Humpy is living his best life … but why couldn’t I see it?
A mentor and dear friend sent me this image as a cheery way to welcome the fall. I swear I must have stared at the picture for a good ten minutes desperately trying to understand what it was about. Where’s Humpty? He’s supposed to be hurt, have a cracked head, be straddling a wall. This isn’t Humpty!
Then, as if a lens slid into focus, the images instantly made sense and I burst out laughing. Humpty was living his best life! He wasn’t bound to the story I knew of him, he is a multi-dimensional character who does many things. That one tragic accident is not the entirety of Humpty!
I keep replaying this epiphany about Humpty as I move my own work forward — telling new stories and creating new approaches to theater and civic engagement centered on im/migrant and refugee lives. Because I/we cannot break free from the dominant narrative unless we see, hear, and create expansive new stories, develop new language. I/We can’t dismantle our frameworks of understanding unless we have transformative experiences that help us reorder our mind and shape new ideas.
It doesn’t have to be dramatic or grand. These experiences and connections come in everyday settings, in small, intimate moments. My new work, There is a Portal, is one way I’m offering audiences a chance to get close, get real, and excavate personal stories. By bringing out what was forgotten, swept under the rug, or suppressed about your own assimilation (we’ve all had to fit into oppressive structures, no matter our background) we can see what exists under the hurt, under the resignation to keep your head down.
This and other projects - geared toward immigrant and refugee communities - offer a conduit back into one’s own power, a channel to access multiple stories, and hopefully a way to bring out new ideas for building a more just and hopeful future.
Is there some thing or some one you’d like to be more closely connected to? What’s standing in the way?
Draw an image of the roadblock and put it on your dresser. Look at it every morning.
One morning, you’ll imagine a way through it.
Here’s what I’ll be doing this fall and winter:0-
There is a Portal
Friday, October 18; 12:30PM
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Directed by Rania Lee Khalil; Video Art by Gazelle Samizay
Imagining America - 20th Anniversary National Gathering
The Imagining America National Gathering is an annual gathering of public scholars, artists, students, designers, and cultural organizers who are addressing the nation’s most critical issues.
there is a portal
queens college- december 2019
details tba
Creative time summit
saturday november 16, 2019; 3PM
The Cooper Union, Peter Cooper Suite
NYC
In an age when border walls have become performance sites, what role does theater itself play in the current debate around migration? Can theater be both a sanctuary and a catalyst for activism? Participants in the workshop will learn techniques of popular theater and the role of social theater in debates on migration. The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung New York Office presents a reading of “Mediterranean Monologues” by director Michael Hof, followed by a conversation with Kayhan Irani on the impact of theater on the current migration debate.
migrant personhood project
I joined this exciting project that aims to address anti-immigrant sentiments and policies by engaging both academic research and the expertise of community-based migrant advocacy organizations to develop novel questions and approaches that address current immigration issues. The project will culminate with a series of public interventions that allow academics, activists, artists, and advocates to communicate and cooperate in imagining justice and recognition for migrants. Come join us Oct 24-25 refugee education, miration and regional peace symposium.
New glasses!
storytelling for social justice, 2nd Edition
I have an essay in this book about using the storytelling framework in one of my projects. I was also on the original creative team that theorized and tested the framework in 2004-2005.