The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest just put online an amazing collection of essays, coordinated by Team Colors collective. Their project, at http://www.joaap.org/projects/whirlwind.htm explores the current state of resistance culture and politics in the US in light of the coming dnc/rnc protests this summer.
Heavy reading, but well worth it. Highlights include Ben Shepards piece, a Michael Hardt/El Kilombo pairing, I want to do this all day (an audio documentary about really alternative education projects around north america), and an interview with Ashanti Alston.
Paul Sills gave us Story Theatre and improvisation which continues to influence thousands of individuals and provided a unique awareness about the space we inhabit. He brought these gifts into the world when America was unraveling at the edges. In the interview segment below, Paul explains how Story Theatre came out of a desire to make sense out of a time when abuse of power was rampant. After considering more direct ways to confront this, he decided to pour himself into his art where creating new worlds was possible and natural. Following these instincts led him to tell us some of the most percipient stories at moments we needed to hear them most.
Paul's immeasurable contributions to American culture and our theatrical tradition will be celebrated, taught and honored for generations to come. His achievements were due in no small part to the enormous support he received from family, especially from his wife Carol Bleackley Sills. They collaborated in Story Theatre productions in many ways. His presentations were unencumbered by props and theatrical mechanisms. He coached players to fill the vacant space by creating a collective minds eye
capable of triggering imaginary scenes that held all the production
value a story could need. These were places that invited play and extemporaneous expressions. Carol's minimal yet luminescent and painterly environments offered a perfect context for interplay among the players interpreting their stories. The image below was taken during Paul's presentation of the Metamorphoses in Wisconsin at the Peninsula Art School near the Baileys Harbor farmhouse he and Carol shared.
Excerpt from Interview: Paul Sills Reflects on Story Theatre by Laurie Ann Gruhn
"[Story Theatre] was an answer to the question of how the theatre could be relevant in 1968. We opened the Story Theatre in Chicago
in July, and the democratic convention nominated Humphrey in August of that extraordinary year, when in the Spring,
first Martin Luther King, then Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. Initially we were talking about opening a bar where
we could put the Democratic party on trial for getting us into Vietnam in the first place, but that was just a
desperate idea. Then I happened to read the Blue Light story in the Grimm Brothers collection and I saw it on stage
in the space then and there without the need to change a word. Stage space is capable of transformation-with out
mechanical scene changes-as we knew from working with Viola Spolin at Second City. Playing her game "Transformation
of Relations," the players could change relationship from doctor patient, to flying birds, to robots,
to whatever else emerged, and where they were transformed along with them. As all true improvisation is in pure
stage space (without literal props or scenic devices), transformation of where is implicit. In the Blue Light,
an old soldier who, on account of his many wounds can serve no longer, goes before the King and is sent off penniless
into the dark forest. He limps along until he sees a light and comes to the house of a Witch. She refuses to take
him in for the night unless he promises to go to the bottom of her well and retrieve for her a blue light that
burns brightly and never goes out. She lowers him on a rope. The space shaping player helps the audience see the
forest, the rope and feel the clammy surface of the well, and the quality of the mysterious blue light. As the
Witch winds him up on the winch, be suspects she's not going to let him up and refuses to give her the blue light.
She cuts the rope and he falls to the bottom of the well. There is no escape. He has nothing left but the blue
light and his pipe, which as his last act he lights from the flame. And lo! A little gray man appears and offers
to do his bidding. This is a motif in fairy tales: the power that's given from nowhere, just when nothing seems
possible. In the depths of the despair, there lies the spark: the transformation of reality. The soldier gets his
revenge on the King, replaces him, and marries the Princess and triumphs over soldiers, judges, over all authority
and power. And when the paternal power was overthrown, in the highly charged political situation of'68, the young
people cried, "Right on!" It was just in the air. After all, we were doing the story during the convention.
"As for the other fairy tales in the first Story Theatre show, the audience found those that were relevant to their
concerns and saw them as pertinent to the hour. Later, in San Francisco, in '73, the Blue Light no longer seemed
relevant, and San Franciscans said the show we did there wasn't political at all. To sum up, Story Theatre was
a response to a need I felt to say something in'68, and I found what I had long been looking for, a theatre that
took place in pure space, the space of transformation.
