying. And he started taking off his pants, y'know? And I just told him how my mom wasn't there. And he kept crying and told me to take off my panties. I felt bad for him. I mean, I was scared out of my mind, y'know? And like, I knew he was carrying a piece, y'know? Everybody did in that part of town. So I took them off and just stood there with my panties around my feet. And he picked me up and set me on his lap--not, like, on his dick, or whatever. Just on his knees. And he set his hands on my thighs, and--like. Okay, it was freezing, right? So his hands felt really warm. And there was this part of me--I guess this really fucked up part of me--that was happy. I mean, I wasn't fuckin' retarded--I knew I was about to get raped or whatever the fuck. But he was so warm and safe-feeling. And like...I felt powerful. Y'know? Like I knew that I was pretty enough to make him stop crying. And, um. Like I know that a kid can't give consent or whatever, but I think I did. That first time, I think I did. So I guess-- (she clears her throat) I guess what I'm saying. (A pause. A trembling lip.) I know I'm supposed to know that it's not my fault, but I think it was that time.

Daily Life Entry

Today I referred to myself as "fat" while talking with a friend.

For me, body type is an issue of identity the same way that sexuality and gender pronouns are issues of identity. So I identify as "fat", as "straight", as "female". "Fat" is part of my identity. It's something that was used against me when I was younger, something I felt ashamed of, something I hated about myself. The most powerful form of subversion is reclaiming, and that's what I've done. I don't waste my time sitting around wishing that I were slender anymore. I don't cry in dressing rooms anymore. I don't hate my body or fantasize about a magic knife that I could use to lob off pieces of my arms or my stomach or my ass. Not anymore. So, for me, the word "fat" is a war cry. It's a power ballad. It's a call to arms--be they slender or juicy. I don't stand behind euphemisms anymore. I identify my body as "fat" to challenge the perceptions of others. I stand and say, "I'm fat," and look fabulous, and I hope it makes people angry. I hope they get riled up and flustered and register for once that they are afraid that my body might be acceptable and that they have just lost their power over me.

Today I referred to myself as "fat" while talking with a friend. We were laughing. She stopped laughing. She stared at me as though I had slapped her or disparaged my own beauty. She said, "You know I don't like that word. I hate that word. Don't ever say that word around me."

I felt hurt. Hadn't she heard the triumph in it? Hadn't she seen my war-paint stretch marks and heard my battle cry? Hadn't she vibrated with the radiation of my self-love?

No.

And I felt hurt. And then sad. And then ashamed. And then angry. And then hurt. It's only just now that I've realized that she doesn't like that word because she's scared of it. She fears it. It's only ever been used against her and never to praise her. It still sounds like a gunshot to her, like anguished screeching--not a battle cry. Stretch marks still look like slashes in the skin of a vulnerable child from the cutting eyes of others. She wears no war paint, makes no battle cry, and furthermore does not want my protection.

Today I referred to myself as "fat" while talking with a friend. She's in a different place on her journey, and I hope she can become her own army one day.

Class 9/17

Today's class felt sort of jilted. Sort of stop-and-go. Like a video that kept stopping to buffer. Or like when a storm makes the cable go all laggy. I think we were sort of disconnected, not incorporated. I wonder if it was because there was no warm-up game? I wonder if maybe I'm the only one who felt this way? Something didn't click--didn't settle. There were unassuaged insecurities leaking out of classmates and coating the room with anxiety.

I think, in short, that it's a good time to start our independent projects. I think it's a good time for us to play around and figure out by leading and facilitating what works versus what doesn't work for us personally. It's also the first hurdle of the semester workload-wise. While TO is a consistent class, many others are ramping up for midterms or papers. Maybe today we all just needed some decompression time. The rain should have helped, but maybe other people don't react to rain the way that I do.

Image theatre can frazzle people. It seems that it needs to be very all-or-nothing. The alternating back and forth between speech and silence can be dizzying and disconcerting. I think that when I lead an Image Theatre exercise, I will probably have it done completely silently. I think I trust our class to "riff off of" each other the way that Peter talked about. Energetically. I think we can all radiate and receive quite well, and I think we can feel out who would be next to stand up and alter an image. After we arrive at the anti-model that nobody wants to change, we can discuss it. If we don't arrive at that anti-model, I think we can discuss WHY it's difficult to arrive at an anti-image. There seems to be no throwing the baby out with the bath water in Image Theatre. I think any conversation generated through the activity will be fruitful and engaging and can get wheels turning and stimulate individual and possibly group growth.

I'm nervous, but I think it will turn out well. I think I'm going to do a heads down sort of situation. We'll see how things go. I hope I'm not the cause of a breakdown, but if I am, then I hope we come to view it as a breakTHROUGH. And I hope that there's time to wind love around that person and help them know that they are safe and loved and beautiful.

