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

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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.

CalArts Garden

The reason why I choose this topic is that I know a lot of students are complaining that CalArts is too plain. It is just one main building with a small campus. I would like to design a space for the CalArts campus where students and teachers can work together as a community and taking care of the plants. The community can hold a farmers market, season food festival or food-related artwork competition.    Few things I read about the benefits of school garden:   -  Gardens create opportunities for students to work cooperatively and to take on responsibilities.  - Gardens provide unique opportunities for cross-generational connections.  - Students learn to focus and patience, cooperation, teamwork, and social skills.  -Combining language arts and gardening activities brings a hands-on element to a subject normally taught lecture-style, providing inspiration and motivation for students who struggle to focus in traditional cl...