Culture First

Knowledge Collection People & Projects
, ,
1

I’ve been wriggling in the territory of Issue illumination without inflammation for some 30 years using my hereditary tool of the theatre.  I continue to believe, no matter how naively, in the tools that we theeatre people have developed to heighten the significance of shared time.  These need not be applied in cultural space ( indeed I find this usually an impediment to true exchange).  Instead they rightly belong in the realm of facilitating the Human Gathering in its many forms.  In sometimes refer to these gatherings as Human Rites

The Institute for Non-toxic Propaganda; could be  a massive idealistic organisation that would welcome anyone working along a parallel path. I have often returned to this strategy of cornering a pressing problem and embracing it via the realm of metaphor, this releases the imaginative power exponentially.

At one point I started called these creations FiNGOs - for fictive NGOs.  Entering an invented, limitless hierarchy  allow great freedom to the participants.  (Check bembodavies.com to find the Baghdad Osijek Friendship Society.)  Sketching the resultant understandings into the graph of the problem, I devised a proposal of ‘Culture First’; while we couldn’t solve the massive global problems that we were addressing overnight, but entering them through a fiction, we could explore the emotional reality and culture of people who had got beyond the barrier of helplessness.  (Ask me for the report of the workshop I designed with Parapanda Theatre Labratory in Dar es Salaam. )

More soon…

2

The exponential, towards the removal of all barriers

This strikes me as a creative solution to fixing problems!

Being a massive idealistic myself, and also bordering illumination, these ideas attract me much…

There is an appealing sense of infinity to the empowerment of your approach.

I prefer this kind of approach that attempts to introduce some infinitesimal proportion of new in a sea of ​​old, while trying to forget that the old model is obsolete. You quickly end up realizing that it does not work.…

3

theatre of the person

i’m noticing a strong thread of insiders/outsiders in many places on edgeryders, a result of my own interests for sure. so your FiNGOs suggest to me a parallel to the welcoming of diversity and multi-personality of the individual. we don’t get to see the reality of the imagination without the fictional side of the world, which is actually its potential. where the world’s problems are actually a result of the conception of the world, the only solution is to embrace ideas like yours…

am i following you? and is there a link to social equality through diversity?

4

We who love words love words.  Your Theatre of the Person is something I’m going to run with for a long time.  Checking your profile, I see that this may be wisdom distilled by watching co-climbers hit new peaks.  Or by the teachings of the Milonga  – i wouldn’t call either of these fictions, in fact they are the essense of the human exchange at its best.  As I interpret the ER project, the task becomes to either to engage your fellow climbers and dancers in strategic social action — or – closer to my gig, find ways to replicate similar heights of human experience at the core of negotiating new structures.  At either rate, you’ve already got a visceral sense for the authentic - so let’s dance…

5

Diversity

I noticed, these past months, that many researchers from various fields of study are following the path of social equality through diversity, as young Claudia Megele from United Kingdom (Phd in phychotherapy and counselling from University of London). She is currently working on a paper about reflection of the 21st century migrant. Her hypothesis is that diversity impacts social networking and hyper-reality of lived experiences.

Also experimental philosopher Michel Filippi, and Edgeryders participant, is a strong advocate of diversity. You should have a chat about diversity with him: he handles the topic much better than me.