Fingers crossed. Dive in, Davis.

Daily Life Entry: Fast Food

On Saturday, I agreed to help Will as an actor for his group playwriting project. I rolled out of bed less than 45 minutes before I was supposed to be at the rehearsal. I was probably a little bit hung over. I didn't eat breakfast. I showed up to the rehearsal with half a can of Diet Coke, in flip-flops and jeans.

The rehearsal process was trying to say the least. There are five playwrights all trying to work together, several of whom know absolutely nothing about the world of theatre. They elected Will to direct the piece. Then they tried to jump in and take over. As an actor, this was confusing. As a fellow director, infuriating. Actors already have another person's thoughts and movements swimming around inside their heads--they don't need four or five external voices, too. It was, in a word, a clusterfuck.

After the rehearsal, I realized how hungry I was. I drove Will and Shannon to Burger King with me and finished the second half of my Diet Coke. Caffeine addiction is a bitch, but it's the path I've chosen, so...so be it. We get to the drive-through and the person taking our order is talking very loudly, which is not helping the hangover or the caffeine withdrawal headache. I ask her very clearly for two separate orders. The voice that comes back through the speaker belongs to a new person, a different person than the one before. I give this second person the orders. She says, "One moment please." Okay. No big.

A third voice comes out of the speaker. A man's voice. He reads the order back to me. "Those are separate orders," I say. I'm never rude to people who are getting paid minimum wage--it's very important to me to ask how servers are doing, ask their names, tell them to have a good day, and just generally give them a piece of light. On Saturday, however, my rope was fraying. Fast. The man asks me to specify which order is which, and I do. My voice and my smile are tight, twitchy, and a little sardonic in that Southern bless-your-heart way. By the time I got around to the window, I was happy to pay and be on my way.

As I drove Will and Shannon home, I apologized for being cranky, and we all began to dissect the systems of oppression at work. I know that there's a corporate somewhere that oppresses the purchaser of the franchise who oppresses the general manager who oppresses the shift managers who oppress the long-term employees who oppress the new employees who are told right there at the bottom of the food chain to smile and be a shining example of customer service. I felt oppressed, but was I actually the oppressor? The one paying for services rendered by employees. After all, didn't I have the power?

Shannon ultimately decided that money was the Great Oppressor, which I agreed with (probably because I'm walking the line to broke). I think that bottom rung is tricky, though. There are lots of trade secrets and corporate hush-hush that happen at that lower level. Things like up charging and up selling and secret back-room stock. I think it depends not only on who has the power, but how the power that is possessed by either party is being used.

Babbage Ch. 3

I found this chapter EXTREMELY intriguing. It's interesting to read about how seamless Forum Theatre can be if the Joker is willing to go with the flow and if the actors are good at playing along with the ideas of others. It's hard to imagine situations in which Forum Theatre would go poorly, but I'm sure there are some. It seems that it can be a very empowering experience at a grass-roots kind of level. I'm amazed that Boal did these activities with whole towns full of people--it seems as though it would become crowded or too hectic. I think the Joker or facilitator has to be a very specific kind of person--a person with both organizational skills and interpersonal skills.

I'm very excited to begin my own journey through Forum Theatre. I'm so eager to get started with ITT, particularly after the performance I saw over the summer. It was extremely invigorating and made me feel passionate in a way I didn't expect to. Reading the stories in this chapter about homeless or de-homed activism and learning disability activism was inspiring and refreshing in the same way. It makes me want to explore Forum Theatre with middle or high school students in New Orleans--to go back to the confusion from Katrina. They would have all been eight years younger then, and I think it's important to re-visit and unpack highly emotional events like that.

For example, every few years, I take a few nights to retreat into myself very quietly and remember everything I can about the events surrounding my parents' divorce and my kidnapping. I relax myself, meditate, and allow myself to remember and to feel vulnerable the way I did when I was seven or eight years old. Every year, I remember some brief image or some dialogue I'd forgotten. I incorporate them and try to make sense of them. I let myself cry, and I let myself acknowledge that I probably should have had more careful supervision at that age and during those proceedings. I find it very helpful to re-visit and to try to piece everything back together.

That's what makes me wonder if it might be helpful for young teens and high school students to sort of time travel and to re-discover Katrina not through the eyes of the media or of their parents, but rather through their own eyes at the time. Forum theatre, I think, could be a very useful and integral piece of that process--being able to step into a role with given, common circumstances and being able to acknowledge and realize your own power or your own helplessness. Do you know of any similar work currently being done in such a way? Is there an additional component to "group trauma" type situations?

