Author Daniel Alarcón and Lost City Radio - Logan Shea
Alarcón, born in Lima, Peru in 1977, is an American author who currently resides in San Francisco, California. Alarcón grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Columbia University and a Master’s from the renowned Iowa Writer’s Workshop. His books include War by Candlelight, a finalist for the 2005 PEN/Hemingway Award, and Lost City Radio, winner of the PEN USA award in 2008. He is Executive Producer of Radio Ambulante, a Spanish language narrative journalism podcast – telling Latin America’s stories in a very similar fashion to ‘This American Life.’ In 2010 The New Yorker included Alarcón in their best 20 writers under 40 list, and his most recent novel, At Night We Walk in Circles, was a finalist for the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award.
| I became interested in performance art while searching to be destroyed, to be challenged. I was searching for a space to explore physical theater as a way to achieve empowerment both within myself and without. Performance art offered me ways to constructively - as opposed to just conceptually - link collective and individual physical performance with the collective political consciousness. The performative aspect of it is physical and body-based - bodies are personal, and the personal is political. Art is about connecting ourselves with our humanity and to do this, art needs to be connected with reality. Performance art allows us to explore expressing the essential questions of the human condition through staged actions. Because of this, theater can and should be used for community organizing, as a medium for self and collective discovery. Theater has the potential to create anything from scratch by using our bodies. That potential is not only beautiful but also empowering. And that potential is also the mystery of physical theater as a form of existence. Theater for change has three main branches: the educational, the social, and the therapeutic. Theater allows people to reimagine reality, to explore alternative solutions to particular issues, as is the case with the Augusto Boal's Forum Theater game, in which people explore different aspects of their day-to-day life which otherwise would not be allowed. When theater exercises are used to solve problems within a community by staging issues and asking members of the community to participate by offering ideas of how the performance should end or develop, the members of these communities become the protagonists of their collective story. This also requires community members to improvise during the process; improvisation is a quest for discovery. Improvisation requires trust - trust in oneself, in the group, and in adversity. Participatory theater unites people by allowing them to become part of the solution. The advantage of using theater games among people to bring them together, is that it allows individuals to take risks, experiment, and discover aspects of themselves, the space, and the group within a safe space. It provides spaces for people to empower themselves and their communities. Books usedBoal, Augusto. G ames for Actors and Non Actors. Routledge, New York.1992.Boal, Augusto. The rainbow of desire: the Boal method of theatre and therapy. Routledge, London. 1995. Spolin, Viola. Improvisation for the theater: a handbook of teaching and directing techniques. Northwestern University Press. 1963.UNM offers an exclusive opportunity for many scholars, including myself, to broaden our studies in very unique ways: We are able to study Quechua or K’iche’ Maya. These two indigenous languages—found in the Andean region and Central America respectively—provide a special opportunity for students to deepen their understanding of world languages and distinctive world views in Latin America. Language learning provides students with new perspectives and a window into diverse world views. Each language has a unique perspective of how to relate to the world, demonstrated through distinctive syntax. How sentences are structured, the emphasis given to certain words and phrases, and the roots of vocabulary all provide clues to how its speakers interact with the world around them. As I sat in our Quechua Class, taught by Yuliana Kenfield, I gradually gained more and more introspection into the lives lead by quechuahablantes (Quechua speakers). Through personal anecdotes from Kenfield’s life experiences, specially formulated class projects, and using the text Kasway Vida, our understanding of Quechua and its perspective on the world grew exponentially. ![]() |
5/9/2016
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Reimagining Reality Through Theater - María José Ramos Villagra
2/2/2016
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Learning Quechua: The first semester: Teresa Drenton
1/8/2015
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Karla Lara: Respect, Dignity, and Resistance Tour 2014 - Melissa Leonard
12/8/2014
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SOLAS President Sarah Leister introducing the group. A large crowd attended the event to hear Karla sing and speak.
Atala and His Socio-Culinary Revolution - Joseph Leestma
9/12/2013
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A relação do homem com o alimento precisa ser revista. Precisamos aproximar o saber do comer, o comer do cozinhar, o cozinhar do produzir, o produzir da natureza; agir em toda a cadeia de valor, com o propósito de fortalecer os territórios a partir de sua biodiversidade, agrodiversidade e sociodiversidade, para garantir alimento bom para todos e para o ambiente. The relation between man and food must be revised. We need to bring closer knowledge and eating eating and cooking, cooking and producing, producing and nature, working in the whole value chain, aiming to strengthen the territories from their biodiversity, agrodiversity and sociodiversity, to ensure good food to all and to the environment.