Spring 2020 - ACE

I have been so disappointed with myself and my body to not have been in class the previous 2 weeks so I relate extremely to the bummer is to miss out on class time. I am so sorry for whatever the reasons were and hope all is better now. That being said, I was grateful this provided the extended assignment of watching the videos that were all so uniquely wonderful in their own ways. First, I watched the ted talk on the concept of singular narratives by Chimamanda Ngizu Adichie. Through her talk, I could see how deeply this issue is rooted in our storytelling especially amongst families from one generation to another. It made me think about the times in my life where I have been wrong about another human because I start to see them through my eyes instead of the ones my elders have told me to use. Sometimes, they are wise and correct. And others, they are singular and misguided of full truth.             After that, I buckled up to...

I studied the fourth option, and begun with 'The Danger of A Single Story".  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  speaks about reading books as a child with white characters and then writing her own stories along the lines of the stories she read, even though she didn't relate to them. It reminded me of diversity in casting, especially casting people of color or LGBTQ+ members as side characters, often not getting their own story. This has started to change in the film community however it still needs to keep changing. After finishing her Ted Talk, I continued on to Sarah Jones, "One Woman, Many People". Each character was so different, with different backgrounds and stories but all had similar things to say, pointing out that we are all human, with a set of similar truths, even though we are all so different. Anna Deveare Smith is an absolute legend, and like her, I believe theater and activism are completely tied, and everyone must have a seat at the table. We must all be...

KEY IDEAS: SOURCEs; what about the piece engages with the community? I watched Sara Jones first and then paused to watch others in between her. The tone is so constant through out each video I found it hard to focus on one for too long. She called to the attention of the Chicago Humanists festival: the topic being Bodies, Sara mentions different bodies inhabiting different spaces. She uses different members of her family as a way to discuss topics like the value of body and opportunities that bodies give us. Sara draws us a picture of just how many cultures make our country unique and diverse. Pointing out the flaws as well as commenting on the politics of the time, we're reflective on what our stance was when we ourselves were in the conversation. She starts the performance as a stereotypical homeless woman,and stalked discussing pretty philosophical topics like feelings of loss and loneliness, abandonment. As she takes another identity she talks about fear and stress, then an...

Chapter 4, Death is an Everyday Thing, talks about a collective that comes together to create a medium of art. The group created this work of art in order to reduce “prejudice and separation” (page 37). Despite their struggles and hard upbringings, these refugees and immigrants are always able to overcome the unbearable. “It requires a leap of faith for performers to trust that I’m steering us towards something worthwhile, even when I do my best to translate my vision for them. It takes an even bigger leap of faith for a group of immigrants  or refugees to trust an outsider director with the essence of their imagery and to trust that their stories will be well translated. I now have great respect for the magnitude of this act, and I'm quite humbled by it”(Page 45). One potential application for this community-engaged arts practice is listening to every party involved. Every party involved is just trying to create something meaningful that will open the eyes of society around them. ...

I read Dangerous Border Crossers by Guillermo Gómez-Peña. This section of the book is titled, “IN SEARCH OF A NEW TOPOGRAPHY: PART 4.”   (He defined himself as a mere “sup” diminutive for subcommander, a kind of secretary of public relations, a humble “interpreter” to the outside world.) His serious but nonchalant demeanor (the rockero), adorned with a pipe (the intellectual), and a Zapata-style bandolera (the rebel) with huge bullets that didn’t match the model of his weapon (the actor), made him extremely photogenic. His persona was a carefully crafted collage of twentieth-century revolutionary symbols, costumes, and props borrowed from Zapata, Sandino, Che Guevara, Arafat and the IRA, as well as from celluloid heroes such as Zorro and Mexico’s movie wrestler, “El Santo.”  This quote stood out to me because it unpacks the complex “types” we might identify within the layers that “performatively” paint El Sup . Although I would like to think that El Sup wouldn’t a...