TO, Chapters 2 & 3

I feel like Boal's writing style fluctuates between being matter-of-fact and being jargon-heavy. I feel as though I frequently frown and squint at pages and pages only to have a concept explained very simply shortly afterwards. Maybe it's just how I'm perceiving things, though.

Boal gives one of the clearest definitions I've ever heard for Romanticism, which I found wonderfully useful. It's a movement/genre I've never quite been able to wrap my head around no matter who taught it to me. What struck me most was the phrasing and generalizing. Typically, I think generalizations are not in a student's best interests, but sometimes they complete a learning web--especially when they fall right into the center of one. He says, "It was an attempt to solve in the field of the spirit the problems facing men in society. Everyone, without distinction, could aspire to spiritual perfection, even if he were poor like Jean Valjean, deformed like Rigoletto, or a pariah like Hernani. Men, even though hungry, must preserve that marvelous thing called spiritual freedom."

I mean, what a concise and brilliant definition. I've been shown examples of Romanticism, but have never been quite able to get at the source or feel honestly confident about the aesthetic elements of using Romanticism on stage. Though perhaps not the most TO-ish realization, this was very helpful to me.

Another instance in which Boal makes himself very clear after unpacking jargon-laden concepts is when he describes the difference between epic poetry and dramatic poetry. He says, "Epic poetry 'recalls'; dramatic poetry 'relives'." Genius. Seriously. Honestly. Genius. It's like there are little nuggets of information spread throughout this discussion of large-scope storytelling. He not only concerns himself with works of theatre but also of literature and film. At one point, he even discusses Sesame Street. So while his scope is seriously intimidating, he also has some wicked insightful tidbits!

Brecht's theatre hinges on greater forces acting on individual characters. I don't think this means that a particular character "stands for" or "is representative of" a certain type of evil or ill-intent. I think that it approaches its characters rather as people battling their own separate oppressive forces, which is contrary to everything I've been taught about "epic theatre," I think. I feel like I've always been told that the characters are shallow and symbolic, but I think now--after reading all Boal has to say--that they are characters who are helpless (more or less) against their oppressors or the larger systems that oppress them.

Class 9/12

We continued our foray into image theatre, and it clicked a lot better today. We started with an activity that Pam led which was the embassy ball. It was about releasing inhibitions via cake. I think we all treated the "cake" like shots or mixed drinks. My loss of inhibitions included me telling off Chee for saying that he doesn't like cake. Uninhibited me thought that what he said was very rude because Pam obviously made this delicious cake for her guests and invited us all, so how rude of him to talk poorly of her cake! Lynett came over to help me yell at him until ultimately I got tired of that and went to stand in the middle of a group of people. Alex came over to sleep on me, so I picked her up to dance.

What struck me about this activity was that I actually willed myself into drunkenness. I don't remember the in-between moments so much. I remember trying to soak in what people were saying but being mostly deaf to it in favor of trying to listen inwardly to the desires of my self. It was VERY strange to feel drunk sans booze. It was also interesting to discover how difficult it can be to dig through our own self-oppression and hear the truth of our desires underneath.

We moved on from this to image theatre. For whatever reason, I have a very difficult time with the idea of not speaking AT ALL. I think there are certain exercises that I'd like as warm-ups to image theatre. Exercises that employ silence and help me feel that words are not necessary to communicate my ideas. I think that there are "fire" people and there are "earth" people--and this might get a little Wiccan. But I think that people like Joshua are fire people in that they are very decisive very quickly. It takes next to no time to decide what needs to be done about a situation and then act on it. For people like me--"earth people"--it's different. I need to plant myself in a problem and slowly examine everything around me until I can come up with a list of possibilities and then begin to sift through the probable outcomes until I find the most appropriate and set it slowly into motion. Image theatre is probably easier for people like Joshua than for people like me, but I do appreciate the idea of moving the energy of the room into a different fixture. I think it's probably possible to imbue your model with certain energy patterns as well as body positions.

By the end of class, I understood it, felt the rhythm of it, and enjoyed it. I'm excited to continue work on this form and in others--I just might take a little longer to understand the rhythms of it.

Class 9/10

Sarah led us in a game where we had to hold perfectly still so that other players who were acting as bears couldn't detect any movement. It was a game of survival. Alex growled, Cat laughed. So Alex and Cat were prowling and their energy felt so ticklish that I started laughing without either of them touching me or making bear noises at me. I became a bear. Which, I have to say, was a hell of a lot more fun than lying on the ground being a human. I got to try tactics out on people like poking them, sniffing them, nudging them with my feet, tickling them. At one point, I got Kelsey out because I laughed at how much fun we were all having. My laugh made her laugh, and I got her out. Weaponized giggles!

