Throughout this class, I have matured as a person, a student, and theatre artist. Also, the class as a whole has become better at participating in hard and complex conversations and activities, that we were tiptoeing around before. I’ve seen both of these progressing simultaneously and often due to the same activities and conversations.
The activity that caused the most change for myself and from what I saw the class was the “Oppressed or oppressor” game. As we were faced with random pictures without any context and asked to place them into these groups, the group and myself really were drawn to a breaking point. For me, because an authority I respect told me to complete this activity, that was my goal. As people became upset I felt myself …show more content…
I have become more able to see, “Theatre is a privileged means by which we may find out who we are (Boal, 61).” To have the ability to do theatre makes me privileged from there I can explore who I am as well as my place in community and society. This is true for anyone that is allowed to create this art form. As I’ve been thinking about it in the context of The Aesthetics of the Oppressed and The Exonerated, it is important for the privileged theatre artist to use their voice to also empower those that may not have a voice to push forward change that may give them a voice. The Exonerated is a perfect example of this, Blank and Jensen, who are theatre artist, used their privilege to interview Exonerees and allow them to be able to share their stories and they normally would not have this privilege. Another element of theatre for social change that I realized is incredibly important is the community. As a theatre artist, I have to be aware of the communities issues so that a main focus can be about discussing and hopefully promoting change within these issues. As well as the importance of noticing what the community responses to the issues and what issues the community generally stay silent on. Noticing this importance of community within theatre for social change has really made me examine what issues Ithaca College needs to face and needs help examining, which can be a focus for this class and also my future as a theatre
The activity that caused the most change for myself and from what I saw the class was the “Oppressed or oppressor” game. As we were faced with random pictures without any context and asked to place them into these groups, the group and myself really were drawn to a breaking point. For me, because an authority I respect told me to complete this activity, that was my goal. As people became upset I felt myself …show more content…
I have become more able to see, “Theatre is a privileged means by which we may find out who we are (Boal, 61).” To have the ability to do theatre makes me privileged from there I can explore who I am as well as my place in community and society. This is true for anyone that is allowed to create this art form. As I’ve been thinking about it in the context of The Aesthetics of the Oppressed and The Exonerated, it is important for the privileged theatre artist to use their voice to also empower those that may not have a voice to push forward change that may give them a voice. The Exonerated is a perfect example of this, Blank and Jensen, who are theatre artist, used their privilege to interview Exonerees and allow them to be able to share their stories and they normally would not have this privilege. Another element of theatre for social change that I realized is incredibly important is the community. As a theatre artist, I have to be aware of the communities issues so that a main focus can be about discussing and hopefully promoting change within these issues. As well as the importance of noticing what the community responses to the issues and what issues the community generally stay silent on. Noticing this importance of community within theatre for social change has really made me examine what issues Ithaca College needs to face and needs help examining, which can be a focus for this class and also my future as a theatre