Filed under: Events, Hope | Tags: American Dream, Events, Hope, Kristin Marting, Lush Valley, Think Tanks
Join us for our sixth of eight community THINK TANK sessions on Sunday, December 5 from 3pm-6pm which will delve into the concept of HOPE . These Think Tanks are open to the public and are a cross between Town Hall and Open Space format. We are looking to have a diverse group of folks at each event – we are looking for artists, alternative thinkers, educators, activists, social workers, HR, lawyers, parents, politicians and anyone else who is interested. Please come – and if you know someone who fits this description and might enjoy this event, please forward. This is our last think tank until February or March! Please note: this event will be held at HERE’s Rehearsal Space, 75 Varick at Canal Street. Please bring ID for entry into building. If you would like to attend, please email lushvalley@here.org to rsvp. |
Off to work at Baruch today continuing our residency for Lush Valley. Last week we tried out a fun exercise as we took turns interviewing one another from a set list of questions based on out 8 central tenets. These simple yet ambiguous questions cut to the core of what people think of when they imagine Freedom, express Hope, or consider Honor, etc. This was done with a simple camera setup in an isolated closet. We had a great time watching the live feed on projector. I am editing the footage to watch with the wonderful group of collaborators. I keep looking for the most basic, simplistic, unifying human experience that might illuminate the american dream. Right now I’ve landed on “threshold” – we’ll see where that leads. – Tal
Filed under: American Dream | Tags: American Dream, Kristin Marting, Sylvan Oswald, Tal Yarden
Hard day today – finding an engaging way into the dramatic structure and figuring out what language fits and what doesn’t is what we are wrestling with. Sylvan wondered if stylized movement and dance could fit at all.
The most exciting discovery today was a video interview exercise which Tal designed around the central tenets of the American Dream – each actor worked both as questioner and as respondent – they worked both within the frame of characters and as themselves – it was fascinating and exciting.
We also worked with the Oath of Allegiance that all immigrants to this country are required to take – it was interesting how almost everyone of us had discomfort with one or more of the statements – we really wondered how many Americans would be willing to take it as it is written.
Today was the first day of our Baruch residency. We did some structured improvisational work using the 8 tenets of the American Dream, 7 archetypal characters, and the 6 phases of the American Dream as outlined in Jim Cullen’s book. More details below on these. We also read scenes from some classic American plays that deal with these ideas – Fences, Glengarry Glenn Ross, A Raisin in the Sun, Albee’s American Dream, Curse of the Starving Class, and Our Town. Trying to find our way into the structure of the show and thinking Jim Cullen’s 6 phases may be our key in.
8 tenets: Ambition, Opportunity,Freedom, Equality, Community, Honor, Hope, Happiness
7 archetypes: Hustler, Activist, Politician, Solider, Entrepreneurer, Wife/Mother, Priest
6 phases:
1) Pilgrims seeking freedom to worship = people who deny their efforts could affect their fates
2) Declaration of Independence = successors who declare independence to get the chance to affect their fates
3) Upward Mobility – economic & social = heirs who elaborate a gospel of self help promising they could shape their fates with effort
4) Quest for Equality = ” ” ”
5) Home Ownership = ” ” ”
6) Personal Fulfillment = people who long to achieve dreams without having to make any effort at all
Filed under: Events | Tags: American Dream, dax valdes, Events, irene longshore, jane shaw, Jennifer Kidwell, Kristin Marting, marc bovino, mari newhard, Paul Zimet, rudy mungaray, suzi takahashi, Sylvan Oswald, Tal Yarden, Tom Bradshaw, Yana Landowne
We are excited to spend a week in residence at Baruch College from October 20-28. Joining us for this phase are writers Tom Bradshaw and Sylvan Oswald as well as new performers Jennifer Kidwell and Paul Zimet and designers Clint Ramos and Oana Botez. Continuing with the project are Marc Bovino, Irene Longshore, Rudy Mungaray, Mariana Newhard, designer Jane Shaw, Suzi Takahashi, and Dax Valdes. We will share what we develop over those days on Wednesday, October 27 at 4pm. We have limited space for guests so please email lushvalley@here.org if you’d like to join us.
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Antwerp 10/3: My friend Scott help up the Herald Tribune as I entered the hotel courtyard. In an article cleverly titled “On Wall St,. it’s the piñata that wears the blindfold” Anthony Scaramucci, author of Goodbye Gordon Gekko, is interviewed. “There are probably some bad people at Goldman but it would be very bad if the American government took out Goldman Sachs. Goldman is the American dream factory. They can move people from the lower middle class to the ultra rich in one generation.”
John Hockenberry of NPR’s The Takeaway says
“America’s middle class, though, has been threatened by its own success. The definition of the middle class is that people of generic roots like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Robert Johnson, and Sam Walton can become billionaires. But their success is not duplicatable in 2010.: http://www.thetakeaway.org/blogs/takeaway/2010/sep/26/american-and-european-middle-classes/
I’ve been reading Jonathan Lethem’s very amusing (and touching) Chronic City. in it his character Perkus Tooth riffs on Marlon Brando “…when he sent Sacheen Littlefeather to accept the Oscar in his place. I mean, it’s the most amazing conflation of the American Imaginary, just think about it! In one gesture Brando ties our rape of the Indians to this figure of our immigrant nightmare, this Sicilian peasant doing the American dream, capitalism I mean, more ruthlessly than the founding fathers could have ever dreaded. We’re as defenseless against what Don Corleone exposes, the murderous underside of Manifest Destiny, as the Indians were against smallpox blankets.”
An in case you ever wonder what the derivation of the phrase “when the chickens come home to roost” is look a bit past Malcolm X to Aesop’s fable of The Bee and Jupiter. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Bee_and_Jupiter
Filed under: Images, Research | Tags: American Dream, Images, Kristin Marting