I think the game could have gone much differently if we all took it quite seriously, but I think a lot of meaning was still conveyed through it playfully. Sarah led a very open-ended sort of discussion afterward, which I appreciated. It was so on point that Barbara jumped in and segued the game discussion into the class discussion. Excellently handled!

We worked again with image theatre. So we decided to develop images based on the idea of the "oppressive classroom" Alex called me forward and sat me on a chair, head slightly disinclined, hand out as through writing with a pencil. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her grab Chee from the front row to use him as another figure in the image. She put his hand on the back of my neck in a place that could have been easily mistaken for my shoulder. Then she had him stand quite close to my back, and put his face down quite close to mine but still higher to invoke a sense of power. I was immediately terrified. I couldn't look into his face because of the way we were positioned. All I knew was that I was being touched from a source standing behind me and that the other person was a male with a lot of power that I didn't have any of. I felt helpless and trapped and scared while everyone in the class sat and stared and murmured quiet appreciation of what Alex had done, congratulating her without words.

While I knew the whole time that I was in a safe space and that Chee would never do anything to hurt me or scare me or rob me of power, the role and context that I was dropped into were enough to make me tense. Later, when we talked it through, Pam mentioned that she thought it looked like Chee was helping me or guiding me. Chee hadn't seen anything inappropriate in the image. In fact, when I mentioned how inappropriate it was, the whole class had a bit of an "aha" moment. I was bewildered. Had nobody else noticed how close he was? Seen where his hand was? Seen the fear on my face when I could hear his breathing? No. It looked, from the outside, like assistance. Guidance. Like a well-intentioned man assisting a student. At worst, they thought, a man forcing his own ideas onto a student.

When we don't ask the oppressed person, we don't get the terror of the truth, perceived or real. Perception is just as important as reality. If what Chee intended was to help me write a paper but I perceived it as a sexual advance, there needs to be an open, EASILY accessible line of communication through which to debrief the situation. I don't have a history with sexual abuse, but I was terrified in that role and context.

We must learn to actively seek out the opinions and thoughts of oppressed identities in any given space. Allowing a place for them to speak freely is a step, but we must turn ACTIVE ATTENTION to them.

Daily Life

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the systems of oppression that I perceive in my environment versus the systems of oppression that are actually intact.

For example, during my preparations for the Irene Ryan acting scholarship auditions, I perceived that I existed in an environment in which my acting partner would have to work particularly hard to convincingly be in love with me--with my body--with a body that lies outside beauty norms. I wore makeup to all of my rehearsals and perfumed myself with apologies for my form. I did everything I could think of to make my body somehow easier (from my projections onto him) to love.

At one point, right before performing in Rhynsburger, I was reading him something I'd written from my character's point of view--saying things like, "I know you hate me secretly, I know you hate my body, hate my booming voice, hate the noise I make when I stomp around, hate my heaviness, hate my gracelessness." My acting partner took my phone (which I was reading off of) out of my hands and put his arms around me and let me cry on his chest. That was when I understood that by apologizing for myself in all of those subtle ways, I'd been hurting us both. How hurtful I was to him! To assume that he was shallow enough to lack the capacity to love me--to access that part of his self and act through it. How callous to assume that he couldn't do his job well enough so I had to cover myself in makeup and perfume and move in ways that I perceived to be "sexy" through the lens of the beauty industry.

Currently, I'm perceiving in my environment a system that holds me to the standards of high academia. My mind and heart know that the last year has been intense. That I've learned some of how to be an academic and how to be taken seriously. I will continue to learn through this year, but I feel like I'm being stretched in ways and places of my mind that aren't stretchy yet--that haven't stretched in a very long time and might break under the tension. How do you say, "Nevermind," after everything you've promised your family and your self? How do you admit to not being ready for something so fundamentally a part of the world you want to belong to?

I'm wondering, I suppose, whether I'm perceiving things accurately within the department or whether I'm perceiving them through fear. Fear acts like a funhouse mirror and distorts perceptions of opinions and positions and power. I wonder how we can really know if we're perceiving things accurately or through fear.

Reading for 9/10

In chapter one of Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, he essentially takes Aristotle's ideas in The Poetics and shows his audience how those ideas about what makes good theatre actually transform into a manipulation of the audience's sense of virtue.

Given the chapter overview in Babbage, I hadn't realized that the format Boal uses in this first chapter would be so similar to that of Aristotle--short descriptions of what terms actually mean, explaining the process of how things are transmitted to and transformed in the minds of the audience, a look at which ideas are better than others and why--VERY reminiscent of that ranking system that Aristotle is so fond of in The Poetics.

