I'm thrilled at the possibilities for exploration in my latest work on El Vez, The Mexican Elvis. I've been invited to participate in the 2008 ASTR Seminar "Unsettling Intentions: Activism and the Limits of Empathy." I feel like this paper will not only add an interesting voice to the discussion of this seminar, but will also help me deepen my exploration of the art of El Vez. Below is the abstract I submitted:
On the “Campaign Trail” with The Mexican Elvis, Irony is the New Empathy: Constructing Alliances through the Distance Between
Mounting a fictional Presidential campaign as El Vez, The Mexican Elvis, the El Vez 4 Prez tour marries rock show bravado to political theatre. Framed as a Town Hall meeting in which candidate El Vez (backed by the Lovely Elvettes and the Memphis Mariachis) fields debate questions from concerned citizens and answers them with song, the performance successfully voices progressive political sentiments precisely because it uses irony and humor – rather than empathy – as its mode of engagement. Though empathy should facilitate a “feeling with” another, it can dangerously slip into a “subject-centered key” (Doris Sommer) wherein solipsism masked as connection simultaneously objectifies the other and erases all inequalities in a wave of universal understanding. This paper will explore how El Vez uses irony to foreground the distance between subject positions in order to prevent such colonizing acts that limit the efficacy of empathy. Rather, by marking the imperfect fit of alterity, El Vez disallows the easy equivalencies of empathy in favor of more productive connections that bridge difference rather than elide it. Because it does not prescribe a “feeling with” each other as either a starting point or an end goal, El Vez’s use of irony expands his message to reach his diverse audience base. Irony in an El Vez concert allows for the revelation of alliances across multiple subject positions to create an ethical community enacted through thought, reflection, and rock and roll.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Assessment/Reflection
Having wrapped up two shows, finished the final draft of the dissertation, and successfully defended, I've finally had the time to assess my recent work and reflect a bit on the process of making theatre and conducting theatre scholarship.
Art (and art scholarship) is work. It is hard work. But it also a creative process. And the very frustrating reality of work + creativity is that the creative aspect is much more unreliable than the work aspect. That is, the muse only strikes occasionally, and the reality is that to get a show staged or a dissertation written, the worker has to get up every day and rehearse, or write, to put in the labor. And in a long and drawn out process like SDD and the dissertation, that labor greatly outweighs the inspirational moments. The key to handling this fact is learning how to best use that labor, to use it to bolster the creative, rather than a) letting it completely overrun the joy of artistic creation or b) leaving those moments of vision isolated within a muddy field.
To very honestly assess SDD, what we were very good at was the creative expansion of our vision. Where the labor should have been applied, however, was in editing out ideas that didn't work. Instead, we worked exceedingly hard to cram too many ideas in, to make mediocre ideas fit our concept, to attempt to realize amazing ideas on a nothing budget. 90% of our energy was wasted on work that was, quite frankly, not going to work.
With Room 17C, I was able to scale down the ideas to a very workable size. By focusing on movement as a site of meaning, I came closer to the precision I felt was lacking with SDD. And yet I realize that I was a few steps shy of the creative vision I needed for that piece.
Thank goodness, then, for the dissertation. What encourages me most about the dissertation is that I have continued excitement and enthusiasm for my research sites. I haven't said it all, in fact I have barely started to speak on these ideas.
Art (and art scholarship) is work. It is hard work. But it also a creative process. And the very frustrating reality of work + creativity is that the creative aspect is much more unreliable than the work aspect. That is, the muse only strikes occasionally, and the reality is that to get a show staged or a dissertation written, the worker has to get up every day and rehearse, or write, to put in the labor. And in a long and drawn out process like SDD and the dissertation, that labor greatly outweighs the inspirational moments. The key to handling this fact is learning how to best use that labor, to use it to bolster the creative, rather than a) letting it completely overrun the joy of artistic creation or b) leaving those moments of vision isolated within a muddy field.
To very honestly assess SDD, what we were very good at was the creative expansion of our vision. Where the labor should have been applied, however, was in editing out ideas that didn't work. Instead, we worked exceedingly hard to cram too many ideas in, to make mediocre ideas fit our concept, to attempt to realize amazing ideas on a nothing budget. 90% of our energy was wasted on work that was, quite frankly, not going to work.
With Room 17C, I was able to scale down the ideas to a very workable size. By focusing on movement as a site of meaning, I came closer to the precision I felt was lacking with SDD. And yet I realize that I was a few steps shy of the creative vision I needed for that piece.
Thank goodness, then, for the dissertation. What encourages me most about the dissertation is that I have continued excitement and enthusiasm for my research sites. I haven't said it all, in fact I have barely started to speak on these ideas.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)