After reading Theatre of Witness by Teya Sepinuck, I felt inspired by the way she can connect to people and create a piece based on what is common within all of us. All people experience birth, growth, and death at some point. I think the project Years was a particularly impactful piece of work that represents our humanity well in talking about the divide between each generation. I also enjoy that they worked on so many different ways of approaching this project, for example with using imagery, story, movement, improvisation, etc.  and all with older men and women. Through this project they found that some feel that older people are not capable of higher positions as they don't understand younger people as well. She goes on to talk about the first opening night of Years, and how emotionally connected people were to the piece. "It was the biggest audience reaction there ever had been to anything I'd created up to that point, and I realized that this new form of performance ...

I read three chapters of Teya Sepinuck's Theatre of Witness: Finding the Medicine in Stories of Suffering . The first thing that jumped out to me was what Sepinuck said about not knowing a lot of old people. I started to think about lack of representation of old people in theatre and lack of representation in general and how I never thought about how not representing this age group was a problem until it was pointed out to me. I fail to represent them in my work simply because they don't exist in my day to day life. The other thing that really struck a cord with me was when Sepinuck talked about a homeless man she worked with who did not think of himself as homeless; and how, when she gave him the means to live in a traditional dwelling, he didn't like it. This got me thinking about how we assume that everyone is like us at least in a fundamental way. We think everyone wants a house, marriage, children, to live in a city, or to not live in a city. But we are capable of not ...

"I learned how to be self-critical, because they were always criticizing me. So I learned very early on to edit myself. But I also knew, if you could be fast and you could be funny, people would listen; it’s a way of getting people to listen." (Cisneros) Finding a way to be listened is definitely key. It makes me think that everyone has a specific way of being charming, and we just have to seek that for others to listen. "You don’t have to tell anyone, but I want you to see it and to walk towards that dream every day. And then you can say it aloud, when you are in a safe place." (Cisneros) I think its very important to inspire children, so then they grow up to be inspiring adults. This is beautiful, because she gives her students space to be big, and bold just for them. "And I’m trying to cross many borders now in my life, both physical and spiritual, and I’m trying as best I can, because my time is running out. I don’t feel that I’ve done my best work....

I read Teya’s Theatre of Witness and I really found her ability to connect to something deep within all of us amazing. We all grow, all have the need for our mothers to feed us, all experience loss. Her sense for humanity seems to be something she’s always had, in part help with Billy’s teachings of Buddha, Bergman and LSD. She tends to stray from the mainstream, even leaving behind her mother’s influence for the “beauty and transcendence” of female dancers. I think Years is an especially important piece as we do have this divide between generations. Some people don’t feel like older people should be president and some presidential candidates really reflect little understanding for younger people. I was particularly drawn to Helen’s song, “He was part of me. I was part of him. And I liked myself as I was then. Now I hold part of him deep within me. And I’m growing in a brand new way.” We all have people in our lives who make up a part of us and it was beautiful to see this grief shared...

The main draw I take from this collection of media is that as individuals, we must realize and embrace how multi-faceted others are and celebrate that perspective and diversity. It is pretty insane to me that even in modern days, people are so ignorant to a lot of the functionality and operation of the world and other societies they are not aware of. For instance, like in the TED Talk, Adichie shares how shocked her prior roommate was in discovering she spoke English and shared rather 'western' influences and interests as she did. This speaks volumes to how aware we need to be of everyone else's role and place in community. As far as my practice of scenic design goes, this just further frames the need to understand how the way you perceive things to be are not the one and only way they can be perceived. You must take into account the world at large, instead of feeding off of a rather closed and narrow train of thought.

For this assignment, I read the first 3 chapters of Theatre of Witness by Teya Sepinuck. Teya’s journey to Theatre of Witness feels to me organic, born of an innate desire to understand deeper human truths and flourished by community. I’m immediately reminded of the natural connections and art that is made when societies strive to not only understand each other but also uplift different voices. This provides deep healing and strengthening, I believe, for the community at large. The storytellers, facilitators, and audience members develop a relationship based on shared human experience and support, even if their individual lives are wildly different. Teya herself gives an excellent example of this effect in her writing about the production of Home Tales. Carlos and his daughter, Alicia, had gone through immense pain in separation, displacement, and cultural shock, and in Teya’s own words, “the scale of the Morales family’s story was huge in magnitude”. However, a scene showing the fat...