I think the relation of Aristotelian theatre to Western films is the strongest analogy given--perhaps just because it comes after all of the unpacking of those heavier ideas of virtue and happiness, but it just seemed...simple. It seemed almost like that could have been the only paragraph there to make me understand why Aristotelian methods are manipulative and unjust.

One thing I really enjoyed was something I found in the section on happiness. It says, "...the superior level of happiness is that of the man who acts virtuously and asks no more. His happiness consists in acting in a virtuous manner, whether others recognize him or not. This is the highest degree of happiness: the virtuous exercise of the rational soul." It strikes me as something I would see on the twitter account of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (which I follow). And it's true. There's something about being happy enough and having enough of your needs fulfilled that your true happiness can come from doing kind things for others without making mention of them or needing recognition for them. It's--if we all took good enough care of ourselves, we might all be able to sustain the kind of happiness if would take to transform our society through random, simple, small acts of kindness and love.

Class 9/5

We did an appearance-observation activity where we were asked to study a partner while a partner studied us. We then turned back-to-back and changed two things about our appearance, turned back around, and had to spot the differences on our partner. Within two or three partners, I learned that I am very good at this game. That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm good at it in everyday practice, but I think I'm relatively observant of others--of their habits and appearances. I understand, though, how small differences could make big changes in the composition of a person. I don't think I would have noticed someone's expression--I would in everyday life, but not in that activity. I suppose it all comes down to focus.

Another activity that we did was the glass cobra. I really enjoyed the glass cobra because it gave me an opportunity to identify a person based on a part of her that was typically unseen or not focused on. I also got to lead a swath of people into the line to re-form the cobra. I felt protective of them and moved in slow, gentle waves while searching for my partner so that the people at the back of my line wouldn't feel flung around. It was interesting to hear how everyone else found their partners. By feeling arm after arm, taking that as a sign that people were connected where they were supposed to be--it's intriguing because of the inherent trust in saying, "This person can't be mine because they have already found the right person and have already been found by the right person." It's as though nobody ever thought, "Perhaps this person is mistaken." Very interesting.

The statue garden was interesting. I like the idea of molding without touching, but I think all three techniques can be used interchangeably to great effect. Molding a person into a position was fun, but I was concerned about my partner's comfort, so I tried to give her something relatively easy to do. Once we were told that the statues were a gallery, the whole game took on a very different feeling. I wandered around careful not to abuse the power of my gaze. I studied my friends, appreciated them, performed my appreciation by nodding and smiling and going, "Hm." Then when I was molded, I felt this dreadful anticipation that I would ruin what Lynett had intended--that I would do it wrong and misrepresent my artist's vision. I don't frequently feel this way as an actor, so why as a sculpture? It may have had something to do with the position that she placed me in--one where I was crouching and looking up into the eyes of my audience. It was a little scary--made me feel a little anxious.

The image improv game that we played was a very fun one. Ben did a wonderful job finding places to fill in--I know it shouldn't be impressive, but seeing people who don't identify as "theatre people" doing well at theatre activities impresses me and almost makes me feel strangely proud of them. It's odd. It was a good game, though, to re-interpret and to re-calculate and re-calibrate. It was nice to push yourself into a different view of things and to know that individuals are capable of mentally occupying more than one interpretation of a thing at a time.

Dynamizing was good to learn. The most interesting part was trying to find people who I thought were responding the same way I was only by seeing them as a solid, single image. I was very nervous about finding the right group, hoping that my slender view of them told me what I needed to know and that our points of view would line up. It's like allying yourself with an organization or finding a spot within a school, church, or organization. Your first view is difficult to trust because you KNOW there's more under the surface, but you only get one quick glance the first time. Scary, but if a place advertises themselves truthfully and your interpretation follows their model, hopefully you can end up in the right place. Once others began moving, I realized I'd usually found the right group. It's a challenging concept, but I think a very important one to consider.

Class 9/3

In class, we first talked about what the word "oppression" means to us. The general consensus seems to be that it is a phenomena that occurs in non-consentual situations wherein one party wields power to its own advantage over another party which may be denied rights or benefits due to the actions of the party with the power. 

