Arts in the One World

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5th Annual Valencia Conference

Arts in the One World: Trauma, Testimony and Art

California Institute of the Arts

in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center

January 21-24, 2010

This year we consider the Kinyarwanda term guhahamuka: the breathless attempt to articulate the inexpressible, which has come into wide use in Rwanda since the Tutsi genocide.

We invite presentations, performances, and workshops that demonstrate how survivors, artists, and scholars give testimony and bear witness to circumstances of conflict and social injustice, opening imaginative space for participation in the recovery of historical memory and social renewal.  We will consider together how these articulations represent experiments in interdisciplinary public practice, expanding the models for being an artist/activist in the world.

First convened in January 2006 by Erik Ehn, Arts in the One World (AOW) is an annual gathering comprised of performances, lectures, exhibits, and screenings hosted by the California Institute of the Arts School of Theater, conceived and executed in collaboration with the broad participation of the Institute as a whole. Students and faculty from CalArts and around the world, along with the general public, are invited to discuss and present on the ways artistic, political, and historical purposes intersect (reconciliation, the recovery of historical memory, advocacy for justice, the formation and maintenance of sites for expression, and the creation of knowledge.) A sister conference: Arts in the One World, Providence will be convened in March 2010.

We hope that you will be able to join us either as a presenter, volunteer, or as an attendee.

The 2010 conference will take place Thursday, Jan. 21 – Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010,  at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), located at 24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia, CA, 91355.

The conference is the local anchor of an ongoing artistic exchange CalArts conducts with the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center (IGSC) in Rwanda, where each summer a group of students, faculty, and professionals travel to Rwanda and Uganda, to study genocide and acts of mass violence, exploring the ways in which art participates in processes of renewal.

Leslie Tamaribuchi

tamaribu@calarts.edu

Archived Materials:

Arts in the One World Conference archive 2009
Arts in the One World Conference programs 2006, 2007, 2008
More Life: Rwanda/Uganda exchange journals

THURSDAY, 21 JANUARY, 2010

All Thursday events are in the Coffeehouse Theatre on the 2nd floor

4:00 p.m. WELCOME and Arts in the One World conference history and context

Leslie Tamaribuchi

4:30 p.m. Presentations: CalArts Exchange in Rwanda and Uganda

Witness:

  • Nancy Uscher and Alessandra Barrett play and speak about meeting Ineza
  • Darius Mannino – the goals and history of the trip
  • Emily Mendelsohn – how we learned the term guhahamuka
  • Sara Roberts – why I went, how I was impacted
  • Cristina Frias – reading excerpts of journal…images of Rwanda
  • Dana Gourrier – talks about performance festival

Response:

  • Lauryn Johnson – reads Katori’s monologue
  • Sarah Peterson – the work of putting together the gallery, goals, process, what I learned
  • Qaddriyah Shamsid-Deen – how I went, why I went, what I documented, what are my goals for the footage?
  • Kathy Carbone – library presentation – articulating the inexpressible through archive

Discussion

6:00 p.m. Dinner Break

7:00 p.m. KEYNOTE PRESENTATION: “Guhahamuka – Trauma, Testimony, and Art

  • Jean-Pierre Karegeye, Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center

8:00 p.m. The Reckoning: The Epic Story of the Battle for International Criminal Court (film)

FRIDAY, 22 JANUARY, 2010

10:00 a.m. Poetry reading; independent performances (E400, on the fourth floor)

10:30 a.m. Overview and preview of the day’s activities (E400, on the fourth floor)

  • Leslie Tamaribuchi

11:00 a.m. Staged reading from dogsbody, by Erik Ehn (Coffeehouse Theater, on the second floor)

  • Emily Mendelsohn

12:00 p.m. Lunch Break

1:00 p.m. Presentations and Discussions (Coffeehouse Theatre, on the second floor)

  • Malka Fenyvesi/New Ground: A Muslim Jewish partnership for change
  • Daniel Banks and Adam McKinney/DNAWORKS: Dialogue and healing through the arts

3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. CONCURRENT ACTIVITIES:

WORKSHOP (Part I): Daniel Banks and Adam McKinney (F100, on the first floor)

[This will be a two-part workshop; the second part will be on Saturday at 3 p.m.]

4:00 p.m. PERFORMANCE: Jen Hofer, “Poetry Talks Back To Film” Live Film Narration (Coffeehouse Theater, on the second floor)

Using a form of live film narration inherited from practices in Japan and Korea during the silent film era, scenes from popular films are shown muted and renarrated live with new language. These hybrid performances are satirical, critical, poetic and analytic ways of “talking back” to the talkies. Poet, translator and cultural activist Jen Hofer will perform live film narration and present some background and conceptual framing about this new take on the movies.

5:30 p.m. Dinner Break

7:00 p.m. View From a Grain of Sand (film) (Bijou Theater, on the second floor)

Afghan women navigate the loss of women’s freedoms over 30 years of Afghanistan’s history.

  • DISCUSSION: filmmaker Meena Nanji

SATURDAY, 23 JANUARY, 2010

9:00 a.m. Overview and preview of the day’s activities (E400, on the fourth floor)

  • Leslie Tamaribuchi
  • PERFORMANCE: Silken Veils, conceived and directed by Leila Ghaznavi (E400, on the fourth floor)

9:45 a.m. Presentations and Discussions: Afghanistan – Women in Conflict (Coffeehouse Theatre, on the second floor)

12:00 p.m. Lunch Break

1:00 p.m. “Writing Guhahamuka” presentation (Coffeehouse Theatre, on the second floor)

  • Erik Ehn, Playwright

2:00 p.m. “Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets” presentation (Coffeehouse Theatre, on the second floor)

  • Mark Gonzalez, The Human Writes Project / The Philistines

3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. CONCURRENT ACTIVITIES:

  • WORKSHOP: Erik Ehn, Playwriting (Faculty Center, across the outdoor courtyard from Langley Room, on the third floor)
  • WORKSHOP (Part II): Daniel Banks and Adam McKinney (F100, on the first floor)
  • FILM: Rethinking Afghanistan (Coffeehouse Theatre, on the second floor)

5:30 p.m. Potluck Dinner (Langley Room, on the third floor)

7:00 p.m. FILM/DISCUSSION/PERFORMANCE: Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) (Coffeehouse Theater, on the second floor):

  • John Malpede, Henriette Brouwers, Kevin Michael Key, Tony Parker
  • FILM: Red Beard, Red Beard
  • DISCUSSION: LAPD in conversation with Norman Frisch

SUNDAY, 24 JANUARY, 2010

All Sunday events are in the Coffeehouse Theatre on the 2nd floor unless otherwise marked

10:00 a.m. Overview and preview of the day’s activities

  • Leslie Tamaribuchi
  • PERFORMANCE: CalArts Gospel Choir, directed by Erinn Horton

10:15 a.m. Presentations and Discussions: Environment, Sustainability, and Creativity in Practice

11:15 a.m. Presentations and Discussions: Dialogues with the Dead – Greek Tragedy in Contemporary Performance

12:30 p.m. Lunch Break

1:30 p.m. “Closest Farthest Away” – presentation on collaboration across political distance

  • Miranda Wright

2:00 p.m. “Case studies in creative digital expression: global media literacy/local empowerment and cultural displacement (considering viralnet/home and garden and Kathmandu)”

  • Tom Leesor, CalArts

2:30 p.m. Performance of “Wintering” (E400, on the fourth floor)

  • Stephanie Nugent, NUGENT DANCE

3:00 p.m. Closing Circle

4:00 p.m. END

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