Chasen Whitson - The Roof is on Fire (1994) Response

Young teenage people of color are asked to speak on issues most prevalent to them and their lives. “What group of people do we hardly ever listen too but hear about all the time?” Getting a group of teenagers together in each vehicle to discuss prevalent issues that affect their lives and their communities such as sex, violence, families, their education, and how they view their future. 200 Oakland inner-city teenage participants of the performance engaged in topics of relevance that are provocative while sitting in cars upon rooftop parking lots. Audience members listened to these topics that were provocative to the students; observing the current relevance issues had in their community. Teenagers discussed minorities and stereotypes associated with gender and race that are applicable to their lives, majoritivly not by choice. Equipped with cars to sit in, a parking lot roof performance space, media attention, and donations; the performance aroused creative thinking and brought current racial and stereotypically assigned viewpoints to the forefront of discussion.

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Research- Andrew Moore

My first year at calarts, I was unfortunately raveled in a title 9 investigation revolving sexual misconduct. While I was not a involved directly, I was a bystander and very good friend to the person who started the investigation. I was asked by the affected person to be interviewed for evidence. My experience in the interview room with the investigator was anything but reassuring. I was asked to give my side of the story, but I was pushed by questions asked by the investigator that were geared towards finding the attacker innocent. I used to have trust in the government ability to handle situations like this justly, but I was disappointed to see that the disgusting stories that I've heard about victim blaming and non-fiction. The fact that it was unraveling itself before my eyes was very surprising. Unfortunately the person stayed in the dorms on campus through all of this and at the end of the year there was an even more dramatic event involving the same person and another gir...

HIP HOP AND THE PRISON SYSTEM

“With five percent of the world's population, the US incarcerates 25 percent of the world's prisoners” (Daisy Hudson, Noisey Magazine. 2014). That same year “African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34%, of the total 6.8 million correctional population, though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32% of the US population, they comprised 56% of all incarcerated people in 2015 (NAACP). The prison system in America serves not as a correctional facility, but a container for which black bodies are buried alive. The conditions of which inmates are kept, the disparity in numbers and portrayal of those incarcerated. There is no question that factors such as education, employment, mental and physical health; the lack of access to such resources targets and propels African Americans through the pipeline to prison. In our history, it seems that prison, or largely the criminalization of African Americans, Black men in particularly, has been used as a tactic of oppr...

Macy Rupp-Roof is on Fire response

1. CONTEXT: What were the circumstances that framed the meaning and process of this project? Several things framed the meaning and process of this project. Primarily, portrayal of “inner-city” youth in the media was the motivator for this project. Events like lake and LA riots in such close proximity to the performance of the Roof is on Fire also provided a much more interesting grounding for the timing of the project. 2. CONTENT: What was the issue, need, idea or opportunity addressed by this project? Issues such as sex, abortion, race, financial income, and family were addressed and became the topic of this performance piece but specifically in relation to how these issues related to the teens. The need for this discussion to come from teens is vital because teens are a direct reflection on how our culture is positively or negatively affecting society. 3: FORM: What is the medium that was used to address or ...

FALL 2019- ARTS AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

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