Final Blog Post

The concept that is continually stuck in my mind from this class is- activism. I am a very passionate person and hold issues in society close to my heart. The passion that activists have always sparks my interest. No matter what the issue at hand is, I find it fascinating the reasons why people choose to so firmly take a stand. Our class was full of people with all different opinions, all different values, all different backgrounds, all different skin colors, all different families, all different lives.... Hearing from the different members of my classes and what they so firmly believed was enlightening. Whether I agreed or not, I enjoyed hearing and learning. I think one part of activism is that everyone wants to be heard. Everyone has a voice and whether you exercise that right to the fullest or not is up to you. I've always been inspired by the quote, "Be the change you want to see in the world" by Ghandi.

In our class we've talked about lots of different issues and beliefs. One topic that continually came up was church and religion. Many of my classmates all had different opinions on this and have come from different backgrounds. I thought it was interesting how church, religion, and God came up in almost every class. I have very strong opinions on this, as I live my life for Jesus. I give the majority of my time to leading a Lifegroup, discipling girls and laying my life and time down so that people may know Jesus. And I don't do it out of a sense of performance or because of religious obligation. I do it because of love. My church's motto is Love God, Love Each Other, Change the World. And that is my personal motto as well.

By my definition of activism, this falls under that category. It's an activism for justice, a promotion of grace, and an overwhelming desire to see the world changed for the glory of God because there will be a day when we all die and we will go somewhere right? What happens at the end of this life? I know exactly where I will be. Because I have experienced heaven on earth with Jesus. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

Everyone lives for something right? What do you live for? 

I think everyone lives for something, whether it's for themselves, for other's approval, to be loved, or you name it. But I know what I'm laying my life down for has an eternal weight. I know that it will be worth it in the end. And that what I live my life for- Jesus- gives me an abundant life here on earth that I couldn't find with anything else of this world. I've tried to live for the world before- trying to fit in and looking to improve my social status- attempting to satisfy myself with partying or anything I could reach to, to fill up the place in me that only Jesus can fill. But it left me empty. And I'm not saying this to tell you what to do or what not to do. But I am telling my experience and that the joy, peace, and life that I've found in Jesus is nothing compared to any fleeting feeling I've felt from living for myself and the world.

This is why activism strikes me as one of the most important concepts discussed in class this semester. Because I want to know why people believe what they believe and what makes them so strongly want to fight for it. Because we all believe something- right? People were created to be a part of something bigger than themselves. For me- that is my church community and sharing the love of Jesus with everyone around me.

All semester these are the thoughts that have been in my mind when discussing these topics and I'm glad to have the opportunity to share in my final blog post. This class has taught me a lot. A lot about theatre and issues in society, and the way the two relate. But one thing about activism that I know for sure is that never do I want to be like the people in free speech alley screaming... I think that the way to see change no matter what the situation is love- a love that comes from Jesus. It's love and it's not hate. It's peace and it's not unrest. It's seeing the broken healed and blind given sight.

This is what I believe. This is what I stand for. This is what I live my life for. I will not live a life of passivity, but I will take action to boldly share the name of Jesus with love no matter what the cost.

Post #11

I think one really subtle way that the uncanny is presented in performance is through familiarity. When I watch movies, tv shows or theatre, I always find a character that I kind of relate to. Someone who seems like who I would be if I was in their "world". I think that when a character is super relatable and you seem to understand them it feels uncanny. Through this self-expression in performance, it can create an uncanny feeling because of the similarity. However, I think this is a very subtle use of uncanny, and not so dramatic like when we are talking about chat bots and such. I do think that this use of uncanny provides a creative outlet for self-expression. It makes you feel like someone else relates to you and can make you feel less alone in society. I think it is a valuable sensibility for artists to develop because as an actor you can be relatable to the audience. You want to engage them and their emotions. I think this is a very valuable skill to be able to perform the uncanny, no matter what the context is.

Post #10

As theatre evolves to create more room for empathy, in this age of cynicism and narcissism, and apathy, I think the next step theatre must take in order to create new dialogue, initiate chance, and hopefully combat age-old issues of oppressors vs. oppressed is to create a culture of compassion. I think if our culture has compassion on people, it will removes our focus from ourselves and initiate change out of love and empathy.

