Identity- is it real if it changes depending on where I am?

Identity - Mine

Identity of a nation, of a people, of a thing of a collective unwritten agreement.

….as I was trying to find the essence, the identity of what this big new wonderful project I’m trying to create with and for the community I live in I looked for previous texts I’ve written and found that I’ve dreamed this idea up over and over again in hundreds of other projects…..

So my conclusion, as it is often, is that I as an artist cannot let go of a theme/topice/expression until it’s worked itself through me to it’s audience it in fact becomes my identity, my artistic identity if you will.

….and yet the paradox is that I’m different people in different situations. Often I prefer to travel because who I become when I’m with people from other cultures. I became different after having lived in another country. So I think, though identity means:

“the distinguishing character or personality of an individual : INDIVIDUALITY” it also means “sameness of essential or generic character in different instances or sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing : ONENESS”

My identity is ever changing

SO HERE IS THE PROJECT I PROPOSED 6 YEARS AGO - and it still stands!

I would like to create a theatre piece that can be taken anywhere using “Treteau” style mixed with my own “Peace Junk Theatre” (Finding beauty from ugly nothings and telling epic stories through castaway objects)

My curiosity about the theme “identity” relates to the façades we hold for our society and that become confusing when migration happens. When all the things we thought were truths are suddenly no longer truths but simply one way of doing it.

I want to bring play back into the conversation of solving common world problems. Get back to basics when we had less things to distract us. Use things around us to tell stories, creating beauty with what we already have. Possibly showing materialists what they're missing out on and  bringing to life the sense that we don't need the newest fashionable item to enjoy our lives and each other. If we take away all the materialistic things, religious and cultural attachments - we are all the same.

I’m really interested in collaborating with other artists and sharing tools to create professional shows. I’m also interested in creating work within and with a community to help people see beauty in their area despite financial restriction.

What do I bring?

Red Nose Clown -Treteau, Peace Junk – Pay it forward – Flashmobs

Plan: 1 week research, 1 week devicing and 1 week final rehearsals. Possible other outcomes: Installation art, including community stories and flashmob work.

I have been doing research in playful vulnerability over the past 10 years. I find that you can’t hate someone whose whole life story you have just heard or who you’ve just shared a creative process with – it connects deeper than words could ever describe.

“Same difference” is a project I’ve just started in Sweden. My hope is to do this “identity” exploration in many different countries and environments with artists from those areas and also explore new ways of continued work across borders, because I find that artists have already found how to work together despite their different backgrounds, in fact they prefer the differences. Putting together a global ensemble and a format of how to connect in a creative process long distance and on location to cross pollinate more effectively.

I’ve been working with a mixture of professional actors, musicians, dancers, artists of different art forms since 1996. I lived in Boulder, Colorado for 12 years and worked in a community where mindfulness practice and creative process was at the core. Since moving to Sweden I’ve been focusing on using theatre/contemplative practice/artivism globally and locally. I have applied for grants to do a global project on the theme “Same Difference”. Participating in Communitism III could (but doesn’t have to) be the first step in creating a global show that is relevant to our time and connect artists in seeking and finding solutions to artist collaboration across borders and styles. By enabling cross pollination over borders we can connect the extremist sides of our communities and countries.