One of the ideas that stood out to me was the importance of having more than one perspective. As noted from Adichie’s ted talk, having had only heard one story about a foreign place/identity is dangerous as it can induce negative stereotyping. This reminds me of a time when I had to do research on Cuba for a theatre design assignment. One of the things our professor mentioned was the dangers of collecting surface level research and his reasoning being that having surface level understanding on a foreign topic only leads to stereotyping instead of a deeper understanding of the political context and the text as a whole. As someone who lived in the US, understanding the political sentiment of Cuban people after the revolution would require more effort to acquire due to my own political biases and past experiences. So, when talking to a Cuban friend of mine on what her thoughts on the revolution were, I was quite surprised at how different it was from the conclusion I drew from my resear...

In the TED Talk by Chimamanda Adichie, she talks about how damaging and isolating the Single Story is to understanding and connecting to others around the world. She began her talk with her childhood and how she would love to read american and english literature. They would transport her to new worlds and introduce her to new ideas and items that would fascinate her. The only problem with it was that a majority of the stories were about the white male. As she began writing at a young age, her stories would follow the white male and the items/ ideas that were not in her life. She talked about how impressionable and vulnerable we are when reading literature, so encompassing a multitude of stories that represent people from all walks of life will closer connect people and see each other as fellow humans. The single story is enforced by who tells the story, how they are told, where they are being told and how many are being told. This all plays into the power dynamics that plague our wo...

option 4 The first video was very interesting to watch. She started the ted talk by talking about her love for books and how she thought as a young child that she wasn't supposed to identify with characters in these books. It seems like something white people living in america would never understand or feel. It shocks me that her american roommate was so ignorant about the way she lives and assumed that she did not know how to use a stove. political fear - living in a government controlled environment. Sarah Jones - she begins talking about how one identifies and how people feel comfortable or not in their bodies. She creates characters with diversity in mind. cultural disparities - she creates characters based mostly on people she knows. She has a great point - she doesn't want to be forced to embrace everyone culture just because its politically correct. "if the stature of liberty could talk today she would say there's no more room" Anna Deavere...

I read the first three chapters of Theatre of Witness: Finding the Medicine in Stories of Suffering, Transformation, and Peace by Teya Sepinuck. Sepinuck’s initial background was in dance and choreography, but she was drawn to the theatre by an audio recording used in a dance. The recording was of people talking about their own life experiences, and this piqued her interest. Sepinuck knew very little about theatre, but she says, “...I did have passion, and I wasn’t afraid of not knowing what I was doing” (19). It is important to note that she did not get carried away in the details of achieving something specific, but rather let the people and stories they shared pave the way for the creation of her pieces. With this relentless curiosity and hunger to learn, Sepinuck began her journey into creating the Theatre of Witness. Sepinuck’s process involves finding people who have very different life experiences than that of her privileged, white, upper middle class lifestyle. Rather than re...

I absolutely loved watching this mini-documentary of how this piece was made, especially after reading about it last week. It helped to put in perspective how layered and complicated the project was and how it really took it’s time to develop into full form. In terms of community engagement strategies, I think it was absolutely the right thing to involve student organizers from the very beginning. You could see how essential it was in terms of building the questions and conversation topics for what the teens in the cars would be using. It was workshopped right from the brains of the “performers” and not from an outside lensed placing ideas of what youth is. They also were using performers from the area in which they were performing in, instead of bringing outside actors in. This further amplified the voices in which the project was made for. Who a project is made for is always something that is on my mind when I create. What community is going to see this? What community is going to b...

Discussed in one of the first project was the idea of “subverting the image of youth.” Specifically in this case, POC youth. This resonated because of many reasons. It made me think of what the quote, “normal” image of POC youth qualifies as. Gangbangers? Drugs and violence? According to the media, that is the image that gets portrayed the most. However, just like it was highlighted in The Roof is on Fire, that is not the true image at all. In fact, some of the brightest most inventive artists of today come from these backgrounds. I liked how one of the goals of this project was to highlight that. Two other ideas that interested me from the text were “the idea of visual pleasure defining the worth of a piece of art” and “the kinds of knowledge aesthetic experience is capable of producing.” I found these two ideas closely related as they both revolve around the idea of physical visible beauty, in my opinion. It makes me think of what we as a society deem as art and how heavily the v...