"The alternative way of telling stories in theatre is dramatic form, which inhabits a different space. Even Shakespeare,
who moved closer to pure story in his last plays, does not escape the literal space of drama. Each scene has its
exposition to orient the audience spatially. Both Yeats and Brecht, who came ever closer to story, often seemed
restricted by dramatic form, having no conception of the transformation of space. They used storytellers, as Chamber
Theatre uses narrators, for non-dramatic purposes. But story is different from drama; it intends something else.
Drama may need and use story, as Shakespeare did, but story is primary, and story re-telling, a different act."
The LA Times printed a heart wrenching page with 492 California war casualties listed on it. This kind of document Legislators should waive in their fists in the Congressional halls tomorrow. When will this madness stop? Accompanying the list was a story about Riverside National Cemetery, the busiest cemetery in the Country for soldiers who aren't making it back from Iraq and Afghanistan alive. May they rest in peace. I'd like to encourage some traffic at the site they put together: http://projects.latimes.com/wardead/
One of the tragedies
on the "deal" is what the environmental groups settled for on
Centennial, gave Tejon ranch much more land for development than LA County was
willing to give. The County was requesting that at least 50% of the land
be set aside as open space. This "deal" undercuts the County
significantly, when the County was actually TRYING to do some good conservation
work.
They recommend the following actions:
1) If you live in LA County
write your County Supervisor to oppose the Centennial new city. It is in Mike Antonovich's
district and he is still riding the fence about it (he has been on the record opposing other mega-developments within his district to date).
2) Another thing you can do is
write to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and tell them not to issue any permits to harm, injure or kill California
condors. The FWS is currently in the process of trying to do that -
to give permission to Tejon ranch to kill condors through granting an "incidental
take permit". The letters/postcard can be sent to:
Mary Grim,
Section 10 Program Coordinator,
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
2800 Cottage Way, W-2605,
Sacramento,
CA 95825
Something along the lines of:
Please
do not issue any permit to kill, harm or harass California condors.
Taxpayers
and private individuals have spent tens of millions of dollars over a
decade to bring the condor back from the brink of extinction.
The
condor recovery program has been successful.
It
is unprecedented and wrong to allow one condor to be lost, just to allow just
another leap-frog urban sprawl development to be built on Tejon Ranch.
Include your name and address, so
that it gets into the record.
Trumpeted this past Thursday in the LA Times was a humongous development deal between Tejon Ranch and a coalition of supposed environmental groups. In this time of oil and food shortages, the deal establishes a land trade for the right to develop this wildly beautiful and deeply invaluable remote Tejon area. This place is popularly known as the massive intact ecosystem (270,000 acres) reaching far beyond the the I-5 Grapevine.
The LA times (itself a shareholder in the ranch until 1997, and whose former owner, Harry Chandler, currently heads the investment group that currently owns the Ranch) announced this deal with uncritical, almost utopian, fanfare. Bullshit!
Unsurprisingly this deal makes less then everyone happy (the voices of condors, grasses, trees and hillsides have no say in the matter ), and a little digging turns up some fault-lines showing within the Sierra Club, a major deal-broker in this matter. To permit this building, the Sierra Club National apparently sold out Sierra Club locals- those who will be most affected by this pointless gas chugging chemical spewing sprawl.
Tejon Ranch covers over 270,000 acres of wilderness at the
crossroads of Northern and Southern California. The Mojave Desert, the
southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, the great central valley and the
southern forests all converge on Tejon Ranch -- the only place in
California where four ecoregions come together.
"This deal does a disservice to the wildlands and wildlife of Tejon, to
the people of Southern California who will suffer the consequences of
overdevelopment, and to all Californians, who will pay the price," said
Keats. "We can and must demand better. We live in a world too fragile
to allow this kind of sacrifice. Now is the time to say enough is
enough."
Save the Tejon Ranch! Does southern California need more mega developments? Create a plan that empowers local residents- not one that limits there right to challenge sprawl (as this one does). Groups are calling for the creation of a huge new natural area (state or national) on this critical environmental treasure.
