Activism in Parable of the Sower

Going in to Friday night's performance I had no idea what to expect. I have never been to an opera before and I have been to very few professional plays. I was incredibly impressed with Toshi Reagon's Opera on Parable of the Sower. With so many intricacies in the book, I was eager to learn how it would be translated in to an Opera. While Butler's book is inherently activist on many fronts Reagon was able to blend Butler's message with even more topics that need to be addressed now 35 years after the book was released. I particularly enjoyed the song Raegon performed between parts where she broke the 4th wall and brought up the issue of multi-national corporations, race relations, trans rights while relating to Parable of the Sower and Olivar.

Despite a policy that prevents workers from speaking out about the business, hundreds of Amazon workers protested the company's "climate failures." This protest fits well with Parable of the Sower Opera as it touched on both multi-national corporation and environmental issues.

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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

One thing that stuck with me from this week's reading was Las Hijas de Violencia. It reminded me of the forum theatre we did on Wednesday. More specifically, the power of confrontation against the oppressor. I think a lot of the time, they(oppressors) don't expect such a reaction which gives the oppressed a sort of power. I also think the use of the confetti gun instead of a violent weapon. In this way, the oppressed doesn’t become the oppressor through gaining their freedom. Then the addition of the song adds another element of surprise. The use of punk amplifies the harasser looking ridiculous as mentioned. They're bringing active energy to the problem of street harassment. I think their movement works because it makes noise and not just audibly. The article mentions taking inspiration from Pussy Riot. They are a Russian feminist protest and performance group that performs guerilla gigs of punk rock music in public places. They wear neon balaclavas and acid-bright tigh...

El Teatro Campesino - Will Blog 2

Yolanda Broyles-González's article "El Teatro Campesino and the Mexican Popular Performance Tradition" looks at the development and significance of the El Teatro Campesino theater company founded in the 1960s to support the United Farm Workers movement. Broyles-González argues that El Teatro Campesino draws on a long history of Mexican popular performance traditions like carnival and religious pageantry, as well as European avant-garde theater techniques. She examines how El Teatro Campesino's performances incorporated elements of these traditions, such as satire, physical comedy, and music, to engage audiences and create a sense of community. Broyles-González also explores how the theater company's performances challenged dominant cultural narratives and offered a vision of social change that centered the experiences and struggles of Chicano farm workers. A quote that resonated with me was that "the real language of African theatre is to be found in the stru...

Performance for Social Change

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