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 represent their stories with actors and by paraphrasing their words, she allows them to represent themselves. This is the fundamental aspect of this work, as it shows Sepinuck’s dedication to telling stories in a truthful and unfiltered way. Sepinuck writes, “The purpose of this form of theatre is to give voice to those who have been marginalized, forgotten, or are invisible in the larger society, and to invite audiences to bear witness to issues of suffering, redemption, and social justice. My hope is that by seeing and hearing the life stories of those who aren’t often heard in our society, audience members will humanize the ‘other’ and open their hearts and minds to the possibility of transformation” (15). In other words, Sepinuck uses her privilege to give a platform, a context, and artistic expression for voices that are often, or altogether unheard. I was also inspired by Sepinuck’s candor about overstepping boundaries with some of her collaborators. Michael, a homeless man, was a dedicated cast member of the project, Home Tales, and was resistant to charity (27-29). He did not identify as homeless, and said “I make myself at home wherever I am” (28). After the production tour was complete, Sepinuck got Michael to agree to her paying some rent for a small apartment for him (30). It turned out that Michael’s personality was not conducive to this lifestyle, and Sepinuck remarks on how this was a lesson about presumption (30-31). “Regardless of his unusual way of living, who was I to presume that living another way would be best for him?” I think that Sepinuck outlines some crucial techniques I can utilize in my future encounters with community-engaged art. First, listening to those whose stories you want to tell is the catalyst for community engaged art. If we do not fully listen to those we aim to represent, then we will have massive blind spots or project falsities onto the stories of individuals. Second, an effective way to tell stories accurately and with emotional truth, is to put the people who the stories belong to in the spotlight. This way, marginalized people can be heard and seen. Third, we should allow people space, and should not impose our own ideas about life onto theirs. In other words, community engaged art should be created with the intention to hear people and help amplify their voices so that change may occur. It is not wrong to want to help, but the intention of working with communities should not be grounded in pity or have the end goal of their adherence to a way of life that is more in line with a privileged, white lifestyle.
Works Cited
“1-3.” Theatre of Witness: Finding the Medicine in Stories of Suffering, Transformation and Peace, by Teya Sepinuck, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2013, pp. 13–31.
Comments
Post a Comment