Audre Lord famously said "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” While the consumerist paradigm has subverted the idea of self care into bubble-bath and wine indulgence and bland material comfort, in art worlds it can be radical to insist that creative spaces also lay groundwork for healing (self-care). In theater it can go against the grain to change systems that insist that success be driven by a manic force to do all the things, be all the things, overwhelm the public with your productivity, output, engagement. The successful theatre professional is apart from the general public in their committment to their work and insistence on something called excellence. Great Art is something only some people are capable of creating. I used to believe these things. I no longer think or feel that these ideas hold much drinkable water.
I was recently invited by Open Art group to co-facilitate a workshop called "Movement, Play, and the Healing Mask". Envisioned by my long-time friends, teachers and colleagues James Peck and Sarah Peters Gonzalez, the 5 hour session open to anyone proved to be a deep dive into the very roots of theatre as a social-personal experiment in transformative experiential creative magic. Sarah, James and I have also been working through a training on inherited family trauma and healing together for the last year as a way of informing our understanding of ourselves in relation to our family histories & strengthening our collaborative relationships to each other.
We were thrilled to have workshop participants willing and excited to take this ride based on the idea that physicalizing a personal narrative of injury and then changing the movements can lead to a transformative relationship to that injury, can lead to healing. I look forward to leaning into the synergy of this work of personal healing and social story telling. I have always believed the act of performance actually changes people and am excited to keep teasing out what kind of performance is for everyone. Theater as self care for society is truly political warfare and controlling (governing) entities know this.
So while some may dismiss a class with the phrase "the healing mask" in the title as creative self indulgent nonsense that has no impact on anything, I believe that those brave enough to engage in the act of personal healing with their community are the torch-bearers for what needs to happen if we are to survive, resist and fight back against the intentional destruction of community, relationships and the environments that sustain joyful, creative life on earth.
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