Chang and Eng Bunker

The Chang and Ang performance was an experimental approach to present people with simply the dialogue of the script. While I visually only recall seeing a large number of people on stage, I had to visually imagine the actual play taking place with what the narrator provided. Scene and act changes were all up to me and the readers/performers were responsible for telling the audience their own personal dialogue and interactions such as walking or moving.

Chang and Eng ended up being a great story of Siamese twins that ended up working as a spectator event for PT Barnum. The brothers faced many discrepancies with one another but continued to be a show for people to watch in order to continue making an income and name for themselves. As far as content went, the performance was great and seemed like a performance I would actually like to see in person.

Chang and Eng Bunker

Intuition

Intuition allows people to capture knowledge and make what they want of it. The key is to process the information and then put what you learned through intuition into something positive. Moments of intuition are awe inspiring for the individual and people usually give some form of respect for learning something without having to learn something. I see intuition and being insightful as being two totally different things but at the same time, they mesh very well together. Anyone can learn from a book, study information, memorize it, and apply it to life but intuition breaks all that so something innately primal occurs that allows us to absorb information in a fleeting moment of time. If knowledge is power then intuition is the authority over knowledge.

Dogs have intuition too. 

Priyank    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexWDe-Xik8

Oral History

“History cannot be held privately. No one person “owns” a story (5).” This statement really made me look into how history and stories are not a privately owned property. Secrets are stories but even stories involving only one person somehow involve more than one person in the long run. Polluck puts it so readers see performance is about connection. Performance is not a simple means of entertainment but a way to learn about someone else’s experience or story. “Oral history performance is strung between reference to real events and real listeners/witnesses, between recollection and anticipation of historical change” (7). Pollock sees that oral history is an embodiment of several elements and individuals. One person cannot have all the insight into an entire story or event that took place, and in turn oral histories allow for individuals to make what they want out of what they hear. 

 

When speaking of oral histories, I think of interviews. People are exchanging questions and thoughts in order to find out more about one another. One of the best interviewers is Narduwar. I enjoy watching his interviews and the people he interviews usually enjoy the interview they are a part of. Below is an interview with Kendrick Lamar and viewers can see the research Narduwar does into the artist’s history to make for an impeccable interview.

Priyank Patel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s5vlQdQp4s

Organizing for Social Change

Social change is an ongoing process. There are social issues across the world that need to be addressed and fixed but that does not mean people necessarily address those issues. Media plays a role in social change through the E-E programs and proves to be an excellent way for people to learn about social issues and what they can do to help to fight various levels of social injustices. 

Self esteem is a big factor in how social change can actually exist. The Grameen bank does an excellent job of micro financing individuals and giving them some sense of self worth where they can use the money for personal expenditures or investments. “Social change requires communication and cooperative action among people” (249). Humans are social creatures so it only makes sense social changes be made when people communicate effectively with one another to fight the issues that come their way.

 

For my example, I used the Beastie Boys song Fight For Your Right. The song does not necessarily go along with social change but the meaning remains that people have to fight to some extent in order to get changes they want or need. Going against the norm is essential for changes in society.

Priyank Patel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk

Act to Learn

Oppression is seen on many levels. Who would have thought literacy would be able to be seen as a form of oppression? For nations and regions where the national language conflicts with regional languages and dialects, literacy can easily be a way to oppress the masses. Governing bodies adopt one language that citizens may not have the resources to learn the language. This in turn leads to a division in wealth and so on as seen in our world today.

Theater manages to break these barriers and allows the use of body to understand. Performance can be understood in more ways than one but dialogue is not mandatory of a performance to get into the minds of an audience. Literacy still needs to be achieved in order to avoid government exploitation but theater is a great place to start on the road to literacy. Verbs can be acted out and translated and translated again into the language of choice. Scenarios can be performed that adapts to a culture but essentially presents the same plot and story line.

My example presents how acting out can be interpreted differently but in the end it’s able to be digested and understood the way the performer intended. Maybe it’s not acting but charades still go along with what I was trying to present in my blog post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g4DXzBdaMI

Illiteracy

From a young age, most children in the West are introduced to books. These books tend to be basic books like “Goodnight Moon” or “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” and so on. The fact of the matter is, most children probably are not super enthused by the challenges of reading when we live in such a technically and image based society. Nonetheless, children “perform” and in turn learn how to read and write over time and grade school simply emphasizes literacy. In the end, we learn how fortunate we are to read in comparison to other people in the world because literacy is the foundation for education regardless of the community in which one may live.

Some communities are not so lucky to have access to libraries, education, or educated parents. Rural communities in India, China, African nations, and so on would love to be in a school house or classroom learning. They do not have this “luxury” we have and instead have to “perform” a variety of actions that benefit their physical livelihood and not their mental livelihood. Western society puts on a performance of constant concern but nothing ever gets done for anyone other than the people within our own societies. We have so much to offer other people but keep it to ourselves. Organizations like Teach For America are doing a great job helping here but I am sure we all see how Teach For Africa would be a just as formidable endeavor for the progression of our global community.

Regardless of where illiteracy is taking place, illiteracy needs to be eradicated and resources need to be met for the community at large. 

I placed a clip where Adam Sandler teaches to read in his movie Big Daddy. Illiteracy is a serious issue but I see a correlation between solving problems and humor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnbL56_S9rQ

 

Hafiz: Fiddling with the Idiot and the Hopeful, Freedom from the Shackle

Blog Post 9/24/12

This week’s reading presented how performance is not simply designed for entertainment. The excerpt by Steven Durland about Greenpeace’s efforts to further promote their endeavors through various means of performance shows how the events we may experience can be interpreted as a performance. Guerilla Theater is the way Durland describes Greenpeace’s performances and I see how guerilla aptly describes their attempts at promoting environmental awareness. Page 69 of the excerpt mentions “one of Greenpeace’s more potent images was created in England in 1985 where internationally known photographer… directed a 60 second film” where a model had her fur coat leave behind a bunch of blood for the audience to see. This event promoted how many animals it takes to create an article of clothing that does not even need to be worn.