I read chapters two (“Growing Old is About the Growing”), five (“These Hands”), and ten (“Sucking Water from Mud”) from Teya Sepunick’s Theater of Witness: Finding the Medicine in Stories of Suffering, Transformation, and Peace , and after experiencing these sections of the work, I am most definitely going to go back and read the rest soon. From chapter two, on “aging”, I was reminded about the vitality of engaging all ages, not only in the art-experiencing process, but especially in the art-making and creating processes. I resonated with Sepunick’s comment about knowing “...very few old people…”, particularly because at this time and place in my life, I am surrounded by young adults in a college environment almost always. The powerful example of then 83-year-old Abby Enders using body memory to wield an ax at her age then as she once did as a younger individual is a necessary display of breaking age-related stereotypes. So often, I realize I neglect to consider this demographic of ind...

For this assignment I chose option 2 and read Part III of Dangerous Border Crossers  by Guillermo Gómez-Peña. This section of the book is titled Conversations Across the Border Fence.  This section of the book discusses the intricacies that come along with developing work with "Artists operating in a multiracial and culturally pluralistic context..." Guillermo acknowledges that in modern America an artwork will not be interpreted the same way be people of different cultural backgrounds. Guillermo says, "In this sense, any performance artist who wishes to cross borders must he a cultural relativist..." The chapter's main discussion begins with a discussion between Guillermo Gómez-Peña and other collaborators. In this conversation they reflect on past performances, and on reactions of audience members. One key takeaway from this dialogue is Guillermo's perspective on audience understanding. He speaks about his past fear of his performances being misunderstood,...

Creative Exchange It's a great idea to use successful artists, in order to inspire more art, and more work. Also, what an amazing platform to connect artists across the area. It even offers insurance, and workshops. I'm not sure what they are missing because they try to include every form of art into communities,

1. The Environment 2. Elections   - World Leaders   - The press 3. Theatre in LA 4. China The Antartica is suffering great damages, and it's easy to forget when we're not there. I wish I was better informed about the politics in the country. What don't we know about the upcoming elections? People are still making jokes about the corona virus, forgetting that people lose family members because of this

For the Choose Your Own Adventure Assignment, I chose Option 4 - the 3 videos. Here are the main ideas from each video and how they reflect on my own art-making and community engagement ideas: TED Talk:  "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie   Our consumption of media, culture, and literature influences how we define other people and places Having a single story creates barriers and alienates, not allowing for a feeling of commonality and unity but rather of foreignness and difference, not considering people as human equals. B ecause of these single stories, when people of the place write their own stories, they are seen as unauthentic or trying to be someone they are not when they are writing about the actual reality. "Power is not just the ability to tell a story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person." - Adichie "The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue but that they are incompl...

I don’t know how to properly synthesize key ideas/learnings so I am just going to talk about the piece and hopefully share some of my learnings in the way that you were looking for. I read Dangerous Border Crossers by Guillermo Gomez Peña , specifically the section titled Conversations across the border fence . Towards the beginning they were talking about context and how that affects how the performances are perceived depending on the context of where they are. They also try and keep the interpretation open to everything  “It’s very important for us that the complex images we use in performance be open to multiple interpretations that we may never have imagined ourselves.” “It changes meaning with the context.” Because of all the audiences and places they perform the audience members always have a different background and observe the work differently. Also because of their travel to so many places they are seen as performances before they even step onto stage. “We travel to the m...

Part 1: brainstorming One thing that's been on my mind recently is mental health in young adults (teens -mid 30's) and the lack of available resources or community support for them, especially in this age of social media. Highlighted by actress Carolyn Flack's recent suicide, more and more adults are becoming public with their mental health struggles while having no one to fall back on as people learn better boundaries for stabilizing their own mental health. People seem to be making efforts to become self sufficient in this matter, yet are failing to notice the necessity of community support until it becomes too late. I personally believe social media is exacerbating this problem, with copycat attempts being a known phenomenon and hyperbole being so common when people vent online. Last on topics on my mind is what I'm currently coining as "excusable/comparative racism". The current racist shtick is denial of actions or words being racist or discriminator...