Stay current on the issue & folow Sierra Club dissident Jan de Leeuwexcellent Californian blog Not In my Back Yard.
Ports have shut from LA to Um Quasr in opposition to the wars. Workers are in the streets. Philly had its first May Day celebration in years. I just wanted to share this message from my friend in Basra:
MAY DAY greetings to you , to all workers and labor movement.
Our hops for peace ,social justice, dignity and human rights for all
people.
Biomaterial charges against N.Y. art professor dismissed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 21, 2008
Filed at 8:45 p.m. ET
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- A judge threw out charges Monday against a college art professor accused of improperly obtaining biological materials for an exhibit protesting U.S. government food policies.
U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara ruled that the 2004 mail and wire fraud indictment against Steven Kurtz, a University at Buffalo professor, was ''insufficient on its face.''
Kurtz is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, which has used human DNA and other biological materials in works intended to draw attention to political and social issues.
His arrest drew protests from artists in several countries who called the charges an intrusion on artistic freedom.
''Obviously this is a weight off his back, but he still had to suffer through this for four years,'' said Kurtz's attorney, Paul Cambria. ''The last thing this guy is is a bioterrorist.''
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Buffalo said it was considering an appeal but otherwise declined to discuss the ruling.
Kurtz was indicted in 2004 following what began as an anti-terrorism investigation after police saw lab equipment in Kurtz's home while responding to the death of his wife, Hope.
Although investigators determined that lab equipment was part of his art work, he was indicted a month later. The charges carried a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Kurtz was accused of plotting with Robert Ferrell, former chairman of the University of Pittsburgh's human genetics department, to improperly obtain potentially harmful organisms.
Ferrell was fined $500 in February after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of mailing an injurious article to Kurtz.
Critical Art Ensamble Case OVER, Charges dropped.... though the prosecutor can appeal In a case of exhausting the avante garde, the courts today finally ended their macabre case against Steve Kurtz of the Critical Arts Ensamble.
I'm blogging from my friend Peter's laptop. I'm subleasing his place in South Central Los Angeles. It's not all urban wasteland here. In fact this area is quiet and has lots of huge and old (by LA standards) houses and churches.
Relocating isn't all bad. I like having a new area to explore. Peter told me to check out Chef Marilyn's Soul Food Express, which is just south of Adams on Crenshaw. I had delicious corn muffins, fried catfish, yams and collard greens.
Anyway, I wanted to share some quotes. The first is from Betrayal Trauma by Jennifer Freyd:
"..ridicule is often a response of those in power when they have little to say in defense of a challenge to the status quo"
The other is quote of a quote from The Corndawg's Live and in Person cd: "When tough little boys grow up to be dads they turn into big babies again."
I don't know why Corndawg isn't a big rock star. I guess the music industry really is dead. I heard they were gonna turn the Capitol Records building into high rise apartments. I know what you're thinking, "I saw that building destroyed by a super tornado in The Day After Tomorrow." Remember, it's only a movie.
I wanted to mention my poor kitty Babyman. He got killed by a car last month. If your cats have to go outside, don't let them out at night. Seriously, I have lost two cats to cars in the last two years. 222 -the mark of lameness.
Spreading dance through war-torn Bosnia, and with plans to do the same in other countries like Uganda and the Philippines, Genesis: Sarajevo heals and empowers young girls while unifying cultures. Check out
the website for pictures and to get to know the
project a little better: www.genesissarajevo.org There will be a Benefit for the 2008 summer dance intensive in
Sarajevo. Money raised will provide dance shoes to Bosnian dancers, U.S. dance instructors to teach the two-week
dance intensive, an exchange program to study in the U.S., costumes and venue
costs in Sarajevo. The event will take place at THE KING KING in Hollywood Wednesday, APRIL 23, 2008. $25 at the door for a night of amazing talent including dance performances by groups and crews from around Los Angeles, spoken word, possibly some live music,
etc. All proceeds go directly to GENESIS: SARAJEVO and are completely tax deductible. For show time and other information about Genesis: Sarajevo, e-mail Amy Danielson at stardanc13@gmail.com.
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