is THIS what freedom looks like?!?

In rehearsal on Saturday, Eugene told us that when he thinks of total "freedom" the image he sees is Will Ferrell running around naked in the movie "Old School."

There are different ideas of freedom, but most of us tend to think of it as an individual thing, the freedom to do whatever you want. We think of a lone person doing something that goes against the grain -- like taking off all of their clothes!

Judy led the group in an exercise on Saturday that challenged our ideas of freedom, though. She told the cast that they had one and a half minutes to be "completely free on their own." Most of them had no idea what to do and just ended up sitting around. Then they had one and half minutes to be free "in a group": one group went upstairs for a bit, another just sat around talking. Then they had time to "be free" while Judy played different types of music; even though she didn't tell them to dance, pretty much everyone in the group stood in a circle and moved to the music, at one point collectively choreographing dance moves.

In our discussion afterwards, we discussed how comfortable we are with varying degrees of freedom. Cynthia confessed that when she heard we were allowed to be completely free, she was worried that someone would take off their clothes (like Will Ferrell!) but no one did that. Gilbert said that when he has free time, he most enjoys doing something like listening to music or going on the Internet -- if he was just alone by himself in a room without the possibility of doing that, he wouldn't really know what to do.

Why do we think that most of the people in the group felt more comfortable "being free" together? Is that just because it's easier to just go along with the group or was dancing with everyone else what they really felt like doing? Freedom to choose can be a paradox; it doesn't always have to mean that we "do our own thing." Though the conventional image of freedom is individualistic, groups can also freely choose to come to consensus, can't they? Or is someone always the leader?

We'll be exploring this paradox more in rehearsal tonight. When you think of "freedom," what image do YOU see?

langston live

Hip Hip Hooray to Castillo ensemble member Mike Klein! In the comments section, he posted a link to Langston Hughes reading his poems with musical accompaniment by the Charles Mingus jazz group. The following website has each poem as an individual file (as well as the lyrics translated into Spanish!):

http://www.geocities.com/xxxjorgexxx/hughes1.htm

You need RealPlayer in order to listen to the files.

One of the poems on the recording is called "Notes on the Commercial Theatre." It's about how mainstream commerical theater and film have consistently appropriated black cultural forms for their own ends. I never knew this poem before, but it's powerful and it serves as a calling card for what we're trying to do:

"Notes on the Commercial Theatre" by Langston Hughes

You've taken my blues and gone—
You sing'em on Broadway
And you sing'em in Hollywood Bowl,
And you mixed'em up with symphonies
And you fixed 'em
So they don't sound like me.
Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.

You also took my spirituals and gone.
You put me in Macbeth and Carmen Jones
And all kinds of Swing Mikados
And in everything but what's about me—
But someday somebody'll
Stand up and talk about me,
And write about me—
Black and beautiful—
And sing about me,
And put on plays about me!
I reckon it'll be
Me myself!

Yes, it'll be me.

report from saturday

At Saturday's rehearsal we branched out in a lot of new directions. The performers were told to bring in other texts that they felt had some connection to our two poems. These ranged from Gilbert calling our attention to a Subway commercial to Kristina reciting the Internationale. We have more music on the way, too: in subsequent rehearsals, we'll be listening to songs by Lou Reed and Nas, suggested by Tabitha and Eugene.

One of the topics on Saturday was how America presents, or "sells," itself. The "American Dream" is a product like any other and one group presented a very funny commerical (inspired by Subway) that was meant to show how America was more free than other countries. We also talked a lot about the visions that people in other countries have of what America is like. Several performers concurred that their relatives back home in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad all have exaggerated ideas of how prosperous America is. Tabitha's grandmother, upon first visiting New York and seeing steam rise up out of the manhole covers, thought that it meant the streets were heated! This vision of America as a "land of plenty" has been around since the 19th Century and even before that. It is said that earlier generations of immigrants to America thought they would arrive to find the streets paved with gold.

Our discussion of opportunities in America continued with an extended analysis of the Will Smith movie "The Pursuit of Happyness". We talked for quite a while about whether this film, based on a true story, provided evidence that, with enough self-determination, someone could raise themselves up from poverty by their bootstraps and achieve financial success. Some people argued that Will Smith's character was an extraordinary person who put up with an incredible amount of setbacks, which the average job-seeker would not have been able to overcome.

We ended the day by exploring the notion of "freedom" in more detail. Inspired by Tabitha's refence to Rousseau's idea that "civilization begins with fences," we asked what complete freedom would really look like. Would it be a blissful state of complete liberty and cooperation or total chaos? Are some restrictions on freedom good just so that we can accomlish things as a society? The American poet Robert Frost includes a famous adage in one of his poems: "Good fences make good neighbors".