The issues that come to my mind immediately are issues that need to be handled all across the country. I mainly think about racial injustice, LGBTQ inequality, women’s rights, and climate change. All of my concerns revolve around the overwhelming amount of people in the world that fight to keep minorities out of the picture. I step into CalArts, and it’s usually really easy for me to feel safe. It is for most people. But everytime I return home to North Carolina, I’m reminded of the ignorance, homophobia, racism, and sexism that sweep our nation (silently at times.) I’m passionate about these topics because too many people have been silenced for decades on decades. Too many people have been forced to live a life that is less than what they deserve. I have the privilege as a white man in my society and I’m seeing more and more everyday how important it is for me to speak up for people who don’t have a voice, even if I'm not immediately associated with their community. I must remind...

Currently, I am thinking about what I was thinking about before I had to think about what I was thinking about. As soon as I opened up Blogger to start the assignment, all of my thoughts disappeared from my mind making it incredibly difficult for me to contribute to fulfilling this weeks assignments. Besides trying to remember what I was thinking, the word "papa" pops up in my mind because my friend sitting to the left of me said the word potato which reminded of the words "potato" and "papa" written on a menu at a Salvadorean food stand located in the Grand Central Market in Downtown LA.  ToolKits for Change sparks my interest because it provides a diverse list of artists who each focus on a wide range of mediums. It can be an incredibly helpful resource because you can find creative inspiration from a medium and artist you may not have expected to get inspiration from. 

Something that's been on my mind lately is capital. Obviously going to CalArts is a huge stress on my personal capital but also on my parents as well. I do believe that by coming here I'll be able to find a solid job and pay off my loans and lead a happy life. I hate that this is the system that so many people have been thrust into. Why should one have to "invest" in an education. Things like this should be granted to everyone. The financial burden we all feel here is unreal and frankly absurd. It's frustrating to live in a world with an ever present capitalist agenda. When people like Jeff Bezos can hoard wealth and not pay a penny in taxes. I watched American Factory recently and that made me think a lot about capitalism and its effect on all industries. In that film it felt there was meant to be an anti-China slant in the narrative. The owner of the company was portrayed in a pretty negative light, but I think this negativity was really driven by capitalism. Ca...

Tuition increases across all schools has been on my mind lately. I understand that each year tuition will increase a certain amount, and even more so for private schools, but there has to be a way it can be more affordable for everyone. I meet more and more people every day who are now starting    and have full time jobs, but are still trying to pay off their student debt. It’s frustrating having to pay so much for a good education. In all reality it is very difficult to obtain the specific job you major in in college after graduation, and even harder to pay off student debt even starting six months after you graduate.  Racism and prejudices against people are still prevailing very strongly in this country, and it has shown itself very aggressively with our current president. I saw a photo of an artist who put small cages out front of voting polls with fake dummy children curled up inside of them. It is a very strong image that has been stuck with me for a few days,...

I'm passionate about a lot of things but there are a few that immediately come to mind. As I've been doing a show about adoption, the foster care system is definitely on my mind, especially how kids are essentially being erased and forced into situations that affect them for the rest of their lives. I feel frustrated about global warming, especially because our current president and the government doesn't believe it's real. I also do not enjoy our current economy and consumer culture because people are set up to fail with the class systems that are set in place because of location. I looked at the Liberatory Design toolkit, and I really liked that it was in the format of flashcards to give people information without overload. I especially liked the two cards on recognizing oppression and self-awareness. Without self-awareness we cannot change anything or make anything better like they say in AA, the first step is to admit we have a problem. Oppression pops up in many d...

