Storytelling - Estefania R

The most engaging reading for me was the chapter on storytelling as a form of community-based performance. Something that this text did well, in my opinion, is explain the importance of storytelling and how personal stories give power and a voice to "even the least powerful individual." "Storytelling" explains that personal experiences not only give you a voice and platform, but they also give others the chance to also speak up. When one person speaks, they influence and inspire others to do the same.

Over all, this reading reminded me of Adrienne Maree Brown's performance about the body or more specifically, her relationship with her body.

https://youtu.be/PLjjxkjThrw

She is of course sharing her story by actually speaking. However, what captivates me the most is the way she essentially uses her body as a method of storytelling. In the video, she takes off one clothing item at a time and is left with a swimsuit at the end. She talked about the hardships of being a fat person and how not being conventionally attractive affected her relationship with her body. I find it very inspiring that this is something that affects a lot of people around the world and thanks to this performance, she influenced others to share their stories. For instance, we can look at the comment section and see how this performance gave people the courage to also share their stories.

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Politics and Theatrics

This post will focus on the correlations between politics and theater. Augusto Boal makes it a point to highlight how theater is political which makes me question: is politics is theater? Boal believes that by nature humans are political and since theater is a result of human activities it too is political. Politics and theater tend to portray different messages to society. For example, theater is not generally taken as seriously by people in society while politics is taken very seriously and impacts all people. Elections, voting, and media portrayals are all outlets in which politics is performed. If politics is a form of theater, then politicians would be the ones performing the theatrics. During the 2020 presidential debates between Donald Trump and President Biden, many people tuned in to hear out the political perspectives hashed out in real time. Eventually, as the debate continued the audience quickly realized that it was turning into a political spectacle based on ho...

Las Hijas de Violencia and Pussy Riot - Bella Blog Post #3

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El Teatro Campesino - Will Blog 2

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Performance for Social Change

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