Weekly Howl on hashtag #newplay
How do current social and political events impact our role as artists?
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Read the transcript of this conversation.
The Weekly Howl is a peer-produced, open-access discussion about theater culture and contemporary performance that happens in real-time on Twitter using the hashtag #newplay.*
Join us Thursday, July 18 for the Weekly Howl on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT – 12pm PDT (Los Angeles) / 1pm CDT – 2pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT – 3pm EDT (New York) / 18:00 GMT – 19:00 GMT / 7pm BST - 8pm BST (London) / 8pm CEST - 9pm CEST (Berlin). Click here for an automatic conversion into your local time.
This week's topic is: How do current social and political events impact our role as artists? and will be moderated by Dominic D'Andrea @DominicDAndrea and Gus Schulenburg @GusSchulenburg.
References and Background Reading:
On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!
*The hashtag #newplay in Twitter is a commons tag (i.e. non-proprietary, community-invested tag) for aggregating global knowledge, information, and conversation related to new works, new performance, and new strategies in the theater.
Comments
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Dominic D'Andrea @DominicDAndrea and Gus Schulenburg @GusSchulenburg I think you are providing space for a very necessary conversation, however I think you need to diversify the moderator pool to be more sensitive to the race and gender dynamics that inform these issues. Its the subtle unconscious behaviors that perpetuate environments where racism, prejudice and sexism can thrive.
Thanks for that comment Antonio. Just want to clarify how this works: the spirit of this conversation series is different from a typical hierarchical panel conversation. It's completely open to anyone to join and to propose a subject—no one gets excluded and anyone who chooses to participate has volunteered themselves. No one is invited and there is no curation. As a moderator, your role would be to move the conversation along during the one-hour period, and this role is fluid as well. Anyone can moderate by throwing out a completely new question to redirect the conversation. In our announcements, we often single out moderators and acknowledge them by name since they have volunteered to put some extra preparation work into producing the conversation such as providing links to articles and preparing a set of questions to ask the community during the one-hour conversation. We believe that this spirit of openness and this opensource method of peer-producing allows for the possibility of a diversity of viewpoints to impact the conversation. As with all of HowlRound's platforms, we hope and expect people to invite themselves to produce on them.
Antonio,
Thank you for your comment. I want to acknowledge that I'm entering into this conversation expecting to listen more than speak, and to ask more than answer. I imagine my role as co-moderator as simply to help keep the conversation going, and as HowlRound wrote below, I hope that you and others will take the conversation(s) in the directions you find most valuable. I also acknowledge that even with the best of intentions, the biases I have affect everything I do, but I am consciously trying to move forward with as much awareness as possible, and with sincere respect for experiences and ideas that are different than my own. I'm eager to participate in this conversation because I'm grasping for tools/ideas/answers/better-questions on how I can contribute to a more just and equitable world. After this past week, the question of this Weekly Howl feels ever more urgent, and so I very much hope you will engage with us in the dialogue. Thank you again.