Part I. Of several. Flashes from TOL January 5th.

I'm rolling out these notes in stages because there's a lot here to digest. We returned to Ranciere's mama article "The Emancipated Spectator" and revisited what flashed for people off the bat.

In general, I'd say it can be focused into themes:
1) Encouraging pedagogical models
2) Reclaiming words like ignorant and spectacle
3) Assumptions - deconstructing and reevaluating them
4) Are we ready to do virtuosic things for audiences again?

Click below to see what - in relation to these themes - jumped out at people upon their first reading.

More...

- “He reinforced my concerns about teaching as a hierarchical relationship which is present in so many artistic training programs”
- How do you put subject-focused non-hierarchical approach to learning in an artistic setting?
- Interesting that he used the word “ignorant” in a good way, when it normally has an immediately negative connotation. Proposal that he is using word to make a point (and to reclaim it)?
- We all learned to speak language as children (and not through a hierarchical approach), so perhaps if we bring this kind of inherent intelligence we all have to artistic processes and performances, we can engage with a certain amount of equality? I.e. Through engagement rather than through enforced learning (the way we learn language)
- Ranciere works through of a set of assumptions (like spectatorship is bad) which he then goes on to debunk (reference to all the dichotomies that he deconstructs)
- Pulling apart of idea that community is good in order to complexify it (instead of just assuming there is some inherent good in community)
- Challenging the role of the spectator has been making the rounds in dance in Europe – relational aesthetics practices have become common, a way to rebel against the hierarchical
- Maybe this was a necessary response to the unconscious pacifiying of the audience that happened before, and next, we can say “okay, we understand this differently” and now we can go back to making plays and have audiences observe again
- Is there room for virtuosity again? Return (not full swing) back to observership