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3.24 Theatre of the Oppressed - "Repeat What I Said, and Act the Opposite”

Hi! This is Yunzi. After the super packed week, our last full day started with the vivid workshop at Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed. I had the opportunity to participate in Theatre of the Oppressed before this trip and got really interested in their philosophy of acting out the tension and resistance in the form of interactive improv theatre (for example, in one of the games, the participants are asked to act out the opposite of the order they are given), so I was very excited to discover its division in Philadelphia and managed to participate in a workshop along with the Breakout Group and members from the Philadelphia community. 

The workshop focused on conversation about “rifts” - the difference between people that cause clash and segregation. It started with a series of theatre games that embody daily experience. Through acting out different emotional expressions to other participants, we got to break the ice and know each other as well as becoming comfortable to the space. Then the games simulated the clash between opposing opinions in public, as well as how people react to their own mask of rift. By having partners accurately mirroring each other’s body language of the rift, we get to see our own images of distrust, frustration and vulnerability, and then develop the narrative to reason with oneself. After that, all of the participants sat down and discussed their observations and reflections throughout the workshop.

For me, the most powerful moment was definitely seeing my own image of the rift: when I am self-conscious and have internal conversation with myself, I seldom realize that physical appearance is a part of it. In public places, since this outer shell is often the first thing others interpret and act accordingly, it is an overlooked but important part of self-expression. What struck me the most was the nuance of negative emotions from the eyes of my mirrored image. I also found it harder than I thought to reason with myself. It was through theatre that these expression are registered and acknowledged. Even though the story behind each individual is different, common emotions reminded us of the universal insecurity and vulnerability of each and every one. 

This workshop also goes off the line at Curtis and Art Sanctuary that interactive art that bring people outside of the profession into the discussion and use art as the language to seek mutual understanding and open up conversations. At lunch, the group brainstormed how we could take what we learned from this trip back on campus, and one of the proposals was to connect with existing student art groups and set up interactive workshops unpacking personal identity open to the whole campus, as an extension of the philosophy at Theatre of the Oppressed.

We visited Philadelphia Museum of Art in the afternoon and had dinner with our lovely hosts at the Jazz Cafe in downtown Philadelphia, as a closing for our program.

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3.23: Puerto Rico, Orchestras, and The Definition of Home

Hey! Colleen here.

Today was action-packed - we were early to rise and scheduled to visit three destinations. First was Taller Puertorriqueño, “the cultural heart of Latino Philadelphia.” Dedicated to preserving and promoting Puerto Rican arts and culture, this organization was different than others we have visited in that it was centered around a specific cultural heritage. We saw a really neat multimedia exhibition, and got to chat with outreach director Dora about the work that Taller does. In addition to youth programming, she mentioned their current efforts to bring arts to older populations in nursing homes. For the remainder of our visit, the six of us split up...some worked with the manager of the youth artist program to repurpose old canvases for future art classes, while others - wait for it - got to shred lots of old documents. As we made our way to the bus stop after Taller, Latin music filled the streets, prompting some spicy salsa moves from certain group members.

Next stop: The Curtis Institute of Music. Located in a fairly affluent section of Philadelphia, this prestigious school currently nurtures the musical development of 175 students, providing a liberal arts education in a music-heavy setting. While the contrast between the Institute and many of our other destinations was drastic in terms of financial stability, they seem to be partnering with some great initiatives, including one that brings music workshops to inmates at a nearby prison, allowing them to write and perform songs. Curtis fosters the love of music in not only its talented students, but the greater community as well. On our way out, we watched a bit of the orchestra’s rehearsal...I closed my eyes and let the overpowering sound engulf me. It was beautiful.

After a lovely Thai meal, spontaneous discussions on Abraham Lincoln, and a needed coffee stop, we attended Intersections: Art, Identity, Home, a panel discussion co-hosted by Art Sanctuary and Intercultural Journeys. The conversation centered around the experience of black female artists in today’s America, and explored the intersections of race, identity, home, and art. All the women expressed a deep sense of belonging within their art forms...for them, art isn’t a hobby, but a necessity, a way of life. The bubbly energy and passion of these artists filled the room, and the way they played off of each other, laughing throughout, made for a dialogue that was both engaging and empowering. Emphasized here was the power of art to act as a means of processing, of exploration and expression, and, ultimately, of self-discovery. My coursework at Princeton has thus far revolved largely around the concepts of race, identity, and home, so tonight really resonated with me.

Our adventures today were fruitful and enlightening. Stay tuned tomorrow for the final update in our family’s journey!

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3.22 “We Are Creaaaaaative!”

