Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Guided by the principles of Paulo Freire’s liberatory pedagogy and inspired by Martin Puchner’s notion of the manifesto as a foundation for both individual exploration and collective creation, we employ the critical concepts of radical intervention and ghosting as an alternative epistemology in our approaches to teaching. We center our pedagogical practice on the genre of manifesto of the historical avant-gardes to activate collective and individual student explorations of lineages of rupture and revolution through an embodied research methodology. We argue that the art movements serve as points of departure for students to gain a greater understanding of contemporary theatre practice by situating their own practice within the larger context. With this view, we seek to inspire and motivate students to recognize themselves as the only authority of their artistic and intellectual practice and to bring their individual agency to the process of constructing collective dramaturgy. We posit that this type of collaboration empowers students to participate in the radical interventions of reparative creativity by disrupting hierarchies and bringing marginalized perspectives to the center. This paper is a case study of the Embodied Manifesto Project we facilitated with graduate and undergraduate students at two different universities in the United States. The paper offers a critical reflection on the way this project disrupts normative logics of traditional research methods and knowledge production, and maps an uncanny path to activate diverse lineages of creative practice and imagine transformative possibilities to fashion the future.