Projects on the Horizon
Mapping 2020-2021: A Year-long inquiry into power dynamics in our culture
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In early 2020, Beacon Dance Artistic Director D. Patton White embarked on a project initially intended to revisit a previous project, The Mapping
Project, Dekalb County Parks and Nature Centers, which had taken place 15 years ago, from July 2005-June 2006. During the course of this process, our world was dramatically transformed as the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the globe. Upending our lives and our modes of living in ways that seemed unimaginable, the pandemic has underscored our inequality and the inequity that impacts us all. This project has now transformed into a year-long project responding to the most pressing realities that we are living through—the 2020 election cycle, the transformation taking place in our families, and the continued struggle for equality for the African-American community and people of color. Our first piece of this tryptic was ‘What would you want to reset ?’, and was created and performed against the backdrop of the 2020 election. This site-specific work was created for a space within Freedom Park, in Atlanta, Georgia, and featured a cast of 10 performers. It was during the three day run of this performance that Joe Biden was deemed the victor in the race for the Presidency. Our next piece, ‘Family can be less than familiar’, will dig deep into our familial relationships and how each of us defines family. As with the first piece in the tryptic, ‘Family…’ will be performed outdoors in a site yet to be determined. |
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Some inspiration for our process can be found in this poem:
Kinship/Skin-ship By James Spencer for Daryl, Rebecca, Maya & Samuel Kinship is more than skin-ship, Family can be less than familiar. Strange, the ties that bind - No volition but love, the force Through the bone, through the cell, Driving how we are made kind. All together choosing our likenesses In faces and hands not unlike our own: Unarrangeable marriages of Kith not yet kin. Kinship is more than skin-ship And thicker than blood. In Beacon’s current project, we are spending the year investigating various power dynamics in our culture. We are intentionally embracing the five principles of community engagement as developed by the Resources for Social Change arm of Alternate ROOTS, a coalition of artists and social justice workers. The Five Principles include Shared Power, Partnership, Dialogue, Transformation and Aesthetics of Transparent Processes. |
Our framework includes the notion of ‘resetting’, or restarting anything that seems to have gone astray. As our society shifts and changes—some would say ‘evolves’—we have an opportunity to reimagine the way that our culture views and experiences traditional roles. At the most fundamental level of our culture, the family unit of mother, father and offspring (and the extended network of kinship) serves as one of the most significant repositories of societal roles. With the recent legalization of same-sex marriage, and the blossoming of new familial nuclear structures, how can we open up and expand the often narrow definitions of mother, father and child? We are seeking to engage deeply with the greater
metro Atlanta area through a series of story circles, hands-on workshops and the collaborative creative development of a new performance piece and accompanying visual art exhibition.
Starting in January, 2021, D. Patton White will convene a series of story circles and creative engagement series of movement and visual art making investigating the broad topic of ‘Parenting’. During the first phase of the project, story circles will provide the forum for participants to share stories about how they were parented, and the lessons they learned from their own parents. Subsequently the story circles will shift to stories of how they have approached parenting and how they continue to nurture their relationships with their children. The creative phase will provide an opportunity for the movement metaphors that surfaced during the first phase to be investigated.
metro Atlanta area through a series of story circles, hands-on workshops and the collaborative creative development of a new performance piece and accompanying visual art exhibition.
Starting in January, 2021, D. Patton White will convene a series of story circles and creative engagement series of movement and visual art making investigating the broad topic of ‘Parenting’. During the first phase of the project, story circles will provide the forum for participants to share stories about how they were parented, and the lessons they learned from their own parents. Subsequently the story circles will shift to stories of how they have approached parenting and how they continue to nurture their relationships with their children. The creative phase will provide an opportunity for the movement metaphors that surfaced during the first phase to be investigated.
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What does it mean to be a parent? How does power play out in the parent/child relationship? Are parents and children partners? Do parents have to be biological? What happens when a parent brings that dynamic to other relationships? What is special about the parent/child bond? What do we learn from our parents? What do we learn from our children? https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/kinship/links.htm https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/kinship/glossary.htm |
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