Notes from the first Thinking Out Loud!

(by Kari Pederson)

An eclectic and insightful group met on September 29th for the first of the Thinking Out Loud series. We had an interesting conversation rooted in Paulo Freire's "The Act of Study" from his book The politics of education: culture, power and liberation (1985). I've taken the liberty of posting Leora's notes from the evening (thanks Leora!). The notes are great and I've added links to help to fill in some blanks for those of you who weren't able to make the first TOL. It was an excellent start to the series and I think we would all agree that Freire's article will continue to inform our creative and critical learning process!

Thinking Out Loud: The Study Group - Notes - September 29, 2009

how to bring Freire’s concept of learning to every day artistic and non-artistic practices?

article written as a manifesto. makes you want to read on. what is a manifesto? call to action? set of beliefs articulated with conviction?

empty space ... is a problem in dance training that there is no room for elevation beyond empirical? (empirical = derived from experiment, observation, rather than theory)

mastery = knowledge + silence/personal ownership?
(as opposed to consuming + regurgitating)


More...

bibliographies. idea of placing articles, ideas, works in socio-politico-historical context by reading bibliography, understanding what situates author in his/her life at time of writing.

dialectical relationship: is tension in dialogue between reader/author where learning occurs?

do we have a responsibility to contextualize?
to whom?

artist biographies vs. program notes
what are the artists reading/doing that brought them to this point?
can this information replace “contextualizing” of descriptive writing about piece?
people’s different habits around reading programs before/after seeing work.

do some forms of art (text-based theatre) limit our potential to flash because they keep us so busy (with the words for example), and involved in the world onstage?

what are the rituals around form (dance class structure, “uniforms”, etc)?
how does this affect learning?
what happens when you remove the ritual of form (doing a tendu on top of a mountain at sunrise by yourself instead of in dance class at the barre wearing a leotard)?

are audiences consuming art mindlessly? what can artists demand from audiences?
how to cultivate a curious audience?

curiosity vs. criticality. indulging in/addressing one’s own preoccupations vs. discovering one’s thoughts on author’s thinking?
(critical: “characterized by careful, exact evaluation and judgment”, “marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors and flaws”)

flashes as having value when we return with them to author’s total thinking?
(as opposed to daydreaming)

definition of “political” – is every work political, whether or not its aware of its politics? i.e. are politics inherently imbedded in every expression, or does a work need to explicitly being trying to rebel/revolt/make heard a silenced voice in order to be political?

is So You Think You Can Dance political?

are politics of a work least obvious to you when they are in line with the voice of your community?

Jacques Ranciere (The Emancipated Spectator (2004), The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (1991))

keep coming back to quote on pg. 2:
“seriously studying a text calls for an analysis of the study of the one who, through studying, wrote it” - Paulo Freire

how do you create a 50% show, where audience meets you halfway? (reference to Jerome Bell)

is there value in sitting with and observing discomfort, lack of interest in a piece, etc? is the learning located in discovering what does/doesn’t engage you and what that might tell you about yourself as a subject-learner?

where in learning does space fit in?

silence?

re-envisioning of the class structure and pedagogy (ritualized hierarchy as oppressive)?

teacher as catalyst to thinking about old things new ways (gateway to the flashes), as learner you can receive it passively or actively

agency.

communication as communing.

Richard Pochinko's clown concept: circle around performer, circle around audience, circle in the middle where they meet is where performance happens. this “inter-subjective” space as where “subject learning” happens?