SCORES FOR THE REVOLUTION
A public resource disseminated through social media as well as in-person at Making Art During Fascism, a workshop devised by Beth Pickens, taught by Laurel on February 12 2017 at the Women's Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles, CA (from facebook, January 2017: I've been talking often with my UCLA students about how they are doing in this socio-historical-political-cultural moment. Several have mentioned that they frequently find themselves in moments where they want to take some kind of action but don't know what to do. Then the other day I was listening to Sue talk about one of my favorite books, Yoko Ono's Grapefruit, and I thought about how nice it is to have a score: a simple set of instructions that tells you what to do, but lets you fill in your own performative content. So Ewen + I made this small deck of cards: Scores For The Revolution. It's intended to be a little tool to combat overwhelm - in those moments where you might feel stultified by the infinity of possible acts of resistance, you can pick a card, any card, and let it give you some clarity or guidance or direction. Each card contains a small action - ideally no more than half-an-hour - that you can perform on your own. You can print it out and cut it up to make a small deck, and/or make new cards to add! It is by no means complete, and I would love to hear from y'all: what are some simple (30 min or less) actions that could be added to the repertoire? This kind of resource may not be super-relevant to my fb network because most of y'all are woke af and are already very deeply engaged in a consistent resistance praxis, but perhaps it could be a meaningful resource for that person in your life who could use a sort-of choreography-by-chance/tarot reading to point them in a direction? Give these cards as a gift! Print them out and decorate them! Hand them out at marches! Drop them from a plane! WHAT. EVS. Please simply use them if they are useful. This is what we do now, and we need all of the tools we can think of and more. “You cannot buy the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” - Ursula K. Le Guin) |