The tricky part seems to be the "cops in the head" part. What happens when the party wielding the power is your extroverted self and the party that it neglects is the introspective self? It's harder to stop civil oppression within the self than to make an effort to assist with the oppression of others outside the self. Most people I've known seem to want to help others, but it's seen as shameful in our country and society to talk about helping ourselves. It's viewed as a luxury instead of a regular part of surviving as a human. We feed ourselves. We drink water. Why don't we feed ourselves positivity? Why don't we drink light? Why are THOSE things seen as selfish? It reminds me of an Alan Watts quote:

"Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.' "

After our discussion, we played the car game. We each got to drive around our partner and each got to be driven around, blindly. I got to parallel park Sarah, which was pretty cool. The instructions on backing up in a particular right or left direction weren't specifically given, but Sarah seemed to know what I meant. It became very easy and natural to move her--the only problem was when she seemed to not feel me let go or didn't feel me push her back to begin moving. I'm glad I don't have to communicate with my car in real life. I think things would be a lot more difficult--it might be why I get nervous driving a Segway. :P

We then played The Great Game of Power. The set took quite some time to establish. I think it would have been a lot easier to do with children, actually. Adults get into their own heads very much. It was a good way to demonstrate, though, that perceptions can be RADICALLY different from person to person, history to history. Once the set was established, we added our own bodies to the image to take power away from one another and apply focus to ourselves. I enjoyed everyone's interpretations of what it meant to take away power. My own involved removing Dylan's glasses and shielding his eyes. When one is denied sight, I find it very limiting and very oppressive in many situations.

Class 8/29

Thiago led a really good exercise. Everyone seemed kind of flustered that he hadn't thoroughly explained the directions, but it seems to me that there's a lot of limited explanation in TO games and exercises. I actually enjoy not having a very clear explanation--to an extent--because it offers an opportunity to get to understand how other people interpreted the same ideas in so many different ways.  I think that's part of the spirit of that particular exercise as well. And even when something doesn't go according to plan, it doesn't mean we can't learn anything from it. It just means that we have to take a step back and reframe our understanding. I think that "reframing" is a very valuable skill in both education and in life. I believe that it takes Westerners and particularly Americans quite a bit of time and patience to learn to not handle "reframing" aggressively.

We have a tendency to become frustrated, to struggle against the natural flow of things in favor of the path that we initially decided on and decided to control. When things are surprises (like multiple interpretations of an activity), we treat them as unwelcome guests in our lives instead of taking a few moments to fluff the pillows on the guest bed and rinse the china we use for good company. We hinder ourselves in this frustration--we spend so much time and energy trying to force and manipulate our way back into what is expected. Why not use that effort to reframe, recontextualize, and recognize that the moment we are in will never exist again? Long story short, I was proud of Chee for the confidence it took to lead a physical exercise without over explaining.

Cat blew my mind. I've never trusted anyone to hold my full weight. I mean, not since I was very young. I got a little misty-eyed, I'll admit. I was really glad that I got to work with you during that exercise. I'm confident in my abilities to hold others, but very skeptical of others holding me. Years upon years of body shaming and shopping with a mother who was shamed for her own body--it's difficult to imagine people holding me up. Sometimes it's difficult to imagine furniture holding me up. I'm always VERY hesitant to sit on unfamiliar furniture. Strange how much our own insecurities can impact our worldview. Either way, if there was anyone I felt comfortable with, it was you and Cat, so that worked out very nicely.

The machines were very interesting experiences. The war machine got everyone a bit riled, but perhaps that was more discussing the IDEA of war than the actual exercise. It was difficult for me to find a place to fit into the war machine. When we built the peace machine, however, I had a very clear idea of where I could go and how I could contribute to an atmosphere of betterment. I feel fortunate for that. During the discussion afterward, though, I hope I didn't sound like an aggressor. I realize that I didn't complete my thought about the passivity of our culture. What I meant was that we are often content to watch a brief news package about an issue and then change the channel. I felt that Jennie and Ben sort of took that out of context and responded as though I had tried to say that monetary gifts and messages of love were unwelcome in favor of actual hands-on work, which is not what I meant at all. I hope I didn't hurt them. I know my tongue can be sharp sometimes, especially about Katrina, especially on the eight-year anniversary of it.

French Telephone was a VERY welcome change afterward. It was nice to laugh recklessly and sort of cough up all of the pain we'd just ingested from one another. Very healthy. Thank you for that. It was wonderful and exactly what was needed.

Reading 8/29

It's a bit of a relief to not have to read Babbage for today's class, I have to say. Frances is a little bit intense, I think. Valuable, but just...WAY dug in. I'm liking the look of a lot of these games but not feeling totally confident in leading them necessarily.

One thing that keeps bothering me--and we brought this up for a moment during class--is the athleticism expected for a lot of the games. We discussed this in the context of the disabled and making modifications, but as a fat-bodied woman, a lot of these games seem kind of tricky. It seems almost Grotowskian, this dedication to athleticism. It seems like a curious thing, because as an American, I'm used to a shelter system in a city being host to many different body types. The available food in the United States is not good quality, and the cheap stuff is full of chemicals that can do horrific things to a body. Many of the oppressed in our country are probably disabled, as well. If we think about Veteran homes and the amount of physical disability present, it seems like the modifications of these games would have to be pretty intense.

