TACIT

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a youth violence prevention and intervention program on Chicago's south side. Forty-four high school-age youth from violence-exposed urban communities participated in a nine-month, multidisciplinary, after-school program aimed at supporting their development and positively impacting their communities. Restorative practice principles informed planning, implementation, and evaluation of the program. The youth developed skills in leadership, trauma-informed practice, documentary production, theatre, and participatory action research. This paper discusses the program, an initial evaluation of its impact, and potential practice and research implications.

Against the backdrop of segregation, limited resources, and violent crime that defines Chicago’s failed gestures toward racial equality, the multidisciplinary Truth N Trauma (TNT) youth engagement program sought to reduce violence by addressing the impact of trauma within African American communities on the South Side. As head of the Theatre Component, I worked with 11 black youth in the creation of a devised piece of movement-based theatre entitled The Only Way Out is the Way Through.

This article augments the growing scholarly discussion that situates failure as a threshold of potential by highlighting the insights that become clear when viewing my work with TNT through a lens of failure rather than sugarcoated success. If we are to become more deftly responsible theatre artists and more engaged citizens, I argue that we need to adopt an critical embrace of failure, especially when working to address social inequality. I interrogate the different uses of failure that arose in our process: the deliberate use of a dramaturgy of failure, the shedding of expertise through the devising process, and failure as a means of structuring loss. Through the analysis of these failures, some expected and others unexpected, I argue that the stakes to critically embrace failure are desperately high, as failure – not success – disallows absolution of the responsibility to act.

Theatre acts as a conduit through which students become critical thinkers and engaged citizens. I create a productive and progressive learning environment that allows for an active engagement with the material while also teaching students to be insightful critics, compassionate contributors to society, and responsible artists.

This article initially analyzes the 2016 political landscape to pinpoint the forces that fueled Donald J. Trump's campaign and election. Turning to artist Robert Lopez's performance as El Vez at San Diego's Taco Fest, I discuss how his performance conjoins Chicanidad with popular entertainment, using humour, spectacle, and music to forestall the defensive moves of white fragility, allowing him to speak across divisive lines. Lopez-as-El-Vez deftly sidesteps defensive reactions as he asserts uncomfortable racial truths. By grounding this show in the shared culture of popular entertainment, he uses performance to make a pointed political, cultural, and racialized intervention. In performance, El Vez not only outmanoeuvres white fragility, but also constructs a contact-zone audiotopia that allows for the practice of a fun, messy, raucous collectivity. His performances lay bare the structures of racism as they simultaneously envision a more equitable future, accessible through El Vez himself. Karen Jean Martinson is an Assistant Professor in the Communications, Media Arts and Theatre programme. She also works professionally as a dramaturg and director.

This article initially analyzes the 2016 political landscape to pinpoint the forces that fueled Donald J. Trump’s campaign and election. Turning to artist Robert Lopez’s performance as El Vez at San Diego’s Taco Fest, I discuss how his performance conjoins Chicanidad with popular entertainment, using humour, spectacle, and music to forestall the defensive moves of white fragility, allowing him to speak across divisive lines. Lopez-as-El-Vez deftly sidesteps defensive reactions as he asserts uncomfortable racial truths. By grounding this show in the shared culture of popular entertainment, he uses performance to make a pointed political, cultural, and racialized intervention. In performance, El Vez not only outmaneuvers white fragility, but also constructs a contact-zone audiotopia that allows for the practice of a fun, messy, raucous collectivity. His performances lay bare the structures of racism as they simultaneously envision a more equitable future, accessible through El Vez him...

Contents include: For the Record; An Introduction; Recognition for City of Wine, Brian Quirt, recipient of the 2009 Elliott Hayes Award Introduced by LMDA President Shelley Orr; Brian Quirt\u27s Elliott Hayes Acceptance Speech Washington, D.C. Watergate Restaurant July 18, 2009; Being Dramaturgical, A Conversation about Geoff Proehl\u27s New Book Toward a Dramaturgical Sensibility; Beyond Hamlet: Three Theatre Developments in Denmark; The Alexandrinsky and Renaissancing the Cultural Theatre Medium; The Acting and Dramaturgy of Odin Teatret; A Production Dramaturg and an Installation Dramaturg Discuss Their Approaches to Making Art. Issue editors: D.J. Hopkins, Lauren Beckhttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdareview/1039/thumbnail.jp

This article discusses the critical practice the author uses in her writing about El Vez, The Mexican Elvis. After offering a brief introduction to El Vez, to the artist Robert Lopez who created him, and to the relationship between them and the icon of Elvis, the author presents the aims of Make the Dream Real, the monograph she is drafting about El Vez/Lopez, to consider how it draws on biographical writing and yet departs from it. The author argues for a dramaturgical methodology and its inherent critical proximity as a means of writing an analytical, contextualized, engaging analysis of an artist and entertainer. The dramaturgical methodology, built on dramaturgical thinking, values flexibility, using a variety of research practices combined with vibrant autoethnographic writing to offer vivid analysis that conveys the intellectual, emotional, and somatic experience of attending a live El Vez performance. The article discusses the value of deep dramaturgical thinking and critical...

What is the theatre of global emergency? . . . How do we transform "climate grief " into "climate action"? -Conrad alexandrowiCz and david FanCy Anthropocene, a high-impact original physical theater performance, examines how human progress has led to a new and dangerous geological age. The convergence of the global syndemic-the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, social justice unrest, and social systems pushed to their breaking point-indicates an imperative for real change. The topic of human-caused climate change is urgent. Indeed, in August 2021, the United Nations (UN) issued a report declaring "a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable" [1]. Because scientific data can be opaque and difficult to decipher, climate scientists face challenges in prompting the general public to act. This is where performance comes in. Anthropocene, a multi-year transdisciplinary performance project, fuses innovative aesthetics, evocative storytelling, and sustainable production processes to express the acute need for climate action. The piece foregrounds physical and visual storytelling by staging movement-based episodes that are woven together to examine key questions: