U.S. vs. "them"

During last night's rehearsal, we started getting into a lot of new, interesting material. Most of the time when we talk about "America" or talk "to" America it seems like we're talking to something other than ourselves. During our discussion it often seems like "America" is something that hovers above us, somewhere up in the air. When we say "America" (especially when we are being critical), what are we talking about exactly?

We concluded that some of the things that are "up there" are:

- The Government
- The Big Ecomony - corporations, commercialism
- The Media
- History - everything in America's past (especially genocide and slavery) that has brought us up to the present moment

The more we talked about it, the more complicated the ideas became. All of these "big" entities and institutions can seem totally separated from us ("the people"), totally out of our control. Yet, though each of us cannot necessarily re-direct the courses of these big cultural forces, we do also contribute to them. We purchase products, we consume media, we vote, we create history every day. It's a weird contradiction: we are part of the culture yet it can seem completely alien to us. It is created by millions of individuals, but it can end up limiting our options as individuals.

As we tried to wrap our minds around it, Gilbert thought of an image from science class, the water evaporation cycle. All of the components that make up our culture do, in a sense, get filtered through us and re-processed so that they can be consumed again. We are enmeshed in the cycle, but it's much larger than each of us.

Every time we criticize America or speak of it as something "other," it's important to recognize that we are America, too. I know that Marielle wants us to recognize that; she keeps reminding the group that America is not just about bad things that are keeping the people down.

In our next couple of rehearsals we're grappling with how we can "show" this. How can we perform something that we are a part of and yet is not us? How can we show all the contradictions and ambiguities of that idea?