It’s not always easy to talk about issues involving race. That’s why theater and politics students took to the stage to express their thoughts through the arts.
Wednesday, a collaborative project between professor Debra Thompson’s politics class and assistant professor Rebecca VerNooy’s class took place to analyze the politics of race issues.
“This isn’t normal for political science,” Thompson said. “Especially a cross-college collaboration (between arts and sciences).”
The event that took place Wednesday was a reaction to a presentation given last Wednesday by the students in The Politics of Race in Global Context class. Those students picked two “race cards” from the Race Card Project website and analyzed the similarities and differences the cards contained.
The politics students then held a debate about the various subjects of race and inequalities. The “race cards,” which originally were composed of six words, were then blown up to fill a period of more than an hour during the debate.
Immediately after the debate, the theater students got to work creating spoken word poems, songs, dances and other small skits to interpret the more scientific analysis the Political Science students provided.
Wednesday, those theater students brought a more artistic view to the race issues in politics. Some of the performances included a blindfolded dance between a white student and black student, a debate between a young black student and a white teacher on the subject of inequality and a skit consisting of video game-addicted teens that couldn’t stop playing their “race game.”
“To think all we just saw stemmed from six words is astounding,” Thompson said.
Some of the performances were very ambiguous. The performers intentionally left a few of the skits open to interpretation so the audience could draw their own conclusions.
“However you interpret it is how it is,” VerNooy said, theater professor on the meanings behind the skits.
She also mentioned that the performers were juggling additional projects as they prepared for the collaborative skits and they had very little rehearsal time.
“We just kind of threw it together,” VerNooy said. “But I’m always happy when I see people making theater.”
Despite the good intentions of the project, some students view it as a painful reminder of ongoing racial struggles. One student, Brian Steele, a senior studying theater performance, said he did not look forward to the project.
“This topic is very sensitive and dear to my heart,” Steele said. “The fact that we’re still talking about these issues makes me angry.”
Steele went on to say that we live in an imperfect world and race issues will most likely never really go away, but that people can do their part to make the world a little better here and there. He said no one person can completely change the world for the better, but instead, large groups of people can make small, unique differences.
tt315212@ohiou.edu
