No time or energy to do a blog post right now- I'm too IN IT to be able to analyze what I'm doing. The show opens tomorrow (today?) and I could not be more excited. I feel so proud- both of the kids that I've gotten to know so well and love so much, and of myself, for becoming exactly the assistant director that I wanted to become: a true support system for the kid, for the tech crew, and for the director. Not to mention, a resource and an actual valuable contributing assistant.
I can't wait for tomorrow.
Things to blog about next time I blog:
1.) My direct effect on the cast/production
2.) The cast dynamic
3.) The effect of the production on the group and on individuals within the group
4.) Skills that I have picked up
5.) Thoughts about my future/possible teaching qualifications?
6.) Finish Gender/Equality/Sexism Post
7.) Talk about leadership for Hashomer/Hanhaga
8.) Things that I learned this semester/what I will take with me/how I will use it.
GOLLY. We'll see tomorrow. I have a lot of cheerleaders coming to show their support, including my parents. And it makes me feel good. I want the people that I love to see this one, even though I'm not in it, even though it's nothing professional. I want them to see it because I loved working on it, and because I took ownership over it and I made my mark on it, and because it's the first example of what I'm going to be doing for a very long time, and because I feel very proud and I want to share what I helped to build. And part of me wants my hard work to be recognized by the important people in my life. I don't need the pat on the back, but having the acknowledgment will be the green icing on the already frosted cake.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
the 'Race' to find answers
Race is my favorite topic. Gender is one of my other favorite topics, and I'll be tackling that one in a more private blog post that I won't be posting (but I will be sending to my advisors, when it's finito.) These are my favorite topics to discuss and to think about because they make me infinitely uncomfortable. I love to feel uncomfortable. I like to have discussions that take me so far out of my comfort zone that I'm physically sweating. It's not that I enjoy the physical discomfort, it's more that I take pleasure in learning and the best way to learn is by reading about, thinking about, and debating about topics that are generally perceived to be 'taboo,' hence why "Speaking the Unspoken" (the class I took with Viveca Greene in the fall) was my favorite class of all time. Talking about race makes me uncomfortable because one part of me is anxious to say what's on my mind because saying it is the only way to have discussions and ask questions and maybe even get closer to answers, and the other part of me is nervous to say something offensive. The boundaries are so unclear that it's difficult to speak about without offending someone. So here goes.
At the beginning of the semester, I realized that I was plunging myself into an atmosphere that I was unfamiliar with and a type of experience that I haven't ever had before. I was also well aware that LoMA is very racially diverse and that I, as a Caucasian, Jewish wo-girl (I say this because, to quote Britney Spears, I'm not girl, not yet a women...although I'm getting there), would be in the minority. I've been in this position before. For the first two and a half years of high school, I attended Albany High, a very large, public high school where the majority of the students were African-American. It was an interesting (and scary) experience for me, plunging into this huge, racially diverse school, after attending 5 years of a very small, Jewish private day school.
Although I was born in Philadelphia, I spent my childhood in a small town in Western Mass (Sheffield, right outside of Great Barrington, where my father was a Rabbi.) From there, we moved to an apartment complex in a town outside of Albany, NY that was pretty diverse. There, I made friends with the Pakistani kids who lived upstairs and got my first taste of a new and unfamiliar culture, but the school that I attended was mostly Caucasian, upper-middle-class, and Christian. I, as a less-than-wealthy, Jewish girl with extremely liberal parents, was an outsider in this environment. I expected to feel more at home when I transferred to the Jewish dayschool, but even there, I felt like an outsider. We were Reconstructionist Jews, not Conservative or Orthodox Jews, and my parents were eccentric. They went to anti-war protests. My mother had a dance company called the Older Women's Project, where women her age and older danced out their life stories and supported each other, making a community of like-minded 'wild women.' My father was, at the time, making electronic musical instruments out of traditional, religious artifacts, like the 'shofar,' the ram's horn that we blow on the High Holy Days, and playing them in concerts that sounded more like general noise to the untrained ear than music. People didn't understand us. When I got to high school, I expected to find my niche. I was excited about the diversity and intrigued by it and eager to make friends of all races and ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds. Instead, I found myself in the minority once again and somewhat of an outcast. I made friends but not a lot of close ones, and I often felt like I was being pushed into playing out the role of the white, nerdy, Jewish girl that I was expected to be, and all around me, I felt like I was watching other racial stereotypes being played out in an over-the-top, almost absurdist fashion. It felt almost like going to Albany High made me feel racist, rather than helping a lot of different races and cultures learn and work together in an open and accepting environment. I left Albany High School for boarding school in the middle of my junior year because I felt like I wanted to learn in a smaller, more liberal, more communal setting. I left with some strange perceptions of race, not feeling like I had encountered any situations in my life in which I was the accepted majority. I felt like a minority of sorts. I felt like I had had racism directed towards me. I was made fun of all the time at AHS. I carried a rolling backpack. I walked fast in the hallways. I was short. I was Jewish. I answered questions in class. People were always making fun of me for being "that white girl." It's an interesting thing, feeling defensive about racism. I felt defensive because I felt racism being directed towards me and I felt defensive because I had racist thoughts and I didn't know what was right and what was wrong and what thoughts were mine and what were programmed in my head from a young age. And to be honest, I still don't really know.
