Alternate Reality
Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen and those who do not fit culturally asserted gender stereotypes.
You, are human being hurling helplessly through the cosmos on space rock earth.
You have been granted the peculiar condition of consciousness.
Therefore, you have your own particular brand of reality.
The world is full of personal realities,
Why you think the way you do?
Where did that conformational basis come from?
Why are you a liberal?
Are you afraid of muslims?
Why do you think you need to hold the door open for people?
Are you not afraid of catholics ?
At what week do think a fetus becomes life?
Why do you think you have the right to an education?
Do you think Donald is a good president?
What is compelling about controversial topics is their existence as a social quantum state. Facts exist ubiquitously proving anything one might want to antagonize. The myriad of personal realities or human voices creates social chaos. With everyone arguing unprovable points.
I behoove thee to use your imagination step out of your own beliefs, morals, Basises actually scratch that just everything you’ve absorbed socially since about age 6.
For what you are about to see here does not manifest itself inside my personal reality. My name is Jonas Erasmus Lee and I am a straight, white, male with a weird middle name,
Some friends, two doors, assorted props, possibly some costumes, a looper pedal and I will now present four controversial positions we feel deserve your attention.
THE THOUGHT PROCESS
I believe the way humans absorb their reality is easily messed with. We are easily convinced by news articles that agree with us or our conformational basis and media which denies what we think we dismiss as fake news.
It is easy to think you are right. It feels good to know the facts. Self rationalization. Facts are created by a dominance of culture. We believed the earth is round believed the earth was round because of the dominance of the catholic church. But it is hard to accept that you are wrong. You go against what you believe. Probably against what other people in your circle agree.
As children we constantly redefined how the world worked. Our minds open willing to learn. As one gets older the mind starts to close. One begins to assert more. Claim they are wiser with age. We cement ourselves into our our own personal realities isolating use into groups that think like us.
We are entirely susceptible to fake news. So easily persuaded by the media we absorb.
I wanted to show the more personal side of fake news articles and the people they impact. The wonderful group I was blessed to collaborate had awesome stories and ideas. I knew as a director to meticulously write out what I wanted would be contradictory to the point I was trying to make. What you see in the performance was invented equally by everyone. I immensely enjoyed working with my group the stories they had to contribute. In order to show the plethora of existing realities on this earth. I had to ask the ones around me. We choose realities that are blatantly blown out of the water by the media for their shock value. We wanted to animate stories one sees in the news. Whatever your own political convictions we wanted to show the human side of controversial topics. How controversial topics have people that are the victims. Media tells us that illegal immigrants are taking our jobs or all muslims are terrorists. There are innocent people being ostracized by fake news. Our group chose four topics that we wished to bring attention too. We felt that anybody, whatever their beliefs could commiserate with the actors in the skits on stage.
Thank you for letting us show you our realities.
Connections made by the Artistic Director
The article linked below was written by our colleague Julia Balén. In a time where information exchanges worldwide at lightning speed discerning the truth can be difficult. Her informed perspective on the challenges we face as educators and a population is important and contextually relevant to the piece Alternative Reality.
