ASHLEY YIN WILLISON
RETROSPECTIVE TRUTHS
posted in a private group of St. Olaf College theatre majors.
Some thoughts from a '17 alumnus.
I remember being one of maybe 3 known BIPOC theatre majors. I didn't hang out with theatre students that much, I wasn't super involved, I wasn't even in the basement working those late nights very much. For some, I was not thought of as BIPOC.
There are so many passive aspects of this department that continually allow BIPOC to feel silenced, unnoticed, and all round lousy.
The continual casting of white students in white-centred shows.
The lack of sensitivity towards the implications of daring to choose a BIPOC centred show (the catastrophe of In The Heights and Sister Act).
The continual presence of a threatening and racially ignorant head of department.
The presence of white dominated student theatre companies with little regard to address or acknowledge their lack of diversity.
The common spaces of the theatre department being overrun with literature, pictures, posters of white dominated arts.
I created some good shit, sure. But the truth is- theatre was ill attended or supported by people other than parents or friends of the students cast in shows...we can afford to occupy the aforementioned space we created. No audience is holding us accountable. If theatre is continued to be treated as a mere sympathetic showcase of our past and present, what does it mean if we are presenting familiar whitewashed shows in the same spaces over and over? The department doesn't need a facelift- it needs heart surgery.
Art is meant to be a means, not an ends. Our belief in theatre should mean that we are committed to dialogue, introspection, bravery in analyzing our current and past situations to take action for the future. YES we need obvious structural changes. In my opinion we also need to adjust our game as theatre-makers. We need an audience that is compelled to care- to challenge us while still holding a space. This audience will come as a response to what we create. We need to create things stimulated by questions and not answers. We also need to be ready to discuss, fight, and be vigorously outrageous, all with grace and deep breaths.
Private message if you would like to chat.
words.
I hate posting things online. Its all too easy. Like squeezing toothpaste out of the tube all at once - there's no putting it back in. But as an international student, social media becomes a necessary form of communication to express opinion regardless of distance. This text is a response to my alma mater struggling to hold on to its POC staff due to racism. It took me an afternoon to write words and finally post - I received many "likes" and no comments. I include this here because it is an act of writing and an act of performance. The armored persona we present to the virtual communities we are a part of matters. How do we speak the truth in writing through the filter of the virtual mask? Who are you out there?
While I continue to pursue tangible mediums of art in my local setting of Berlin, I cannot allow myself to ignore the power of my writing on a less than glamorous platform. Yes I can draw George Floyd and I can move with rage, but who is watching when people are busy ready the news, looking for riot updates, and fundraising for survival?