I also wonder about how well these games could cater to people who have mental dis-orders--people who are schizophrenic or even people with Borderline Personality Disorder. I wonder if these games could be modified to create a safe environment and if they could be used during therapy. I know there's been some mention of it, but I wonder what kind of therapy.

ANYWAY. Some of the games that intrigue me are the hotel killer, some of the noise games, and--though I may have overlooked it, the silent game where the blind people try not to bump into anyone else and if they do, they sit down to become a "bomb" for other people.

But I don't know if that's okay or not?

Daily Life 2

I'm a Teaching Assistant for Cat's 1100 section this semester. I'm generally pretty easy-going with students, and I really like to believe the best of everyone. Part of my teaching philosophy is that in order for your students to trust and respect you, you have to trust and respect them too. I never sugar-coat things to my students, but before offering answers to tough situations, I step back for a moment and imagine all of the information I would want if I were in their position. When students ask if they can make up a production response by going to see another production, I know that they're hoping against hope and that they probably don't think it will happen. I also know that they don't want to feel like they were told "no" because "that's the way it is". I tell them no, but I also explain to them that in order for me to grade it fairly and to give them the feedback they deserve in exchange for their intellectual toils, that I would also have to see the show and that I simply do not have time in my schedule to see a separate show and fully analyze it when I am at the disadvantage of not knowing anything about the production or rehearsal processes. I would be an unfit grader, I explain.

During lecture, there are almost 200 students packed into the lecture hall. Cat has very up-front policies in her syllabus about things like cell phone usage or talking. She doesn't take attendance and thus reserves the right to tell any student to leave. She tells them that if they really need to be on their phone or if they really need to be sleeping or studying for another class, that they aren't doing themselves any favors by sitting in her lecture hall. I admire this structure because it makes sense. It says, "I understand that college is difficult. If you need to sleep, stay home and sleep. If you have an exam, just find a quiet place and study."

Today, however, there was a cluster of three young women chatting with one another. Now, Cat is very nearly deaf in one ear, so she has a bit of difficulty hearing, PARTICULARLY when there are small hissy chattering sounds underneath the volume of in-class discussion. I walked to the end of the row that the young women were in, waited patiently for one of them to look at me, and pressed my finger to my lips with a friendly smile and a mouthed "thank you" when she got her friends to settle down. Less than two minutes later, I saw Natalie go over to quiet the same girls. From my seat at the front of the classroom, I quieted them yet again. The fourth time they began giggling and chatting, I walked over to their row and crossed in front of students into the middle of the row and said very plainly and very seriously, "We're not going to do this again. If the conversation is that important, you can leave."

While my words, tone, and action were effective and the girls quieted down, they behaved as though I had treated them rudely. The young woman on the side closest to me held up her hands in a gesture of surrender and rolled her eyes at me, saying "Sorry!" and not even bothering to try meaning it. By the time I got back to my seat at the front of the classroom, my hands were shaking. Had I disciplined them too strictly? Was I being oppressive? Violating my own moral code of education? Or had I defended the education of the students surrounding them by creating a quiet environment?

I think that in cases like that, I need to remember what Spock tells Captain Kirk in the original Wrath of Khan, "...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." I hope I did the right thing.

Class on 8/27

This might look familiar. I used my email to Joshua as something of a skeleton for this blog entry because it would be tedious to type much of it over again, and I also used the original email as a reminder about what I wanted to write. I hope that's okay.  :/

We started by Alex leading a game where the whole class formed a big clump and one person stood out separately. The one person wielded an imaginary sword that they could use against the clump. If the sword master slices with their "air sword" above the clump's head, the clump must duck down. If the sword master slices with their air sword at the clump's feet, the clump must jump. If the sword master slices to the left, the clump must move to the right. If the sword comes down on the right, the clump must move to the left. If the sword comes down in the middle, the clump must divide. And if the sword is jabbed straight into the gut of the clump, the clump must jump backwards. 

I don't know how much intense discussion or emotion I got out of this exercise, mostly because I was towards the back most of the time, but someone mentioned that when people who had never been on the "front-lines" got there, they panicked because they had never been trained for that and had never prepared for that pressure and that vulnerability. I thought that was an interesting insight. I also found myself wondering why none of the sword masters parted the clump and attacked an individual sector to make the people more manageable. I'd like to see that happen--I think there could be some more intense discussion. Maybe there's a stronger objective we could add for the sword master?

