Performance Theory Musings.

Today marks the break we've had from meeting in class for performance theory since the semester began, and it occurred to me during our last full class together that this course has been my favorite in the MFA training. I find myself bring up the articles we've read during casual conversation and formulating arguments for banal subjects based on theoreticians that have written particularly persuasive passages. But there is a question that keeps tickling the base of my brain- what does this have to do with theatre? How do these articles, that impact me as an empathetic human, become part of the fodder for conversation and influence the work I do as an artist, creator, educator? Is awareness enough?

I want to think that being more aware of the privilege I've been raised into, as a lower-middle class white woman from Kansas who identifies as straight on the Kinsey scale, allows for a more open conversation about what it means to be a minority in this generation and how we represent/ignore/glorify race, color/gender-blind casting, and write or analyze characters in traditional theatrical works, but my inner cynic says "you're one person, how can you make a difference?"

I don't know what I would do. I keep going back to education. How does theatre in schools make a change? I've been an advocate for arts education for years, promoting opportunities for collaboration, encouraging the cultivation of life skills like communication, kindness and giving, presence, but even more by bringing the arts to underserved communities and offering performance opportunities to young people with physical and cognitive disabilities. But is this enough? And what difference does it make? Are our younger generations learning empathy, understanding, and communication rather than turning a blind eye and pretending everything is okay while we continue to have riots and injustice? Are we as bad as this?

Maybe the problem for me, as I'm trying to identify what I would do if I were to teach this class, is that I still haven't broadened my idea of what "performance" means. It is everywhere, everyday, in all our news reports, interactions with friends and colleagues, in our social media presentation of self and others, but does change come with this understanding? Progress is slow, and my fear is that we won't make much of a change in my lifetime.

So like, what is this post about? My lingering questions post-semester. But I suppose having these questions and striving to answer them now is better than the blissful ignorance I had before we began, so perhaps change can start here.