I think that theatre is a great vehicle to drive social chance and create a buzz about issues. It gets people thinking and can bring up hard pressing issues in a non-threatening environment (for the most part). Although, I think there is a greater answer to major issues in society. I think that love is the answer. More specifically, I think that Jesus's love is the answer. In class this week we talked a lot about "religion and politics" and the tension that they bring up. In this prompt, I was asked is there ever a point where theatre stops being the answer and if so, what is... and that is what I truly believe. When I mentioned having compassion, it isn't compassion that comes with selfish agendas or any unpure motives. It is a compassion that comes from Jesus and the way He lived His life and what we learn from the Bible. I think if people had a "relationship" with Jesus rather than striving to do "good works" as a part of "religion", then people would want to be more like Jesus not to work their way to heaven, but to have an abundant life on earth and share Jesus's love with everyone they know. And loving people and having compassion would bring peace to the chaos, freedom to the oppressed, and light to this dark world.

I think that theatre can be a forum for social chance. For me, acting/theatre is a way to express myself and a way of entertainment. I think that theatre can be extremely thought provoking and create emotions in people that move them to action. I think Invisible Theatre can be effective, especially the way it was done by the experiment in class. Their experiment evoked emotions in me and during their argument I picked who I agreed with and who I disagreed with. It made me think of what I would do in that situation and had me thinking about the issues they were bringing up. Invisible theatre makes it less as a performance and more as a real life conversation. The one experience I have with invisible theatre was did make me more involved in the issue.

Post #9

Baton Rouge is one of the top ten cities for human trafficking. This issue is important to me and our local community because of its prominence in our city. The I-10 corridor contributes to the issue of human trafficking in Baton Rouge. I am apart of Tigers Against Trafficking (TAT), student organization, in which every year we put on a race to raise money to combat human trafficking. TAT also partners with Trafficking Hope organization, which has a home right outside of Baton Rouge that is a rehab facility for trafficking victims. My act of protest/activism would be to participate in this race to raise money and awareness to end human trafficking in our city. My tactics are raise money to donate to the A21 Campaign that is an international campaign that hands on rescues victims. My act of activism would not directly deal with human traffickers, but would raise awareness to be able to take action within our city. Media will help our cause by promoting the organization to raise awareness of "modern day slavery". I once participated in #enditmovement, which was promoted on social media to raise money and awareness. I went "silent" on social media (as a protest) for the day and changed my profile picture to black to signify the 27 million people enslaved in human trafficking that have disappeared. It was a powerful movement and the media and internet housed the protest. The fight against human trafficking will probably never end, but the protests and activism will feel more successful as we see the number 27 million decrease and as victims are being freed and recovering.

http://www.enditmovement.com/

http://www.tigersagainsttrafficking.com/

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=736219583065562&set=vb.471663386187851&type=2&theater

Post #8

Time and pace reenforces the reality effect of the types of theatre we discussed this week such as single tweet and multi-tweet twitter dramas, futurist pieces and durationals. It is interesting the role that time and pace has in twitter theatre. The time is always documented in a twitter drama and the place can be documented. Like mentioned in the blog prompt, it is real-time, which enhances the reality effect. Twitter is meant to be used on the go during everyday life, which makes twitter dramas feel real. For multi-tweet twitter dramas pace and time are important for the followers to stay up to date with. Futuristic theatre also focuses on shorter plays, which is done using pace and short time frames.

I think one cool idea to bring theatre into technology and the "right here, right now" aspect would be to record broadway plays. It would give people who aren't able to go see broadway a chance to see it from their home or TV. The Sound of Music broadcasted on TV, which made the broadway experience "right here, right now". A company called National Theatre Live is going to record a performance of Of Mice and Men  to show in movie theaters across America. I think we could even localize this idea and film local plays to have showings after the performance has ended. I think this would achieve the goal of the "right here, right now" of theatre because it brings performance to theaters or even computers. It will make it more accessible.

http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/ntlout8-of-mice-and-men

Post #7

My production would be a murder mystery dinner party. It would take place at a restaurant, where the waiters, chefs, and hostess's would be acting as usual. The people eating at the restaurant would be the audience. The audience would purchase a ticket and would understand that they were signing up for dinner and a murder mystery party. It would use the 6 axioms of environment theatre. It would be a set of related transaction in the way the people interact with each other and the restaurant staff. It will use all the space because it is using the whole restaurant. It will take place in a transformed space. The focus would be flexible because it is heavily dependent on the audience, and variable because there could be different ways to solve the murder mystery.

