[xmca] Perhaps of Interest

[Lois Holzman <lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org>]

Hi All,

I'm inviting you to read my blog and to build its readership. Some of you will read this email as self-promotion and think that's good and others will think that's not so good. Whatever…
I write about many things psychological and cultural, many of interest to xmca-ers. I try to bring a philosophical and/or methodological view to what I write about and to share what I'm doing or thinking about. Lately, I've been focusing on the controversy re the DSM-5 and using that to bring up the broader issue of diagnosis and the misguidedness of a natural science approach to human life. Play and performance and creativity are also regular topics. Vygotsky often figures in there. It's part of my effort to cross disciplinary boundaries as well as the academic-practitioner boundary. For all these reasons I thought some of you might want to follow and share it—and even participate in it.

I hardly posted in June because of time, but did last night to let people know some of the presenters and flavor of the upcoming 7th Performing the World event I play a lead role in organizing. Here's a summary (you can click to read the full post). It would be great to have some of you there in October.

Thanks for your attention,
Lois


This October, we’re hosting the 7th PTW, “Can Performance Change Save the World?” (recasting the 2010 PTW theme, “Can Performance Change the World?” because of the  increasing intensity of the challenges facing humanity. Dead­locked governments, protracted wars, dysfunctional education systems, and a deepening global economic crisis with no apparent solution have become the norm.

At the same time, the activity of performance (and playing and pretending and creating), as an alternative to the cognitive and/or faith-based “solutions” of traditional ideology, continues to spread both at the grass­roots and in the university, with non-ideological, improvisatory movements struggling to embody this trend.

Among the hundreds of participants from all fields and dozens of countries coming,there are  some influential thought leaders and culture changers  who are shaping the performance world from the academy to the streets.
Marcelo Bratke

He’s a world famous Brazilian pianist who has recorded music from all over the world and performed in the most prestigious concert halls. But what’s unique about this virtuoso is his outreach to Brazil’s favelas and rural villages to organize and train young people as musicians. In 2007 Bratke created Camerata Brasil, a classical orchestra of young people from impoverished areas who have no academic musical training, with the objective of giving them a chance of making a living through music. To date, Camerata Brasil has toured over 30 Brazilian cities and around the world, including New York’s Carnegie Hall. Marcelo Bratke will be sharing his work—and his music—at PTW this year.

David Diamond

Diamond is mentor to thousands of performance activists striving to create theatre that engages performers and audiences in the active transformation of themselves and their communities. His “Theatre for Living” has its roots in Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, yet works to avoid the dichotomies of “Oppressor” and “Oppressed,” in favor of working with the totality of a community to develop an “emotional intelligence” that allows them to create something new together. He is the recipient of numerous theatre and human rights awards including an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Fraser Valley and the Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre.  He’s the author ofTheatre for Living: The Art and Science of Community-Based Dialogue, winner of the American Alliance of Theatre and Education 2008 Distinguished Book Award. At PTW David Diamond will be leading a workshop unpacking the basics of “Theatre for Living.”

Charles Rojzman 

A renowned French social psychologist, author and international consultant, Rojzman is the founder of Transformational Social Therapy, which works with large groups (in the hundreds) of people to talk through the ethnic, religious or ideological hatred that has historically kept them in violent conflict. This work has taken him to most European countries, the United States, North Africa, Rwanda and Central and South America, and fostered institutional and social change in education, social work, criminal justice, conflict resolution and reconciliation. Rojzman is a prolific author (How to Live Togetheris an English translation of one of his books). His work has been featured in the documentaries, “Charles Rojzman, thérapeute social” and “Listening to the Police” an inside look at a workshop with French National Police trainers. At PTW Charles Rojzman will demonstrate his approach and share the breadth of the work of the Institut Charles Rojzman.

Richard Schechner 

Schechner has been a leader in American avant-garde and political theatre for four decades and is a founder and perhaps the most influential voice in Performance Studies.  He toured the South during the Civil Rights Movement with the integrated Free Southern Theatre. He founded and was the artistic director of the Performance Group and in that capacity helped to create the practice of environmental theatre. In the 1970s, working closely with anthropologist Victor Turner, he brought into being the academic discipline of Performance Studies, which researches performance in everyday life and theorizes about its significance. Schechner is one of the founders of the Performance Studies department at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and is long time editor of The Drama Review, the world’s premier journal of Performance Studies. At PTW 2012, Richard Schechner will discuss with the Castillo Theatre’s Artistic Director Dan Friedman and others the relationship(s) between Performance Studies and performance activism.







Don't forget to check out the latest at http://loisholzman.org

Lois Holzman, Ph.D.
Director, East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy
920 Broadway, 14th floor
New York NY 10010
Chair, Global Outreach for All Stars Project UX 
tel. 212.941.8906 ext. 324
fax 718.797.3966
lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org
www.eastsideinstitute.org
www.performingtheworld.org
loisholzman.org
www.allstars.org
http://esicommunitynews.wordpress.com/







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