At @NYUAbuDhabi #CoreCurriculum class on Graphic Violence with Cartography’s Kaneza Schaal and Christopher Myers. Talking about the role of “witnessing” in art. How to avoid pain porn. How to not look at excellence and social engagement as being mutually exclusive.
Student question about representation in Kaneza Schaal’s previous piece “Jack &” which included a collaboration with some who was previously incarcerated. Is it important that he had personally experienced that?
She tells a story about another workshop with Nate, the actor, and how his experiences under incarceration led him to a creative and performance experience that gave him a different toolkit that he was able to bring to the room that were specific to his experience.
Chris Myers talks about how Nate’s time In prison also included lots of tv watching where The Honeymooners was also on. So that early class conscious sitcoms also became part of his performance vocabulary.
Kaneza Schaal, whose family comes from Rwanda, talks about the idea of rehabilitation of national narratives, and personal narratives. Story gaps hiding personal experiences.
“We are obsessed with the innocence / guilt dichotomy”.
“Traditional narratives about violence love a perpetrator” - but a personalized narrative also can disguise systemic factors.
Kaneza Schaal talks about the role that humor and joking can sometimes be a huge strategy to contain trauma. Direct head on discussion is not always the most effective tactic.
Aporia (two conflicting ideas that create gaps) vs lacuna (the gaps themselves) - Chris Myers talks about how to listen to the outlines of what’s *not* being said. Listen to the talking around.
Student example of an episode of Black Mirror and the question of whether we can understand pain better from taking it on, getting it without the damage of taking it on
By externalize the pain (hunger happens at the other side of the world, not where you live), it inures you to the pain that’s close to home.
Kaneza also talks about the role of catharsis and release.
Student q: where does the responsibility lie: on the person in pain to portray it and translate, or on the audience to understand it and feel it?
The goal of Cartography is not to communicate pain. But to have everyone in the audience understand that there is movement in all of their lives. And think about the stories we tell (like Odysseus. How did the heroes journey become invading refugees?)
Challenge: audiences come “looking for the pain” - it’s in Cartograohy, but “it’s not the thing, but it’s to the side of the thing” - Kaneza Schaal
Ideals of community conversations and making a space as a goal of theater, as an alternative to a transmission of pain / experience. A framework for sharing ideas. - Christopher Myers on the limits of transmission.
There is a second section of Prof Sam Anderson’s class so a new conversation begins at the end of the previous thread.
The second class starts with a bit of background on Cartography. Chris Myers starts with raising the question about “what does it mean to tell the stories of other people?”
nyuad-artscenter.org/en_US/events/2…
His and Kaneza Schaal’s process started with talking to kids in Munich about their migration stories. The kids were from Syria, Nigeria, Eritrea, many other places. One 17-year old Syrian boy, Abdullah, called for them to do their job as storytellers. “What do we add as artists?”
Prof Anderson talks about the process of writing: a provocation/impulse, research, creation, editing/refinement...
Kaneza Schaal clarifies that Cartography is not documentary theater. But it grows out of and extends the conversation they had with young refugees who told them “we want you to create spaces for us to be seen.”
Cartography becomes an opportunity for audiences to reflect on the role of movement in their own lives.
Chris Myers argues in favor of writing as a goal-oriented act. Not a fan of free writing solely for self expression. What do you want to happen from your art?
Why did Cartography become a piece focused on young audiences? Asks a student. Kaneza Schaal points out that youth are so central to the conversation and experience of migration.
Also, they wanted to take young audiences seriously, but like at the conventions that much theater and art for young audiences take for granted. Many institutions are quite rigid in how they try to present work for young people
Some of the best arguments for things happen in hybrid forms - Christopher Myers @kalyban
They looked for structures to build the story of Cartography. One structure they used was Immigration Questionnaires, as a literary form in themselves.
Question about how the algorithms behind the digital scenography (developed by @NYUAbuDhabi @NYUAD_IM students) worked. Myers talks about Cartography having a non pain-based User Experience UX
Specifically, Cartography worked with our students to create a mapping app that captures the migration history of everyone in the room as well as a responsive digital ocean (to capture its role as a sentient character. )
How do we invert the relationship of the fear of the ocean to give the young performers control of the ocean?
“I take one central metaphor and beat it to death”. But the audience feels it come to completion. This is another form of algorithm.
Return to discussion of depiction of violence. It can be direct or indirect. And how do you navigate the possibility of missed information amidst indirectness.
Violence is a metaphor. It’s not the purpose. What is the larger point that’s trying to be made underneath that?
I like to think about: On whose behalf the feast is prepared. - Kaneza Schaal.
We all come from some form of historical trauma. How is is that trauma talked about in your own family? Or not talked about? Or talked about indirectly?
The UN has very specific criteria about what it means to be a “refugee” points out Chris Myers. If the violence experienced doesnt specifically fit those definitions, is it any less violent?
Student question about appropriation of the stories of the migrants being depicted. Questions of authority. And also role. Your job is to tell stories.
Also, the emotional arc of Cartography is placed in the actors’ own stories, not in the stories of characters based on interviews with other young migrants.
We’re not interested in making ourselves invisible is service to someone else’s truth.
We hope that in our art, we answer the question: “Why are we talking?” - @kalyban
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