Performance Facing Hybrid Social Problems

Sept 3—Dec 2, 2013 | Urbana, Illinois

Apply Now!  Applications are due by August 1 for our consideration.

This Fall, the School for Designing a Society invites you to a special work session: a 3-month collaborative composition project. We will compose, write, research, perform, and create masks and costumes for an hour long touring program, and then tour with this program to schools, farmers’ markets, churches, board meetings, living rooms. Concepts and vocabulary of the School will be presented within the context of composing.

The collaborative composition project will be based on responding to the NO_____NOT______NO LONGER______of these 3 catastrophic sentences:

“There is NO climate change.”      “Racism? C’mon—NO LONGER a problem.”        “Experimental composition is NOT relevant. “

Our work will be of a hybrid kind–discovering the specific variety of knowledges required to address the NO, NOT, NO LONGER catastrophe of problems.

What will happen in the 3 months?

• Month One: gathering our resources, getting to know one another and one another’s work. Creating a ‘We’.
• Month Two: Composing the touring program.
• Month Three: Touring with the program we’ve composed.

Composing, rehearsing, writing and researching will be happening all the time. Teaching and learning will happen some of the time based on discovering what we need to know in order to create this composition.

SCHEDULE:

September: Six hours of group work per week:

October: creating the composition and its performance. Team collaborator schedules.

November: touring.

Assignment 1: Put these words/worlds into one sentence: catastrophic climate change, racism, justice, experimental music, composition, jobs, juggling, microtonality, tap dance, not enough friends, poetry that doesn’t yet make sense, urgency

Why THREE different questions? Why don’t we concentrate on ONE problem area?

We’re interested to see what happens when problems from different domains are bundled together: standing in unfamiliar company, does a problem open up in a new way? close down in a new way? Scientific method has taught us to tame a problem by reducing it to its parts. What if we don’t tame problems, but unleash the snarl in each of them by placing them, snarling, in the company of other snarls (problems)?

What if we built a movement at the intersection of the social justice and the ecology movements, of entrepreneurship and activism, of inner change and social change? What if we didn’t just have hybrid cars—what if we had a hybrid movement? —Van Jones, The Green Collar Economy

Is this a project to just make a political-type composition based on three different themes?

The three themes, in combination, are meant to monkey-wrench the ‘just’—if we work experimentally, then what we do won’t easily belong to the category political or ‘theme’; if we work on climate change and its relentless clock, then we won’t seem timelessly experimental or anti-racist; if we work on anti-racism, then the dynamics of power-over will saturate into experimentation and relentless clock-ing. A design.

Do I already need to be a composer, or performer, or writer, or researcher etc to participate?

No, but you will need to learn to compose, perform, write, research etc.

Can I get credit for this collaborative work with my home university?

We can work with you and your home university to see if our program can be considered a for-credit program.

Is there a cost to this program?

Yes. We ask participants to “chip in”. Participants in this program will benefit from a context set up for collaboration and touring, as well as from presentations and individual work offered by guest artists/presenters/activists. We intend to offer the presenters an honorarium for their work. The “chip in” amount we’re suggesting is $500 for the three month session. If this amount is prohibitive to your participation, then arrange with us an amount that is possible for you.

How do I apply?

The application process consists of a form to be filled out, as well as a telephone or Skype conversation to be had with one of the teachers of School for Designing a Society. There is a selection process, as we want the collaborating ensemble to number no more than 18 people. We are sending this announcement out across the globe, looking for ardent participants. Click here for the application form.

How do I pay?

Who are the guest presenters/teachers/artists/activists?

Tentative, as of March 25 2013 (more to be added):

• Mark Enslin, composer and writer
• Susan Parenti, composer and playwright
• Bogdan Heretoiu: film-maker and visual story teller.
• additional teachers from School for Designing a Society