The framework of site-specific theatre and environmental theatre effects my production because my production does not take place in a theater. It heavily relies on the environment to be successful. I think it would be an enhancement for the audience. Certain members of the audience would not actually be audience members, they would be performers acting as the audience. They will help further along the mystery.

I agree with Kantor's view because people are utterly surprised when seeing theatre outside of a theater. People expect theatre to be in a box sometimes, and don't realize that street performers can be theatre as well. I think it does surprise people when theatre is in a different site than usual.

Post #6

In this technological era, I think we can use it to improve our theatrical culture. In my arts management class, we talked about recordings of broadway plays and if it would positively or negatively affect theatre. I think that we should embrace technology and the media to be innovative in what we consider performance. I think you can video a performance and it still be a performance because it was filmed live and present. Although, it is not happening in a present form. I do not think we are in danger or losing this artistic expression. However, I think we can use it to compliment it.

I think that "imagined memory" is a very interesting concept. I think social media gives you a way of keeping up with people's lives and feeling like you are "there" without really being "there". It almost reminds me of watching home videos that my parents recorded when I was younger. We've gone back and watched the old videos from time to time when all the family is together or on holidays and sometimes I confuse my memories from when I was younger with what I actually remember or what I remember seeing on video. For instance, there is a video of my first Christmas, so in my mind I remember it because over the years we've watched the video. However, I think that my memories are of the video rather than actually remembering things when I was six months old. This does make me feel fully present in that moment after seeing the video of myself being there. I think this impacts art and theatre because if you see a video of a performance, you are left with the memory of the performance after you watch it even if you weren't actually there for the live performance. The memory is still with you. 

Post #5

The first example that comes to my mind is a play that we performed in high school. The play was The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The play was about a group of students putting on a play about the story of Christmas for their school. In the play, baby Jesus in the manger was actually a baby doll. I thought about this choice because obviously it was effective and makes the most sense to have a baby doll represented as Jesus rather than an actual baby. And the doll representing Jesus was essential to the play because since it is a play about a play they reference the actual baby doll. However, when the characters are performing their play it makes the most sense to not have this aspect in full, naturalistic form. This would be an example of dark matter because you just imagine that baby Jesus is actually in the manager, although it is known that he is not.

I think that abstraction in the theatre world is a very powerful tool. You can show sorrow, pain and devastation without knowing that the people you are watching are actually experiencing this. You also don't always see what left them in this state. I think that Theatre, definitely in relation to the Holocaust, does not need to show all the gruesome details to be effective. I think that it is just as powerful to use representation and abstraction to tell a powerful story that can never be forgotten. 

Disturbance

When I think of disturbance in the theatre world, I think of the performers in New Orleans that put on a show across from Jackson Square. In an amphitheater a group of performers dance, do tricks and perform comedy, which attracts a crowd. I view it as disturbance because it is set up in a public place, where people are walking by. Usually a crowd of people are sitting in the bleachers watching by the end of it. One time I was in New Orleans with my family and ended up sitting down to watch them perform. They asked for volunteers to go up and my mother was selected among a few other audience members. The performers joked around with them, had them in a conga line, and for the grand finale, had them all laying on the ground, while one one of the guys jumped over the line of people. I was a little frightened for my mother's life, but mostly laughing really hard and taking pictures. I find that disturbance in our society is usually something to take pictures of or tweet about. A lot of times when someone does something really crazy, in class, in a restaurant, on the street, I find that people around me are taking pictures or my friends are tweeting about it. It's interesting to see what kind of disturbances are tweet worthy and documented by the average iPhone user or the press. So to bring theatre into the 21st century, my idea is to integrate a form of media. Perform a play that stirs people up and has them live tweeting the performance or has a newspaper writing a review. I think that in our society today, the media is a huge part of any profession. I think that the theatre industry should jump on board. The theatre community can't control what people talk about on social media, but they can encourage and promote it using hashtags and a social media campaign. I think this would be the most effective way to bring about the social change that certain plays are aiming to accomplish. The more people hear about it, the more people the message reaches.

Blog Post #3

Two past productions that really stood out to me is the play Rising Water that I saw at LSU and the broadway play starring Idina Menzel If/Then. When I saw Rising Water, it really made me reflect on Hurricane Katrina and stories of people I know that lived in New Orleans during it. This play was a representation of what many people went through during the hurricane, when they were stuck in a flooded house with rising water, calling for help. The broadway play If/Then was not as realistic. The play showed two different destinies and the possibilities of things that would happen depending on what choice you made. This play was very entertaining, but showed some truth and made me think “what if” about things in my life. However, the play Rising Water really informed me of what it could be like to be in a house with water rising. I think that performances that are documentary style or naturalistic do end up providing truth. I think fictional and non-fictional stories still end up shedding light to some truth in life.  

