I’m getting closer to my next work in progress sharing. It’s going to be exciting to see where the piece will be by then. There’s always the benefits from doing it in front of the audience, I get to see what works, what doesn’t and what could work if I develop it further. Not having the chance to test it out on the audience much has had an impact on the development. Because with this piece, I need to consider the audience more because it’s interactive. I kind of feel the pressure to try and outdo myself. Trying to make sure that it’s better than my debut solo show ‘FADoubleGOT’. But, I need to remember that’s not the reason why I make performance in the first place.
I have recently decided to no longer speak about gender and feminism within my work. It will help to make the work much more focused, if I just keep it about the way we talk about racial inequality. This will make it much easier for the audience, instead of me constantly going back and forth from race to gender. Dogmatic will also be less problematic in terms of me critiquing aspects of feminism, which was made to help elevate women. It’s also important for me to acknowledge that I am coming from a privileged position. And I don’t believe this piece will succeed if I don’t do that. I also have been told in the past that I should stay in my lane. So, I believe it is best to let it go. But then again, I don’t want it to seem like I’m not paying attention to what women of colour and trans people of colour have to go through as well. It will be a difficult piece to get right. But, I do love a challenge.
Like I have said previously before in this blog, I have added more of the personal into the piece. Therefore, the audiences will see what happened when I became socially conscious and where I am now. There will still be other voices within the piece, because I think it’s important for me to not only be in my head. And it’s crucial for my opinions and other opinions to be challenged by others. The audience at some points will get the chance to state which opinions they agree or disagree with.
I am currently reading ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race’ by Reni Eddo- Lodge. I am learning a lot more about racial inequality but in Britain. Because the majority of my sources are from the USA. It is quite a hard read because I end up getting reminded of things that I have experienced. And then I begin to wonder if they’ll ever be a time where when we speak about black people, they’ll be more joy attached to it. Not saying that there never is. It’s just often always about the struggle and not always about uplifting black people. This is a topic I will definitely try to explore more within Dogmatic.
I need to do some more critical thinking. Because I am tackling some really complex topics. It may be that I’m just not clever enough to articulate my arguments in the way I want to. But, I’m going to have to work a bit harder when using other sources to help my arguments. I want to focus on the good, the bad and the ugly of becoming socially conscious and I’m not too sure some people will be ready for it. I want the audience to take away that it’s important to be socially conscious, but they shouldn’t let what they’ve discovered to consume them. This comes from me seeing what it has done to me and to other people. There’s also the element of me not critiquing the opposing side that much within the work. I believe that’s way too easy! It’s so easy to point fingers, but never easy enough to do self-reflection and acknowledge where we (on the other side) may need to do some work. Dogmatic currently does not have an ending. Uh oh! There’s one point where the piece goes up to, but I don’t know what to add after that. Hopefully, I’ll know much sooner rather than later.
Comments