Skip to main content

Takalay Hamill - What a Riot Response

In 2005, Mary Shutzman was invited by the CalArts arts partnership to direct and write a play for the Plaza de la Raza theater program called UPSET! This play was created in collaboration with somewhere between 13-17 Latino students who wrote down a list of historical figures they'd like to know more about. "After several pedagogical sessions...the students voted on Rodney King and Claudette Colvin." The play was modeled after Augusto Boal's style of theater called The Joker System. This particular style of social theater is interesting to me because it elicits a real-time discussion with the audience. The Joker and the Chorus are meant to raise questions and discover new sides of a story that were never thought of before. "There's always a big chorus (sometimes two) that sings, dances, complains, rallies, and talks directly to the audience." The Boal style of theater is also very intriguing in that, it challenges people's set opinion about an event/issue through a container of personal interaction. The audience also feels the need to speak their mind when something such as The Joker (middle man) is a catalyst for a directional shift in the theme of a historically charged issue.

Some things I would as Mary Shutzman:
- In what ways can the aspects of The Joker System and Invisible Theater be combined, if at all?
- What was the audience reaction to UPSET!? Were there any particular moments within the show where it got heated or unpredictable?
- In what ways could we begin to perform Augusto Boal's different styles of theater? (what would be a book you could recommend?)
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yaasmeen B.  Systematic poisoning of minorities  Systemic poisoning of minorities is a vital issue for me because of the personal connection I have to this piece. My grandmother grew up on Chauncey Street and Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn, Ny in the 50's and experienced all types of racial oppressions such as segregated school systems, lack of resources in public housing, police brutality, and high incarceration rates in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. Growing up as a child I remember listening to my grandmother share stories about her own childhood and how at night she would lay in bed and pick the paint chips off the wall and consume them. My grandmother was the daughter of a woman that went to clean apartments for white people in white neighborhoods and wasn't informed about the dangers of eating paint chips let alone paint chips that were filled with Lead. When my grandmother consumed the lead nothing was done she was poor and she was black and that alone met that she
Post a Comment
Read more

Tuition meeting

Speaking point: We have spent over 60 thousand dollars on this school so far, we have tolerated the raise each year. At some point we do not have more money to give and we are pushed out along with all of our debt including interest. With this false start we lack the motivation to attend another school in the future, therefore leaving us uneducated and in debt. Other than the knowledge gained, this would be a waste of two years of my life and in fact sets me back in my career.
Post a Comment
Read more

Community Garden--Takalay Hamill

What is a community garden? A community garden is a small piece of land that is shared by individuals, groups, or in any public area. “The land may produce fruit, vegetables, and/or ornamentals.” There are different types of community gardens as well: neighborhood, residential, institutional, and demonstration. Neighborhood gardens consist of a piece of land that is owned by a group, in which each individual may own a single plot if they pay a yearly fee for maintenance. Residential gardens are much like neighborhood gardens, however they are owned by a single unit like an apartment complex for example. These are purely communal to the public within that particular residential community. Institutional gardens are connected to public or private organizations, “These gardens offer a number of beneficial services for residents, ranging from mental or physical rehabilitation and therapy to teaching a set of skills for job placement.” Finally demonstration gardens are used in educatio
Post a Comment
Read more