The community engagement kit I found most compelling was the one titled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack . In it, I found it quite interesting in the way they approach the subconscious nature of white privilege, and how it is inferred that white people are actually quite oblivious or unaware that they are subconsciously engaging in it. The definition itself that they used I found quite interesting, " I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious" (pg 1). It expresses how  naturally  and candidly it is evoked on a daily basis, through the most mundane and causal interactions and scenarios.  One of the tools that they shared that was a potential way to recognize white privilege that I found interesting to comment on was: If you can arrange to be in  the company of people of your race most of the time. I found t...

What's on my mind... Libraries  Immediately when I think of what I'm passionate about in my community I think about how vital public libraries are. Growing up I spent a lot of time in a public library near my childhood home. My mom would often bring me to free events that were catered toward the youth while she, a part time college student, studied in the private rooms. I'm a natural introvert, so I appreciated having time spent in a place that's meant to be quiet. I fostered my love for reading, and discovered many genres and topics I would have never otherwise come across. Libraries are more important than just the books they hold and the atmosphere. Most offer computers, internet, and free printing to the community, including the homeless. Libraries are places of community built by the sharing of information. My local library offers free classes, book and movie clubs, language learning-software, and free programing for children of all ages. Female Empowerment ...

I come from a long line of worriers. My mom feared when she would leave my sister and I alone at home as kids, even for just 20 minutes while she ran an errand, that there would be an earthquake. Her mom got anxious when my mom would play in the garden because of the possibility of poisonous snakes. I don’t have kids yet, so my worries are on the world. Politically, our country is a corrupt mess – although when hasn’t it been? It’s been on my mind as of late, how detached one becomes from looking at how to fix because it seems so deeply permanently broken. I think about when something breaks, and there’s no fixing it, then there’s only room for something new. What would new look like for our government? Could new be coming in our next election? The economical privilege of education is something I have also been thinking about, especially being lucky enough to be a student at CalArts. This is an expensive school. It costs a lot to be here, whether that’s directly from money or time and...

Banjo Kim - What’s on your mind? - Week 3 Assignment Racism Coronavirus is going around and I’ve been seeing a lot of racism going around. People are going around and using coronavirus as an excuse to be racist. I am concerned because uneducated people are causing unnecessary harm. Climate change I am passionate about this topic because the world we live in is rapidly deteriorating.  I feel as if there is a lot of talk about climate change but no one is doing anything. Gentrification I believe that artist and gentrification go hand in hand. Gentrification is an issue that is happening all over the world, but I would like to focus in the LA area. Banjo Kim - Toolkit Research - Week 3 Assignment The article that I read was Pillars of support from the Beautiful Trouble Toolbox. A strategy that resonated with me was that the power rests in the hand of the people. The article talks about these ‘pillars of support’. Some examples for these pillars are the m...

three topics which have been on my mind lately: representation/ identity: who has the right to represent who and why are we so afraid to have those discussions? i'm curious about the idea of a safe space and what that means to a community of people who are working together on a personal, artistic and professional level. is it possible not to let your own "identity" get in the way of representing something much larger than yourself? ethics:  is it healthy to not agree with all of the elements which fill the work you're making? does that make you a hypocrite? romanticize: do we lean into the idea of romanticizing our cultures, homelands or ancestors/ lack there of? how can we forge our own identities respectfully in regards to those that came before us, those that exist now and those that will be here after us? toolkit: i read, " white privilege: unpacking an invisible backpack." something that i found helpful was the list she made. i think it's a hel...

Healthcare has been on my mind a lot. It’s always been something that’s been a big part of my life. I used to have it and even with it, my family went into a huge amount of debt. Healthcare is an equality issue. No one should have to die or compromise unfairly or go into crippling amounts of debt over health insurance. Recently there was even a person arrested over their debt due to medical expenses. Some health insurance programs don’t even cover certain procedures and patients have died from abstaining from them.  Sex trauma is a concern of mine. Primary schools need better sexual education in order to help form healthier, safer sexual relationships, rather than just teaching abstinence. Colleges and specifically CalArts need to create safer environments. I think the consent quiz in order to attend the Halloween party was a good first step. I think there could be more emphasis on helping survivors with their healing, possibly workshops. Not everyone has money for therapy and ...