Performativity

I think that Taylor Swift's new music video/song is an interesting performative statement. The song "Shake It Off" and music video to go along with it definitely show Taylor Swift "acting out" yet again.

Here's the link to the music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM&noredirect=1

In this video, Taylor Swift performs many different personalities in my opinion.

Here's a general summary:
She begins as a ballerina, then hip hop looking with a boom box, then swan lake costume (ballet again), then not really sure but wearing grey clothing and doing acrobats, then a gymnastics costume, then lady gaga looking costume (space-themed?), then all black with glasses, then twerking with short jean shorts and a cheetah top, then wearing black singing looking normal singing with a jazz band, then a cheerleader, then from here on out she switches between all these "personalities" with the ending being with normal regular people in normal clothes as opposed to costumes all dancing with her.

Her lyrics imply "shaking off" the rumors and stereotypes people say about her. The song seems to make a statement in the sense to shake it off and live your life and cause "the haters gonna hate (hate, hate, hate, hate)".

The reason I am bringing up this music video/song is because I feel like her main goal is to shake it off and forget what people say by bringing light to it. She addresses rumors and haters and doesn't "seem" to care by singing a happy-forget the haters anthem.

I think that before people even saw the video, they had their critiques lined up. In a way, Taylor Swift's song kind of addresses the negative feedback she might have gotten from this music video.

I think that the message in this music video is interesting because she portrays herself in different costumes, performing different actions. Does she identify with these characters? Is she simply performing them? Who is the real Taylor Swift? I think that her music video shows different people and different interests, but how at the end of the day we are all people. The end of her video which included "normal" looking people all dancing together just showed that we are all humans with different hobbies, looks, backgrounds, etc. and shouldn't worry about what anyone thinks.

No matter what the actual message of the song/music video for "Shake it Off" is, I think Taylor Swift wins because it's a catchy tune and is #1 on the iTunes Charts currently.

Marvin Carlson's "What is Performance?"

In trying to define my own version of performance, I knew that it was very difficult to decide what is and isn't performance. In my mind I feel like I have an idea of what would be considered performance, but putting it into the confines of a definition is harder than it may seem. In our class discussion, I would think I finally had it figured out until another student would bring up a different perspective that totally shifted my thinking. Therefore, I realized in class that there is no easy definition of performance. Learning the term an essentially contested concept in Carlson's intro was eye-opening for me. I was thrilled to learn that there is a term to describe the debate and confusion that was our class discussion when trying to define performance. 

Someone in our class brought up Mardi Gras Balls in our discussion. This really challenged my thinking about performance. Rituals can be considered performance, but their sole purpose is not usually to perform. Mardi Gras Balls once included real royalty and were rituals practiced by kings and queens. However, in today's times in southern Louisiana, Mardi Gras Balls that include kings and queens and rituals are more of a theatre performance because it does not include actual royalty. Would this be considered performance? I think it would because it mostly revolves around entertainment. But does all performance have to have the purpose of entertainment? I don't think it always does either. Through our discussions and this reading, I feel that I lean more towards the broader side for defining performance. I feel that more things in our world are performance, than not performance. As a Mass Communication major, I believe that a huge part of communicating is performing. Even on social media, I think people perform and portray the way they want to be viewed.

In Carlson's intro he says "Strine Long, and Hopkins argue that performance has become just such a concept developed in an atmosphere of "sophisticated disagreement" by participants who "do not expect to defeat or silence opposing positions, but rather through continuing dialogue to attain a sharper articulation of all positions and therefore a filler understanding of the conceptual richness of performance."" I really like this quote because I think that we should keep talking about what performance means to us to fully understand the richness of it. Performance is rich. It can include entertainment, theatre, music, human interaction, rituals, and much much more. My aspirations and career revolve around performance. Carlson's article comforts me in a sense because I can rest in knowing that performance is an essentially contested concept. It's not just me who can't decide exactly what it is, but even a scholar who studies this agrees that it is not easy to define. And that is the beauty of performance. For me, it evokes expression and creativity, even in trying to learn exactly "what it is".