Hey guys, my name is Anna and I’ll write the blog tonight! Today, our community partner was “Yes and…Collaborative Arts” which is located in the outskirts of Philadelphia. For anyone who is not an expert in improv theater, let me explain that the name “Yes and…” comes from an improv method in which actors learn how to adapt to different situations in scenes where they can only say “Yes and…” – no negative answers allowed! After some fun commuting around the city, we finally met Michael Brix, the executive director of the program. Before he told us about the project, he asked us a very interesting question: “What are your tribes?” What he meant was: where are we coming from? And who do we identify with? While we had certainly never thought about our identities like this before, it gave us a new way to think about our different communities. Michael explained to us that tribes and belonging to tribes is a pedagogy that their project has developed over the years for their work with children. Mostly working with theater, the project has been growing since it first started in 1998. While it started out as an opportunity for kids to do theater in the summer, it quickly became much bigger. Michael told us he knew that “Yes and…” should be continued after one boy, shortly before a performance, realized what he and his co-actors had achieved together and screamed out in amazement: “We are creaaaative!”Now, the project offers after-school programs, stages its own performances, and continues to expand the summer camps. Although the project is, above all, focused on theater, its aim is not to make stars of its young participants. As Michael said to us: “We want to help make these kids future leaders, that’s our mission.” It was really interesting for us to hear about his vision: “I know that we can’t make the whole world a better place, but we can be a part of it.” For him and “Yes and…” this means bringing together many children from different socioeconomic backgrounds and giving them the chance to address social issues through theater, on a pay-want-you-can-basis. For example, past performances included satiric approaches to the Stanford rape case or police brutality. We were really impressed by Michael’s passion and energy and gladly helped him clear out and re-storage a storage unit containing many theater props. I think we were all happy about the workout and loudly sang “High School Musical” songs while getting the chance to do some hands-on work. We wish Michael all the best with “Yes and…” and thank him for the insights he gave us today!

 After a short pizza break, we got the chance to see Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Philadelphia’s Arden Theater. While completely different from our experience with “Yes and…” I think we all enjoyed it a lot as it was a rather modern adaption of the play, with lots of jokes (we are still debating whether some of the funny moments we planned or improvised), music, and singing. It was a great way to end the day because the whole day was themed around theater and it was really interesting to see how different theater can be and how it can influence and intrigue people in a myriad of ways. 

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3.21 visit to Beacon and the Art of Protest panel

Hey, it’s Olenka, and I’ll be doing the next entry of our blog. Today, we started the morning early by heading over to Beacon, which is a faith community that focuses on providing a welcoming, non-judgmental place for children and other community members to create art. Beacon is different from other faith-art-type programs in that its primary focus is art rather than faith. Its role in the community is much like an after-school program, accessible to children of low-income families. For the first few hours at Beacon, we helped out with moving, sorting, and cleaning various art supplies in the basement (since there were water pipe problems in the 140-year-old building). Later, Rebecca, the founder and pastor at Beacon, told us about how Beacon only had two full-time staff members and about how and why she started the program, as well as the challenges she experienced along the way--for example, Beacon started out with only one child showing up after school, but grew exponentially for the first several weeks. Rebecca told us about how she wants art to be used as a starting point in creating relationships, and about how for her, personally, creating art with someone was a comfortable way to start a conversation--we got to experience this ourselves as we colored on a tablecloth, with everyone doing their own work but still doing it together in one place. One thing that struck a lot of us was how closely Beacon worked to provide for the community: Rebecca told us that she spent many hours walking around the neighborhood to really see what the community needed. During our debrief later, we talked about how we liked her outlook on life and art, particularly in creating a space that has art and acceptance as its primary focuses.

The second community partner we visited was the Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Art of the Protest panel discussion. We got to hear three artists and a councilwoman talk about their ideas of art and political protest. It was interesting to hear about what made the various artists decide to delve into the intersection of art and protest. One artist talked about how she went to jail for protecting herself, and realized during that experience that she needed to use art as a vehicle for speaking up about women’s rights and empowerment. Overall, though the panel discussion was very thorough and the panelists’ views were interesting, I think we all preferred our time at Beacon today.

(Pictures will be uploaded soon!)

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3.20 visit to Magic Gardens

Hi everyone! I’m Matthew and I’m going to be telling you about our trip to the Magic Gardens today! This day wasn’t as busy as the rest of the week will be, but we still learned a lot from an incredibly informational tour.

The Magic Gardens is a giant project in Philadelphia that was started in almost 50 years ago by a man named Isaiah Zagar. Zagar had always been an artist, but after a returning from a peace core stunt in 1968, he developed severe depression. The only way to cope with this was through his art. Isaiah started making mosaics on walls around his neighborhood and just continued. Eventually people in the neighborhood started to notice and he gained more and more support to the point where now his mosaics cover half of the block. What started as a simple project to clear his mind has now turned into something larger that he could imagine - a museum that sees hundreds of thousands of visitors at a time.

Zagar makes his mosaics through a developed process that involves clay art, shards of mirror, colored plaster, and paint. He always depicts himself as having three arms on one side because he is working so fast at putting these objects on the walls. Many of these objects are used from recycled material. While I admire the sustainability aspect of the project, the most inspiring part of Magic Gardens was the dedication Isaiah had towards this therapeutic aspect of his life. What can start as something as small as one tile at a time can grow to something that beautifies a street and inspires people. Our tour guide told us a story about a tour she gave to a group of mentally disabled individuals in which Isaiah’s work inspired them to believe that they could make a difference as well. Hearing about being able to make this type of difference in people’s lives was really empowering. I’ll always remember the disorganized beauty that was Magic Gardens, but the story behind it is what will continue to inspire me.