Another reading presented the ways in which health and performance professionals are able to cooperated with indigenous people without learning a language. The Dwight Conquergood excerpt took a look at Conquergood’s experience as a health performer. He mentions how the organization incorporated feedback of the culture they were in as well as use the universal language of performance to make the community aware of various health risks. He talks about their endeavors to stop rabies from spreading. Originally the Hmong people did not understand the concept of vaccination but after a performance of cultural incorporation, the people understood how important and helpful rabies vaccinations were.  

Performances are not simply confined to an idea of entertainment on stage. Performances occur all around us especially in our college environment. I don’t know if you guys have heard of the Pit Preacher but he is essentially performing every time he hits this campus.

Priyank Patel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIrHAM_ihDw

They Made Us Hate Our Self

“Self-depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their
internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them.” I cannot even begin to explain how well this excerpt from the readings resonates with me. Most ethnic groups have faced some form of oppression and perhaps all members of society have faced oppression on some level. From the beginning of history, the social elite has been glamorized and in turn people of a lower social stratosphere have tried to emulate those who were at the top.  “The peasant feels inferior to the boss because the boss seems to be the only one who knows things and is able to run things”. I feel inferior to the professors and administrative staff at the school because they’ve reached a level of learning higher than I will ever achieve. High school kids feel inferior to me because I go to a top ranked public school.

Sometimes we forget that we are all composed of the same elements. President Obama is no different from Johnathan Smith on Main Street in terms of humanity. They are both humans. Our social structure is made so that people can be judged and criticized and praised based on education, wealth, ingenuity, talent, athleticism, and so on. We subconsciously compare ourselves to others because we are trained to believe people who make more money or have more prominence in the community are more important than we actually are.

Liberation in this day and age does not mean we have to free ourselves from an oppressive government. A lot of people are victims more so of materialistic wealth and commodities than being actually being oppressed by a higher up power. People use money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kyWDhB_QeI

 

Priyank Patel

Organizing Leads Organizations

This week’s readings brought up a lot of interesting subject matter in regards to how humans and even creatures interact with one another in order essentially exist in a functional manner for the most part. The first section on commercial sex workers in India really caught my interest considering my South Asian Studies concentration. A lot of the times I hear how horrible conditions are for CSWs and how they try to teach them about proper and adequate sexual health. With the CSWs in Kolkata, the article shows the power of organizing together a group with similar interests which in turn leads to an organization that shares these interests and uses them as a foundation for the group.

With a workforce organization of this nature, the article shows how powerful the effects of a united front can be to eradicate the grievances that arrive with the nature of their particular occupation. In contrast, other sex workers throughout the world struggle to maintain rights and are often victims of abuse thanks to a lack of organization among fellow workers as well as cooperation from the government.

In contrast, organizing has the ability to lead to organizations of the likes of the Nazi army. Following ideas given by someone else that leads to the betterment of the individuals involved will likely lead to an organization that sees this individual as a good leader. From there on, the leader can build the organization the way he wants around his own ideas while manipulating the minds of his followers. The power of organization is powerful and can put an entire society back on its feet. While at the same time, organization can destroy a society as well.

With that in mind, I will leave a media clip where one of my media idols speaks to a unified front on a set of ideas geared toward an organization right on this campus (Young Democrats).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4GYC1O3CKI

-Priyank Patel

Debt with Interest

“I wouldn’t enter the real playing field unless you had no other choice. Surely you can come up with another good excuse”. Not to sound solemn but this is how I felt about having to perform last Thursday. Even if it was in front of a group of my peers, this was something very different for me. Of course, I could have not performed and “ran up some more debt”, I’m sure I could dodge Prof. Garlock’s lowering of my grade that way or something like that. Instead of rationalizing for a way to get out of something or avoiding an obstacle in your life, your better off just taking it head on to the best of your abilities and hoping for the best. I think that’s what Hafiz is going for here. At least, that is what I got out of this poem. Embracing challenges can only make us stronger while running away from them will leave us unaccomplished and feeling inferior to others who bombastically take on whatever comes their way. As far as the performance goes, I treated it like I was telling a story to a group of new friends at a dinner table. I did my best to not make it feel forced and one of the mechanisms I use to deal with nervousness is try to get people to laugh. I do not know how successful my humor was but it put me at ease for the most part minus the end when I felt like I was almost out of time. As a high school student, I actually went to my local community theater and watched my peers and people within the community perform. I honestly envied those people for being able to memorize a set of lines and embracing a character because I knew they were doing it for fun and not for any sort of financial gain.

From the performances last Thursday, Jasmine really wowed me with her ability to open up so well to a fairly fresh group of faces. Being able to recount on a performance that may not have all the positive attributes one looks for in an accomplished performance showed me not every performance is going to go well. There are several factors beyond yourself that determine how your performance may turn out.

Larab showed us that while we cannot always hide behind sunglasses we can use our ability to not care about how people perceive us to be our metaphorical sunglasses. We’re not so much hiding behind something but more so taking on a different identity or maybe it’s our own identity in a better light. Adaptation is a human instinct and Larab adapted very well to his performance environment.

Carter’s performance seemed to have taken everyone aback. His comfort level by being in front of everyone was just astounding. He had a story to share and was very comfortable in sharing it. Not many people can have the experience Carter had and be able to embrace it so well and that said a lot about how his performance was able to relay to the audience so well.