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Can art be democratic? Pangea World Theater thinks so.

Posted at 3:56 PM on November 6, 2009 by Marianne Combs (4 Comments)
Filed under: Culture, Theater

"Bridges" performers run through one of their collaborative pieces.

Usually when we think of art, we think of one person's vision. That person could be a painter, a choreographer, a playwright or a director. Their idea is transferred to a canvass, or in the case of theater, to a group of actors and staff charged with carrying out the artists' vision.

The founders of Pangea World Theater think that model needs to change. For three years now, Pangea has hosted what it calls "Bridges" - an intensive program in which artists from different backgrounds work together on a performance. The actors have as much say as the playwrights. Artistic Director Dipankar Mukherjee says Bridges is about coming up with a new way of creating art.

Because the current way is mainstream, and in 'the mainstream' many voices are missing. Financially privileged Euro-American white voices form the centers of most artistic conversations. It's not that artists with marginalized voices stopped creating work - they've always created work. The question is, can we create a circle in which the work is in the center, and that work is dynamized by everybody's participation?

The "Bridges" project provides a pretty heady environment for performers, filled with discussions and workshops in addition to rehearsals. For three weeks they've debated the responsibilities and privilege of being an artist, and the've created work. The results of their collaboration is onstage this weekend at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis.

"Bridges" curators Dipankar Mukherjee, Meena Natarajan and J. Otis Powell!

The results of their work border on the abstract, which curator Meena Natarajan says is to be expected since they've had so little time to collaborate. But the process they've undertaken will stay with them in future projects, and perhaps lead to new work, and new insights.

Still, the idea of "democratic art" seems cumbersome. Is it practical to make art as a group? Curator J. Otis Powell! says it is:

It is practical that we practice freedom, it is practical that we practice democracy it is practical that we practice listening to each other. Unless we practice we're never going to get better at it. If we keep saying "too many cooks spoil the broth" then we're going to continue to get the same result, because we say "oh yeah, that's right - I've heard that all my life, so it must be true." We're saying that must not be true. It must be true that we can have a better world if we actually paid attention to everybody who's speaking instead of just certain people who are speaking.

As is often the case with art, these performers are trying to create a microcosm of what they want to see in the world. And for that, they're willing to be patient, and keep working.

Comments (4)

Work? Self expression? Group expression? Competition? Corporate Pluralism? Peaceful Coexistence?

Dipankar Mukhurjee; Meena Natarajan; J. Otis Powell. Or, in what I intend to be an appropriate allusion to a law firm,: Mukhurjee, Natarajan and Powell.

"The results of their work border on the abstract."

From the photo of the performers it appears as though "Bridges" could be a puppet show.

Posted by Mike | November 7, 2009 8:44 PM

Collaboration - to work in partnership [source: Oxford American Dictionary] - the idea of working together, of turning inward, not necessarily away from, creating without destroying ; that's what I'd like to see and be a part of.

Posted by Mike | November 7, 2009 11:29 PM

"And now that I warm up to the subject, I think I know why it is that I feel this way. People differ, and I'm more inward-private than outward-public orientated. I know that collectivities are important--politics, social structures, and all that. A police state, unemployment, or a war on home soil could bring me to my knees in an instant. So I don't advocate privatism or books on how to live on a farm in Vermont and love it. I even hold a tiny political office in my own township.
"But I can't say that my heart is in it. Perhaps it is the fact that I've been socially privileged--not poor, not persecuted, not discriminated against, and not victimized by war--that makes me realize that social or collective well-being dosen't solve the human problem. As Marianne Moore puts it in her poems, 'There never was a war that wasn't inward.'" (Houston Smith, April 1972 interview with Steve Reuys, [Copyright Steve Reuys], transcript of Houston Smith, Steve Reuys interview in the book, "THE WAY THINGS ARE: Conversations with Houston Smith on the Spiritual Life," Edited and with a preface by Phil Cousineau.

Posted by Mike | November 10, 2009 4:28 PM

Pangea World Theater's website - www.pangeaworldtheater.org - told and showed me more of the story. Wouldn't of missed it for the world, don't you.

Posted by Mike | November 13, 2009 3:07 PM