As you surely have read in your feverish obsession with our little blog- we recently had the good fortune of coming across ALARM. Forum theater in Rijeka? Yes please. For those of you who don t know forum or need a little refresher- well, just wiki it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_Theatre_(Augusto_Boal)
Alarm is currently working with LORI, the local LGBTIQ group, on a scene about not just being an ally, but rather being an advocate. It is one of a few queer scenes they have done and they do a fair bit of touring. They are currently getting ready for the big international forum festival in Pula that we may just tag along to before hitting up Zagreb and Performance Studies International.
We tagged along to their rehearsal, which was conveniently located where we are staying and without speaking a word of Croatian (well, I guess I speak like 4) or having read the description I tried, with great success I might add, to understand what was going on.
Here is the description that I had not read when I saw the scene.
Between 4 Walls (June 26th)
What happens when someone decides not to just “tolerate”, but give active support to a gay person in his/her fight for equality, visibility, acceptance? As Che Guevara said, and Augusto Boal used to quote, solidarity means taking the same risk. What does that mean in a concrete situation? In what can this risk be mirrored? Sooner or later the question arises: how far are we willing to go with our solidarity, knowing the increased risk of becoming a victim of physical violence is not the only thing we can expect? Are we really capable of facing up to of our friends and relatives, whose reactions ranging from surprise to concern to downright anger, push on our selfishness (because in all this we don’t care about them and their feelings)? Are we really immune to our neighbours’ opinion? Are we capable of neglecting our part-time job contract that is soon to expire? We are faced with all this kind of questions in the Forum play “Between 4 Walls” wherein protagonist Ana, though not gay, decides to go to her prom accompanied by her female friend Monika, instead of a male one, as a partner...
Nia and I worry that so much careful simple English from talking to foreigners may have robbed us of our handle on beautiful syntax, so perhaps I will embrace it and make a list of things which were striking.
+ In my year or so making and writing about Boalian theater I have struggled constantly with what I see as a basic ethic of the work. This kind of work is intended to be made by the people in a situation of oppression for their own community about their own issues. I so often feel that I am on the fringes of mz community community being asked to do work that doesn't feel very relevant to me. While this scene was incredibly relatable even across a continent and a language, it is not intended for me. It was wonderful to see the work how I have always envisioned it- a group of friends with similar ideas about social justice doing work in what they know and want to see changed.
+ I was so excited to see a scene that actually dealt with the problematic nature of 'allys'. I so often see shirts and buttons with this word on them and feel like throwing something. Perhaps rainbow t'shirts that say 'straight but kind of liberal' would be more fitting. It was wonderful to see forum used to express the intricacies of an issue, a task which is very difficult and rarely done well.
+ Watching this group get things done was another reminder of constant the struggle of working with your friends. On the one hand it is so great to make art with people you really like and respect and see eye to eye with, but it would be an oversight to not mention that rehearsal started an hour and a half late and was slow going, with lots of moments of classic theater kid quoting and pantomiming and joking. Oh, and the half hour smoking break. After the rehearsal we went out for a beer on the plaza, so I guess it didn't matter if things ran slowly, perhaps this is the kind of thing that just happens and flows on European time.
anyway, we are off to enjoy a little afternoon on European time ourselves and go sit at a cafe' until we droop down in our chairs ready for a nap.
Love,
V
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment