Newsletter #6
September 10, 2018
Performance and Community Building
One way to understand Performing the World 2018 (PTW) is as an ongoing, international community-building activity. Over the last 17 years, PTWs have not only reflected, but have also helped to connect and encourage the emerging “performance turn” in education, psychology, medicine, and social activism. Indeed, it can be argued that performance, with its dependence on ensemble building, inherently generates community. We’re so pleased to showcase presenters at PTW 2018 who will be sharing their performance approach to building community, in places and situations where it is sorely needed.
Performing Communities de Esperanza (3rd from left: Mariana Loya, Chris Reyman, and Paola Lopez
From far right: Miguel Cortes and Jorge Burciaga)
Performing Communities de Esperanza is the name of both an organization/activity and the presentation some of its builders will make at PTW 2018. Miguel Eduardo Cortes Vazquez, Omar Bolado Villegas, Jorge Burciaga Montoya, Sandra Paola López Ramírez, Óscar Lozoya, Mariana Soledad Loya Parra, Estefania Luciene Ortega, Chris Reyman, and Jesús Rafael Rodríguez Esquivel will share their ongoing efforts to create a binational community of performance activism in the highly charged political environment of the US-Mexican border. Working/playing in both Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, USA, they are exploring, through practice, how to move beyond resisting injustice to discovering new ways to grow and develop together in the face of oppression and violence.
Improvisation games at Pikpa Refugee Camp, Mytilini, Lesvos Greece.
(Background right: Francesco Argenio Bernaroio and Elena Boukouvala)
Building an international community of performance activists, refugees, migrants and local residents in Europe are: Elena Boukouvala, a drama therapist and performance activist based in Greece who has worked extensively in Europe’s refugee camps; Francesco Argenio Benaroio, a performance activist from Italy now living in Hungary and the founder of Arts for Dialogue; and Esben Wilstrup co-founder of Efterskolen Epos, a performance-based high school in Denmark. They were the lead organizers of
Efterskolen EPOS, Denmark
Perform, Play, Learn and Grow, (PPLG), the first gathering of performance activists in Europe. PPLG brought 130 people from 30 countries to Thessaloniki, Greece in April. Joined by Efi Latsoudi, Yulie Tzirou and Eleni Tsompanaki and others
PPLG conference session: (2nd from left: Francesco Argenio Benaroio
and far right: Eleni Tsompanaki with others)
involved in PPLG, they will, through conversation and other performance, share their organizing process and their plans, going forward, to continue networking and building performance activism across Europe.
Ludi Community University
Another development community using play and performance to create itself and impact on its city, is Ludi Community University, a school for working class adults, in Taipei, Taiwan. Now 19-years-old and offering 80 courses to 1,500 students each semester, Ludi has long been led by Powpee Lee, a former factory worker and union organizer, who describes Ludi as, “a playground for adult learners.” This year Lee, who has attended almost every PTW since 2005, will be joined by Ludi dance teacher Ginger Hsiao and Jaminie Liu, Ludi’s head of full time staff, who is responsible for the development of the school’s performance classes. Their session Tap, Tap, Tap Dance: Stepping on the Alienation in the Lonely City will share one example of how Ludi creates community, a tap dancing class that brought together a hair stylist, an office manager, an insurance agent, a mechanic and a saleswoman who overcame their alienation through dancing together. Powpee Lee
Omar Ali, the dean of Lloyd International Honors College at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG), and Tiera Moore, a graduate student at the Applied Arts and Science Program at UNCG, are co-directors of Community Play/All Stars Project Alliance, Greensboro, which, for the last four years, has been organizing play and performance activities – including talent shows, improv workshops, and play readings – in Warnersville, a working-class African-American neighborhood in Greensboro. Most recently, Community Play has been bringing residents of Warnersville together with the Congolese refugee community in East Greensboro. Ali’s and Moore’s session Greensboro in Poetry and Play: Where Are We From, Where Are We Going will be a participatory poetry/movement workshop based on the history of Warnersville.
Ali will also be one six panelists joining Gloria Strickland, Vice President of Youth and Community Development for the All Stars Project, Inc., in a session Creating a New Alliance for Growth: All Stars Around the World. The All Stars, co-sponsor of Performing the World, is a U.S. non-profit that uses what it calls, “the transformative power of performance” to empower young people and poor communities. The All Stars Project is active in six U.S. cities and its performance-based approach to building community has inspired others around the U.S. and the world, some of whom will be sharing their work during this session. In addition to Ali, the panel will include Yuji Moro, the founder of the Japan All Stars; Murray Dabby of the Atlanta All Stars Talent Show; Lainie Hodges, founder of Improv Alchemy and the Denver Talent Show Network; and Paola Lopez of Performing Communities de Esperanza.
This is the last Performing the World 2018 Newsletter. Conference chair Lois Holzman, co-founder and director of the East Side Institute and conference co-host Gabrielle Kurlander, president and CEO of the All Stars Project, Inc., wish to convey how much they are looking forward to meeting you all – performance activists, theatre and dance artists, therapists, educators and community builders, and everyone else – when we gather for PTW 2018 in New York City over the weekend of September 21-23. Safe travels and Let’s Develop Together!