Then we took a break and decided on presentation days. I'll be assembling most of my presentation over the three-day weekend so that I can have a freer and more relaxed schedule during the coming month. Ideally, I'll be ahead in all of my classes and on all of my projects after this weekend. This may, however, require a divine miracle. Or a few Redbull energy drinks. 

To conclude class, we played one more game. From a position of standing in a circle, we were asked to arbitrarily choose one person to be afraid of. Then we moved about the space, trying to stay distant from that person. Our natural progression moved us into a circle, a kind of carousel of fear. And then there was running. At the height of this, we were asked to find a protector who would keep us safe from our fear-person. The goal was to still stay as far away from your hunter and to get your protector between you and your hunter. This polarized the class--half were at the built-in proscenium, and half were back at the aisle between the risers. 

We discovered that fear can do some pretty incredible things. When the running started, we all felt as though we had no choice but to continue it. We all felt panicked and all felt the paranoia of thinking that our hunter knew that we had chosen them as our hunter, even though none of them later professed that knowledge. We became very single-minded and selfish. 

For my protector, I chose Kelsey, who was on the same side of the room as my hunter (Melissa). I had to decide wether to stay away from Melissa or join Kelsey. I joined Kelsey because I suppose I'd rather be close to a protector in an unsafe land than alone in a safe one. There might be some only-childness in there somewhere. There was a lot of discussion about why we selected the protectors we did and about the difference between running from someone and running to someone. It seems easier to run TO someone. There's more power. There's more objective and mission. There is something to be accomplished--a goal to be attained. Essentially, there's a reward waiting for you if you succeed, for not only would you survive--you would be SAFE. 

Readings for 8/27

"...all people have both the ability and the right to be active makers of art." -Babbage

I can definitely dig on that. It's very...Godspell.

So, for Boal, "spectator" is a bad word. For Boal, a "spectator" is just a warm body with a big open mouth, consuming whatever propaganda falls into it. Which is kind of terrifying, really. And I have to say that it's moments and thoughts like these that make me want to take a step back and realize that we, as human beings, are totally incapable of being hyper-aware and super-conscientious all the time. There are just too many stimuli, and things move far too quickly. Now, if we all had the bleakness and endless time that happens in Beckett plays, then by all means we could monitor our every thought and every intake. If we were in a Beckett play, though, I doubt we'd give a rat's ass.

Since we don't like "spectator," Boal coins "spect-actor," which is a person who works within and without of the group. A multi-zoom camera of aesthetic distance and emotional proximity. This keeps them from the danger of living vicariously through characters/scenarios/scenes in Aristotelian-style drama. According to Boal, Aristotle tried to reinforce proper citizen behavior in his audiences--something like a Greek after-school special. Having recently re-read The Poetics, I can tell you that in The Aristotle Show, women are stupid and never virtuous. So due to the equipment I came out of the factory with, I'm already ill-fated and non-compliant.

I will say this: I never knew before that an aristocratic, royal-born hero's "tragic flaw" could just be ignorance--that nobody ever let him in on some divine joke.

Here's the thing, though. It feels like Boal is policing and shaming and casting aspersions at all other forms of theatre. I DO agree that, as artists, we treat theatre like an inaccessible kind of mysticism. This is, of course, ridiculous and ill-mannered. However, to totally invalidate long-standing conventions and norms of theatre in one fell swoop seems a little terrifying. I don't know if I want to live in a world where going to see a flashy musical once in a while leaves me feeling guilty and capitalist and like some cog of a corporate machine. Sometimes, I just want to have a nice dinner, get a little boozy, and watch some awesome synchronized dancing with glitzy costumes and more gels than sitcoms from the mid-90s.

Daily Life Entry

I learned today in my meeting with you when a bunch of things cracked open inside of me that I'm very oppressive to myself. Which is rude, really. As much as I talk about my "oxygen mask" time and the idea that the universe is an infinite supplier if you only ask for what you need, I don't typically follow my own rules. I don't take time away from people, because I diminish my own hurt. And I don't ask for what I need because I feel rude saying that I would "need" something when so many people need so much.

So today was a rough day of fighting my self-oppression. A lot of rocks in my chest got busted open and turned into some awkward crying. And then they turned into a little self-righteousness on the drive home. And then they turned into a beer and a letter that nobody will ever read but needed to be written. So now there are no more big rocks. There might be some tiny pebbles, but I'm hoping to breathe deep, tell the universe what I need (which is to find out what I need--how meta!), and probably end my homework time early and read for pleasure. 

Tonight will end with a gratitude list, and tomorrow will begin with a few deep breaths and maybe a one-woman lip-sync rock concert. There's enough oppression out there without forcing it on myself. Thanks for the revelation, Dr. B!