A few weeks ago, Shannon and I, representing Sojourn
gave a lecture at PSU
We were invited by the MFA in Art program, and we were of particular interest to the students in the relatively new MFA in Social Practice Arts program
The same folks who have hosted the conference just finishing up in Portland-
read this.
OTT has at its core, like many Sojourn projects, a bridge impulse...
but this sone goes a bit further-
like BUILT, but different-
make spaces and activities that ask for, invite, and actually need shared presence and participation to function as the events they want to be...
anad that bring strangers into engagement with each other...
Is our theatre social practice..?
not that it matters...
maybe it matters...
just wondering.
And, trying to lure Shannon out of her blog silence...
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I think that some part of social practice invites macro and micro communities to collectively imagine new possibilities for ways of living together. Good social practice says that community transformation should be led by internal conversation, values, struggle, debate, etc. Not by outside institutions or cultural tourists.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I love Sojourn- because you all don’t just make theater about a place, you make it in the place, with the people of the place guiding and structuring the conversation. You ask audiences to build community during your events- and not just in a “we’re all sitting here laughing and enjoying together,” but to actually share conversation, values, struggle, debate, etc. You hear audiences during your play. And you don’t present simple solutions to inquiry. You invite audiences to ask their own questions, and to lead their own way through your process.
So yeah, it’s social practice.