I find the article "Principle: Anyone can Act" to be less encouraging to prospective performers and actors than it was reductive about what the practice, act or craft was to this author. Being that Andy Bichlbaum is an activist of some kind I was surprised he wrote this article focusing on the qualities most crucial to an actors job to be falseness and deception with the aid of properties and costumes, rather than it being a tool used to represent the stories of other people so we might relate to them. Made me sad.
I was much more impressed with the Tactics article entitled "Blockade," setting up the idea of a single persons presence in a situation being important the same way lines of ships vehicles and barriers are is a powerful image. I think this article also services the reader well by extrapolating of the different methods of addressing challenges and solving problems one might face when forming a blockade, even offering other resources from the site.
From the theory section the article "Ethical Spectacle" stuck out to me as an interesting look at the methodology of activism. Explaining the need for the occurrence of the outcry of an activist and making the needs of a cause important to a people was an excellent entrance point. I especially liked the part at the end that read "Waiting for the truth to set you free is lazy politics." It is important I think in this practice to destroy any notion one may have of your judgement.
I found the Couple in the Cage to be reminiscent of a lyric in "Ballad of a Thin Man"
You hand in your ticket and you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel to be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible!" as he hands you a bone
And something is happening here but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
The particularly powerful part of the older gentleman talking about how could picture his children as being in the cage and saying we may not have come much further. The fact people were able to treat this like it was real and in such jest while it seemed it did touch others was a fascinating look at the disconnection we feel to our past in the west. This disconnect was I think of a huge aid to the performers in this venture, being able to use the people who had no context of colonialism or that this might have represented the condition of someone they were standing with's ancestors. Hard to hide that.
I was much more impressed with the Tactics article entitled "Blockade," setting up the idea of a single persons presence in a situation being important the same way lines of ships vehicles and barriers are is a powerful image. I think this article also services the reader well by extrapolating of the different methods of addressing challenges and solving problems one might face when forming a blockade, even offering other resources from the site.
From the theory section the article "Ethical Spectacle" stuck out to me as an interesting look at the methodology of activism. Explaining the need for the occurrence of the outcry of an activist and making the needs of a cause important to a people was an excellent entrance point. I especially liked the part at the end that read "Waiting for the truth to set you free is lazy politics." It is important I think in this practice to destroy any notion one may have of your judgement.
I found the Couple in the Cage to be reminiscent of a lyric in "Ballad of a Thin Man"
You hand in your ticket and you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak
And says, "How does it feel to be such a freak?"
And you say, "Impossible!" as he hands you a bone
And something is happening here but you don't know what it is
Do you, Mr. Jones?
The particularly powerful part of the older gentleman talking about how could picture his children as being in the cage and saying we may not have come much further. The fact people were able to treat this like it was real and in such jest while it seemed it did touch others was a fascinating look at the disconnection we feel to our past in the west. This disconnect was I think of a huge aid to the performers in this venture, being able to use the people who had no context of colonialism or that this might have represented the condition of someone they were standing with's ancestors. Hard to hide that.
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