I thought that this semester would be one during which I evaluated the inner workings of racial politics within the microcosm of a high school theatre ensemble. Did I do that? Not really. I was prepared to be dealing with race in a direct way, every day. I expected to have strong feelings. Have I? Not really. But wait...perhaps I HAVE been dealing with race in an INdirect way, every day.
I'm used to noticing when I'm speaking to someone of a race different than mine. The interesting thing that happened was that after the first week of working with the kids, I no longer thought about their races. I stopped classifying them and catagorizing them by their race. I stopped trying to pigeonhole them. I didn't think, 'oh, that's ---, the spunky Dominican girl who's a fantastic singer.' I just thought of them as people. Teenagers. Kids. Fun. People that I respect and that I like. The race no longer was a barrier in my eyes nor was it something that I actively took note of. But the question is...is that a good thing? Is that the ultimate goal? Are we trying to get to a point where we don't see racial differences, or would the real goal be to get to a place where we are comfortable seeing and acknowledging the differences and accepting our histories, talking about them, and moving forward together? Maybe it would be best to be in a place where we can all say, Hey, we're different. We are. We've had different pasts. We might come from different backgrounds. Our families probably have different traditions. But we're similar. We're human. We feel and think and love all the same. Maybe the only way to be truly free of any lingering racist tendencies or thoughts is to confront them head on instead of ignoring them and trying to move past them without confrontation. I'm not saying that I should have used the kids at my work to make a bigger statement about racism in America. I'm just saying that maybe the next time I do something like this, I approach it differently. Or maybe not. I suppose I don't really know.
I've noticed a behavioral habit in myself in the past few months. I somewhat alter the manifestation of my personality in different scenarios to make other people feel more comfortable. I've noticed that at work I will (somewhat consciously, somewhat unconsciously) choose to think cautiously about the way that I speak, my body language, and the way that I interact. Mostly the way that I speak. I noticed right off the bat that the kids at work make fun of the way I talk as playing into their idea of a "white, Jewish girl." Although I'm not particularly preppy or stuck up and I never thought that I spoke like a 'valley girl,' I've recently noticed some mannerisms in myself that are somewhat affected. I say 'like' a lot, and I'm sometimes very ditzy. I noticed that the kids at work really pick up on these mannerisms, and they tend to dwell on them, so that I feel somewhat like a caricature of myself at times. Then, I choose to either watch how I speak and try to avoid sparking any reminders of racial stereotypes, OR I choose to play these up for the amusement of the kids. I'll say something that's particularly ditzy or I'll skip in a circle, singing. They pick up on these, and I think they find comfort in seeing a racial stereotype manifested in real life that is familiar to them. Just as picked up on what I perceived to be "people playing to their stereotypes" at Albany High, I now see that when I'm put into that position, I will act as I'm expected to act. It's almost easier to fit into a mold rather than trying to be something less defined and more ambiguous, i.e. myself. Are people who identify as racial minorities, such as African-Americans or Hispanic people, playing to their stereotypes? Under what circumstances would it become socially acceptable for these facades to be dropped? What sort of cultural and ethical make over would we, as human beings and, more importantly, as Americans, need to go through to make it safe for us all to be ourselves? How do we even know who that is? After all that we've been through, what are we without our stereotypes?