Judy ended the day with some exercises exploring what "total freedom" felt like. I'm going to write more about that on a subsequent post, because the results were so interesting. Or maybe Judy (or one of the cast) wants to tell us about it??

langston's legacy

Last night we realized that our two poets had a lot in common: Hughes and Ginsberg were both gay, both affiliated with the Communist movement, and both attended Columbia University. Unfortunately, though, I haven't been able to find as many exciting Web resources about Langston Hughes as about Ginsberg.

We did learn from Dan that Hughes' great-grandfather (and namesake) John Mercer Langston was the first black man elected to public office in the United States (and that was even before the Civil War). That certainly gave young Langston Hughes a big legacy to live up to. That got me thinking about how comparatively few African-Americans have been elected to major public office, even today. Is that changing? This year, Deval Patrick was elected governor of Massachusetts, but it's hard to believe that he is only the second black governor in American history. Barack Obama is only the third black U.S. Senator elected since the end of Reconstruction. Some people think he may end up as the Democratic candidate for President in 2008. Will that change things?

Has anyone else found any good Langston Hughes resources? If so, send us the links!

establishing the discussion

Wow, the conversation has really started! We had an engaging discussion yesterday at rehearsal about the poems and the poets' backgrounds, during which some different ways of looking at America emerged. Here are some notes:

- During the discussion, Marielle took issue with Allen Ginberg's first line: "America I've given you all and now I'm nothing." She wanted to know where Ginsberg got off saying something like that. What had he given to America? From the evidence in the poem, it seemed like all he did was sit around and smoke marijuana all the time. Marielle articultaed the position that there was opportunity all around us in America and that people just needed to make the choice to take adantage of it.

- Several people talked about the obstacles that get put in the way of that kind of achievement. Nowadays it seems that you need a BA to get a good job, said Cynthia, and college isn't free. And even a college degree is no assurance that you can find good employment. And some people get an advantage over others because they went to private schools or because their parents were successful.

- Tabitha changed the terms of the discussion and called into question the very way that success is measured in America. Citing the work of the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, she expressed that mainstream America defines success purely in economic terms, as if people were like businesses. What about people like Ginsberg who don't want to conform to that set of standards? What place is there for them in American society? As Ginsberg says, "Businessmen are serious / Movie producers are serious / Everyone's serious but me."

- Windia expressed very well the conflict between the opportunities offered by the "American Dream" and the restrictiveness of it. To achieve that dream, you have to fit a certain "image." According to Windia, America says to us, "If you're willing to be the way I draw it out for you, you're lucky. But if not, you're out."

It's really exciting that we have so many different opinions emerging within the group. Giving expression to contradictions is exactly what this process is supposed to be about. Does anybody else out there want to add a comment or respond to any of this??

experimental art resources

Mike Klein, a member of the Castillo Theater ensemble, calls our attention to Ubu Web, which seems to be the YouTube of the avant-garde. It has video clips of experimental poetry, film, performance, and music. I've barely had a chance to look at it much, but it includes a 39 minute video interview with Ginsberg, filmed in 1995.

We should keep looking through this stuff, who knows what else is in there! We're working in a long line of other experimental artists.

the group

I'm very excited to announce the ensemble that will be creating "America (a conversation)":

Performers:
Kristina Acheampong
Gilbert Arias
Eugene Clowney
Cynthia Cyprien
Windia Dieudonne
Francisco Espinoza
Marcus Jones
Edaliz Morales
Emily Munguia
Tabitha Peavey
Stephanie Rampersad
Marielle Suarez
Amanda Williams

Directors:
Dan Friedman
Brian Mullin
Sita Sarkar
Serge Velez

Producer:
Marian Rich

Stage Manager:
Kat Ostrova

Movement Coach:
Judy Myers

Our ensemble is very diverse: The performers range in age from 15 to 23 are residents of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and New Jersey. It's a really exciting group with whom to start this conversation!

We had a great first rehearsal over the weekend. After everyone got to know each other, we got right down to business. Each performer stood up and did an unprepared, one-minute solo performance of their experience of America. They could only use three words. Some of the words people used included: "hiring?," "broke," "freedom," "Food Stamps," "life," "liberty," "happiness," "running," "dream." A theme started emerging even at this early stage: the gap between the ideal of what America is supposed to be and the way it really is. Many of the performers showed that contradiction and showed themselves struggling with it in various ways.

We didn't even get to our poems on the first day, but everyone was assigned to read them before our next rehearsal. On Wednesday, we'll start talking about who Langston Hughes and Allen Ginsberg were and we'll start using their words to create scenes. It already seems like everything's moving quickly!