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3.19.17 visit to Space 1026 and Mural Arts Train Tour

Hey guys, it’s Jackson and I’ll be writing the blog entry for tonight (and our trips first entry!! woop woop). So today was a pretty light day, we visited two community partners, Space 1026 and the Mural Arts Train Tour. Space 1026 is a a two floor studio space dedicated to allowing its members a space to create their art as well as showcasing outside artists’ works. We all agreed, we LOVED Space 1026. We met with three of the organizations members and discussed their art, their inspirations, setbacks, motivations, etc. One member in particular, Max, really struck us all with his honest and introversion and ability to balance supreme levity with supreme wisdom. 

The second thing we did was attend a mural arts train tour. Mural Arts is a wide ranging organization that works to make sure that art has a prominent place within the Philadelphia community. Today we took a train tour that showcased a city wide mural project entitled “Love Letters.” While we enjoyed the actual tour and appreciated the murals for their beauty, we felt like the tour lacked in explaining HOW this particular project tangible helped the community, if at all. We seemed to agree that there was an element of wanting to say they were helping the community without actually helping the community. 

Our debrief today was honestly phenomenal. Because of our conversations about Mural arts (and the deficiencies we felt that program had) and Space 1026, we, as a group, actually came to begin discussing key issues within American culture right now, discrimination, institutionalized racism, self-segregation, and the like. We have two international students on our trip which leads to lots of great questions about American culture. As a result, we’ve already had some great conversations about how each of us interacts within our countries and within our communities. Overall I’m super excited about where this trip seems to be heading. I really feel like we’re bonding as a group and today was a great day 1. Signing off, Jackson

P.S. more pictures from today to follow in the morn

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Smiles in the Trolley Tunnels on the Mural Arts Tour

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Urban Art in our alum’s neighborhood

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Meet the Leader: Jackson

Hey! My name is Jackson and I’m from Northern Jersey. I’m a freshman at the University and plan on majoring in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with certificates in East Asian Studies and African American studies. I’ll be Co-Leading the trip with Yunzi Shi this week and I’m super excited about this trip. Through talking to the participants before the trip, it’s clear that each participant has their entryway into this subject (whether it be Urban studies, architecture, gender studies, etc.) and I hope by the end of the trip each of us will have had an experience that will strengthen our already established connection and create new connections to art as a medium for change, revolution, and learning.

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Meet the volunteer: Anna

Hi! My name is Anna and I’m a freshman from exotic Germany. Currently I want to major in Comparative Literature and do a certificate in Anthropology, because I love languages, books, and people (and chocolate of course!!). I’m really excited about our trip because I spent my last year working with orphans in Bulgaria and made the experience that art was one of the best ways to communicate and engage with them. Now, I’m looking forward to seeing what impact art can make in different contexts.

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Meet the leader: Yunzi

Hello! My name is Yunzi Shi, and I am a freshman and prospective architecture major. I am co-leading this trip with Jackson, and I am super excited about the upcoming week! For a long time, I have been communicating and connecting with people through art: not only is it a way of free self-expression, but it also empowers voices of individuals who are otherwise unheard. For this trip, we want the participants to get an glance of the vivid urban arts scene in Philadelphia through meetings and volunteer work with organizations and officials that work with art education, activism, restoration, and community engagement, as well as excursions to local cultural sites as art museums and theater; I personally would like to explore public art serving as a vehicle for creative storytelling, placemaking and activism, as well as how it interacts and revives the built environment in the post-industrial city.

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Meet the volunteer: Colleen

Greetings!

My name is Colleen Heidorn and I am a New Hampshire native. I am an avid pursuer of stargazing, picnics, and smoothies. I’m considering a major in anthropology or sociology, and I am excited to be in Philly this week to see some incredible art. I look forward to learning how art here can be used as a vehicle for social and political voices...I’m also interested in the emotions it can spark amongst various audiences. 

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Meet the volunteer: Olenka

Hi, I’m Olenka and I’m a potential Woody Woo major. I’m really excited to be on the Urban Arts breakout trip this spring break! I decided to go on this trip to better understand the intersection between art and policy, and to see how cultural and political views are expressed through various mediums of art, as well as how that art is interpreted by others. I’m excited to explore Philadelphia from this new lens.

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Meet the volunteer: Matthew

Hi! My name is Matthew Fuller. I am a probable history major from Novi, Michigan. On this trip, I am excited to explore a city in a way that teaches me how people are trying to make an difference or a statement through the expression of their art. I decided to come on this trip because I have witnessed the effects of urban art in Detroit, both how it can inspire a community, but also foster good and bad stereotypes. I’d love to see how this process works in Philadelphia, which has experienced many of the same socioeconomic and political changes as Detroit.