I have this problem with getting frustrated because I feel like my feelings or thoughts or ideas are cliched. I know that all thoughts and feelings and ideas are, by nature, unoriginal, but I just wish that I could make a statement and feel like it's unique. But anyway, in the topic of race, I'm not ready to be making any sort of big statements at all. I don't know if I'll ever be ready. I'm usually just so afraid to offend anyone that I try not to express any definitive opinions or thoughts. Which is sort of how I actually feel. I really don't know what I think and my thoughts are always changing and always being influenced by the people around me and encounters and experiences that I have. I suppose it's a good thing that I allow my opinions to be swayed and my perceptions of race to be constantly changing. I suppose all I can really do is keep having these thoughts and not let myself do what seems easiest, i.e. clam up and stop talking about it.
On a lighter note: Last week, I realized that I had worked on a show almost an entire semester without actually touching the 'acting parts.' I was supposed to direct a scene, but it didn't pan out because the show doesn't really lend itself to multiple directors. Instead, I focused my time on working intensively on fundraising and creating the program and observing rehearsals. I decided I needed to find a way to get my creative voice heard, metaphorically speaking, so I asked the director if I could lead a character building exercise for the kids. I spent hours planning this activity that borrowed some aspects of 'Viewpoints,' some things from Rust and Dust rehearsals, and some thoughts and beliefs of my own. And it was the most enjoyable few hours I've had in a while. I found that I loved planning the activity, I loved thinking really critically about exactly what should happen in my activity, how it should pan out, what the end result should be, how they should be feeling throughout, how it should effect them and their development. I loved it. And I could totally see myself doing it in the future. I love theatre and I love group process and, god, they just work together. I want to make kids feel passionate about things, and I want to make them excited and I want to make them good at things all at the same time. The cast of A Chorus Line has been having trouble making character choices on their own. Part of that I think stems from the fact that they haven't had much acting coaching throughout the process. There hasn't been much time for it. So I led them through a sort of guided, character building, movement meditation that was supposed to take them on a journey into the bodies of their characters. I was nervous about it because it was going to require a lot of focus and quiet and respect, all things that they've been having trouble with in recent rehearsals. But they were totally great! They listened and cooperated and totally went along with it, even though it was conceptual and weird and intended to be (pardon my french) a bit of a 'mind fuck.' I didn't see a huge difference in their run through that day, but they really need more than one coaching, so I wasn't worried. I was mostly ecstatic that they were able to get into the bodies and minds of their characters for the length of my exercise and that they respected it and took me seriously. And afterwards, one girl asked me for help learning her lines and the director allowed me to make notes at the end of their run through. I really feel like I've shown what I'm capable of doing. I can do the logistical stuff (fundraising, etc), I can make a playbill, I can act, dance and sing when they need me to fill in for a missing actor, I can teach the kids things, I can joke around, I can improve each actor's individual performance, as well as help to improve the group's performance on the whole. I'm very proud of myself and my work, and I like being taken seriously.
It's late again. And I have strep throat. I didn't mention that. This has been quite the rollercoaster year for my immune system. I just wanna tell it to CHILL OUT. My immune system, that is. Good night and look out for a personal post about my recent thoughts regarding my work and gender issues/sexism/self.
You've been very patient readers.
Allison
P.S.- part of me wants to say that I hope I didn't offend---but the other part of me wants to say that everything I say, I say for a reason, and that is to help me learn and grow, so I need to just let myself say these things and stop second guessing my thoughts and emotions.
At the beginning of the semester, I realized that I was plunging myself into an atmosphere that I was unfamiliar with and a type of experience that I haven't ever had before. I was also well aware that LoMA is very racially diverse and that I, as a Caucasian, Jewish wo-girl (I say this because, to quote Britney Spears, I'm not girl, not yet a women...although I'm getting there), would be in the minority. I've been in this position before. For the first two and a half years of high school, I attended Albany High, a very large, public high school where the majority of the students were African-American. It was an interesting (and scary) experience for me, plunging into this huge, racially diverse school, after attending 5 years of a very small, Jewish private day school.
