RE: RAT Money, value and art

[Laura Winton <fluffysingler@prodigy.net>]

Voluntary poverty is not the same as destitution per se or homelessness.  I
will say that it's been one of my pet peeves--"Lefty" youth with wealthy
parents to pick up the slack for them when they get bored with their
lifestyle.  Don't get me wrong--some of the best activists I ever knew fell
into this category.  But I wonder if now, 10 years later, they are still
"radicals".  Hell, 10 years later, I struggle with it, too.  I am working my
first corporate job ever, which I took specifically to finance my art rather
than go a-begging to grants.  I figured it was all the same
difference--except of course that I can sit naked in front of the computer
at home and write grants.  Probably couldn't do that very long at my job.

Anyway . . . the Catholic Worker movement is alive and well and that's where
the Dorothy Days, the voluntarily poor are--many of them.  I lived in a
worker house for the better part of a year.  Most CWs do not get paid for
what they do.  You live off the kindness of others.  It is an amazing thing,
I can tell you, to not know whether or not you'll make the electric bill and
watch a check literally get slipped under the door.  At the end of my time,
I had no money, my parents are NOT wealthy and couldn't help me out, and I
did, in fact, try to apply for a variety of public assistance when I wanted
to move back into my own place and go back to being a more private person. 
It was a very illuminating experience.  (In the end, I had to move in with
friends until I could get back "on my feet"--not unlike many homeless do.)

Anyway, being on this board has drawn me back into my own ancient history,
and so it's gotten me thinking again about issues like "voluntary
poverty"--of individuals as well as arts groups.  Maybe I enjoy the
challenge of figuring out how to get things rather than just walking in and
buying them.

Case in point--the family I mentioned in my rant yesterday about the 15
year-old who's been parked in front of the TV for 13 years.  They have 5
children in a one-bedroom house.  Yet they make over $100,000 a year.  Why
is this?  Because they spend all their money on junk--literally, on toys the
kids have to keep in storage, on gadgets, etc.  Everything is about
immediate gratification, meanwhile their teenage children have never had
privacy in their whole lives.  They are finally looking into getting an
adequate house, yet are talking about buying an extra car for the kids to
get back and forth to work and school.  I fear that this will somehow delay
yet again, getting a bigger house as they go into more and more debt.  Their
daughter, who spends the summers with us and DOES have her own room because
I give up mine while she's here--will graduate from high school this year,
with or without ever having an adequate home.

I mention all of this because I see them inadvertently teaching their
children to BUY things rather than figure out other ways.  BUY a car rather
than seek out a ride/carpool, for example.  They are not taught how to
problem solve anything, just how to accumulate.

This is a long way from the voluntary poverty discussion, I suppose.  I am
probably just rambling at this point.  But there is something to be said for
knowing how to make do on less.  Even if you don't go so far as pure
voluntary poverty, there is a power, even, in rejecting the notion of
"affluence" and "ease".  I welcome the challenges of making do with less,
although I wish I had a little more "less" to make do with, it's true.


------Original Message------
From: brad rothbart <scrdchao@nni.com>
To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
Sent: August 17, 2000 7:55:03 PM GMT
Subject: RE: RAT Money, value and art


>I don't quite know how to respond.  The bottom line--I am unimpressed with
>the big, fianced theatre that I see.  I think of a section of Julian Beck's
>Life in the Theatre where he's talking to someone or other about some money
>they have tucked away to do shows and the person says "I wish you had no
>money at all" and explains that it would force him to innovate more.
>

The  quote was from Robert Edmond Jones, a wonderful designer.
Regardless,  Julian was completely torn a. about money. As much as he
despised the system of " hated labor"- he was always meeting with
people, always raising money- from  private donors, The Ford
Foundation,  the Soviet Communist Party... Great article called
Julian  Beck: Businessman, about all of this.

The reason  you are unimpressed with big, financed theatre is not
because of the money, but the use it's put to. Most  regional theater
in America operates under  a very circumscribed idea of what the
theatre is and who the audience is= and is thefore profoundly
uninteresting.

As for voluntary poverty, I have yet to meet the voluntarily poor.
I'm not talking about  8/hr jobs- I'm talking about about apartments
with no heat,  being homeless, not  knowing where  the next meal is
coming from- unemployed, as opposed to working, poor.
I have searched for the new Cesar Chavez, the new Dorothy Day or
Francois Villon,  and I hven't found them.

I'm  fairly uniquely qualified to talk about this- in 1989, as part
of a much a much larger protest against the Guld War, I gave up my
apartment and moved onto  the Federal building Plaza- I remained
voluntarily homeless for about 3 months, dedicating myself to
activist work. Yes, people took me in, but  I was really " depending
on the kindness of strangers. " It was the most wonderful period of
my life  ( that and the 6 months f ollowing) because I was actually
free from the shackles of the system, I was free in all ways-
spiritually, politically, financially.

At the same time ,, although it was personally amazing, it was
probably the least politically effective  period I ever had. n
Because of my own decisions, I marginalized myself- I let myself be
dismissed as " just another neo-hippie with no reponsibilities
screaming about social change."

Jean Genet , at the 1968 Democratic  Convention in Chicago, talked
about an order of priorities. His point was that  protesters had to
be from the middle class or intelligensia simply by the fact that
they were protesting. If they were truly poor, they  would  be
figuring out where the next meal comes from, not protesting about
overthrowing the system.

Most peolpe I hear speak about voluntary poverty are not poor. To
them  it is simply  a concept in solidarity.
Ask a homeless person what thry think of the concept of voluntary
poverty, and I'm  sure they'll look at you like you're nuts.

There is an exception to all of this- a company called Double Edge
Theatre, based  in Ashfield MA.  They do extraordinary physical
theatre- -  and live very close to the earth  on a hundred acre farm,
they built both their living and perfomance spaces themselves.  Not
only do I love  their work  but I look up to them  as a model. Why?
Because their practice is consciously  aligned with their theory.

Looking at some of the top experimental theater today, I see two threads.
Andre Gregory- independently wealthy
Robert Wilson- independently wealthy
Liz LeCompte- Wealthy
Richard Schechner- wealthy
Robert LePage (Ex Machina)- supported by the state
Eugenio Barba- supported by the state
Ariane Mnouchkine (Theater du  Soleil)- supported by the state
Peter Brook - supported by the state
Moving Theatre ( Communist theatre troupe headed by Vanessa
Redgrave)- funded by Ms, Redgrave
Pina Bausch- funded by the state

When I say I don't want to be poor- I mean theatre-poor. I want  to
aim consciously toward spectacle, because I feel it's the only chance
we have to get the next generation back into the theatre. We have to
be more interesting than a Korn concert.  To do this takes money ,
resource and time. I'm not ashamed to ask for any of these things in
the service of the work.

I've been hearing  about prosperity  for days now" As the wave
grows, the boat floats higher for ALL Americans...."
My question: who forgot to tell the artists scrambling after $5000.00
grants??

--brad

"Those poor kids.  So young.  So nauseous."
--Krusty the Klown Telethon for Motion Sickness


Laura Winton
fluffysingler@prodigy.net
http://pages.prodigy.net/fluffysingler