Although I was born in Philadelphia, I spent my childhood in a small town in Western Mass (Sheffield, right outside of Great Barrington, where my father was a Rabbi.) From there, we moved to an apartment complex in a town outside of Albany, NY that was pretty diverse. There, I made friends with the Pakistani kids who lived upstairs and got my first taste of a new and unfamiliar culture, but the school that I attended was mostly Caucasian, upper-middle-class, and Christian. I, as a less-than-wealthy, Jewish girl with extremely liberal parents, was an outsider in this environment. I expected to feel more at home when I transferred to the Jewish dayschool, but even there, I felt like an outsider. We were Reconstructionist Jews, not Conservative or Orthodox Jews, and my parents were eccentric. They went to anti-war protests. My mother had a dance company called the Older Women's Project, where women her age and older danced out their life stories and supported each other, making a community of like-minded 'wild women.' My father was, at the time, making electronic musical instruments out of traditional, religious artifacts, like the 'shofar,' the ram's horn that we blow on the High Holy Days, and playing them in concerts that sounded more like general noise to the untrained ear than music. People didn't understand us. When I got to high school, I expected to find my niche. I was excited about the diversity and intrigued by it and eager to make friends of all races and ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds. Instead, I found myself in the minority once again and somewhat of an outcast. I made friends but not a lot of close ones, and I often felt like I was being pushed into playing out the role of the white, nerdy, Jewish girl that I was expected to be, and all around me, I felt like I was watching other racial stereotypes being played out in an over-the-top, almost absurdist fashion. It felt almost like going to Albany High made me feel racist, rather than helping a lot of different races and cultures learn and work together in an open and accepting environment. I left Albany High School for boarding school in the middle of my junior year because I felt like I wanted to learn in a smaller, more liberal, more communal setting. I left with some strange perceptions of race, not feeling like I had encountered any situations in my life in which I was the accepted majority. I felt like a minority of sorts. I felt like I had had racism directed towards me. I was made fun of all the time at AHS. I carried a rolling backpack. I walked fast in the hallways. I was short. I was Jewish. I answered questions in class. People were always making fun of me for being "that white girl." It's an interesting thing, feeling defensive about racism. I felt defensive because I felt racism being directed towards me and I felt defensive because I had racist thoughts and I didn't know what was right and what was wrong and what thoughts were mine and what were programmed in my head from a young age. And to be honest, I still don't really know.
I thought that this semester would be one during which I evaluated the inner workings of racial politics within the microcosm of a high school theatre ensemble. Did I do that? Not really. I was prepared to be dealing with race in a direct way, every day. I expected to have strong feelings. Have I? Not really. But wait...perhaps I HAVE been dealing with race in an INdirect way, every day.
I'm used to noticing when I'm speaking to someone of a race different than mine. The interesting thing that happened was that after the first week of working with the kids, I no longer thought about their races. I stopped classifying them and catagorizing them by their race. I stopped trying to pigeonhole them. I didn't think, 'oh, that's ---, the spunky Dominican girl who's a fantastic singer.' I just thought of them as people. Teenagers. Kids. Fun. People that I respect and that I like. The race no longer was a barrier in my eyes nor was it something that I actively took note of. But the question is...is that a good thing? Is that the ultimate goal? Are we trying to get to a point where we don't see racial differences, or would the real goal be to get to a place where we are comfortable seeing and acknowledging the differences and accepting our histories, talking about them, and moving forward together? Maybe it would be best to be in a place where we can all say, Hey, we're different. We are. We've had different pasts. We might come from different backgrounds. Our families probably have different traditions. But we're similar. We're human. We feel and think and love all the same. Maybe the only way to be truly free of any lingering racist tendencies or thoughts is to confront them head on instead of ignoring them and trying to move past them without confrontation. I'm not saying that I should have used the kids at my work to make a bigger statement about racism in America. I'm just saying that maybe the next time I do something like this, I approach it differently. Or maybe not. I suppose I don't really know.
I've noticed a behavioral habit in myself in the past few months. I somewhat alter the manifestation of my personality in different scenarios to make other people feel more comfortable. I've noticed that at work I will (somewhat consciously, somewhat unconsciously) choose to think cautiously about the way that I speak, my body language, and the way that I interact. Mostly the way that I speak. I noticed right off the bat that the kids at work make fun of the way I talk as playing into their idea of a "white, Jewish girl." Although I'm not particularly preppy or stuck up and I never thought that I spoke like a 'valley girl,' I've recently noticed some mannerisms in myself that are somewhat affected. I say 'like' a lot, and I'm sometimes very ditzy. I noticed that the kids at work really pick up on these mannerisms, and they tend to dwell on them, so that I feel somewhat like a caricature of myself at times. Then, I choose to either watch how I speak and try to avoid sparking any reminders of racial stereotypes, OR I choose to play these up for the amusement of the kids. I'll say something that's particularly ditzy or I'll skip in a circle, singing. They pick up on these, and I think they find comfort in seeing a racial stereotype manifested in real life that is familiar to them. Just as picked up on what I perceived to be "people playing to their stereotypes" at Albany High, I now see that when I'm put into that position, I will act as I'm expected to act. It's almost easier to fit into a mold rather than trying to be something less defined and more ambiguous, i.e. myself. Are people who identify as racial minorities, such as African-Americans or Hispanic people, playing to their stereotypes? Under what circumstances would it become socially acceptable for these facades to be dropped? What sort of cultural and ethical make over would we, as human beings and, more importantly, as Americans, need to go through to make it safe for us all to be ourselves? How do we even know who that is? After all that we've been through, what are we without our stereotypes?
I have this problem with getting frustrated because I feel like my feelings or thoughts or ideas are cliched. I know that all thoughts and feelings and ideas are, by nature, unoriginal, but I just wish that I could make a statement and feel like it's unique. But anyway, in the topic of race, I'm not ready to be making any sort of big statements at all. I don't know if I'll ever be ready. I'm usually just so afraid to offend anyone that I try not to express any definitive opinions or thoughts. Which is sort of how I actually feel. I really don't know what I think and my thoughts are always changing and always being influenced by the people around me and encounters and experiences that I have. I suppose it's a good thing that I allow my opinions to be swayed and my perceptions of race to be constantly changing. I suppose all I can really do is keep having these thoughts and not let myself do what seems easiest, i.e. clam up and stop talking about it.
On a lighter note: Last week, I realized that I had worked on a show almost an entire semester without actually touching the 'acting parts.' I was supposed to direct a scene, but it didn't pan out because the show doesn't really lend itself to multiple directors. Instead, I focused my time on working intensively on fundraising and creating the program and observing rehearsals. I decided I needed to find a way to get my creative voice heard, metaphorically speaking, so I asked the director if I could lead a character building exercise for the kids. I spent hours planning this activity that borrowed some aspects of 'Viewpoints,' some things from Rust and Dust rehearsals, and some thoughts and beliefs of my own. And it was the most enjoyable few hours I've had in a while. I found that I loved planning the activity, I loved thinking really critically about exactly what should happen in my activity, how it should pan out, what the end result should be, how they should be feeling throughout, how it should effect them and their development. I loved it. And I could totally see myself doing it in the future. I love theatre and I love group process and, god, they just work together. I want to make kids feel passionate about things, and I want to make them excited and I want to make them good at things all at the same time. The cast of A Chorus Line has been having trouble making character choices on their own. Part of that I think stems from the fact that they haven't had much acting coaching throughout the process. There hasn't been much time for it. So I led them through a sort of guided, character building, movement meditation that was supposed to take them on a journey into the bodies of their characters. I was nervous about it because it was going to require a lot of focus and quiet and respect, all things that they've been having trouble with in recent rehearsals. But they were totally great! They listened and cooperated and totally went along with it, even though it was conceptual and weird and intended to be (pardon my french) a bit of a 'mind fuck.' I didn't see a huge difference in their run through that day, but they really need more than one coaching, so I wasn't worried. I was mostly ecstatic that they were able to get into the bodies and minds of their characters for the length of my exercise and that they respected it and took me seriously. And afterwards, one girl asked me for help learning her lines and the director allowed me to make notes at the end of their run through. I really feel like I've shown what I'm capable of doing. I can do the logistical stuff (fundraising, etc), I can make a playbill, I can act, dance and sing when they need me to fill in for a missing actor, I can teach the kids things, I can joke around, I can improve each actor's individual performance, as well as help to improve the group's performance on the whole. I'm very proud of myself and my work, and I like being taken seriously.
It's late again. And I have strep throat. I didn't mention that. This has been quite the rollercoaster year for my immune system. I just wanna tell it to CHILL OUT. My immune system, that is. Good night and look out for a personal post about my recent thoughts regarding my work and gender issues/sexism/self.
You've been very patient readers.
Allison
P.S.- part of me wants to say that I hope I didn't offend---but the other part of me wants to say that everything I say, I say for a reason, and that is to help me learn and grow, so I need to just let myself say these things and stop second guessing my thoughts and emotions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)