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Performing Communities: Project Summary"Performing Communities: The Grassroots Ensemble Theater Research Project" is an inquiry into ensemble theater deeply rooted in eight U.S. communities for 10 to 35 years. Created by a team of artist-scholars from the Community Arts Network, the project defines the genre of "grassroots ensemble theater" as: a group of artists committed to working together over the years, shaping the direction of the group collectively and making theater that comes from and serves those with the least power in the society. These theaters are expressive of life in inner-city Los Angeles, small-town northern California, the African-American South, multicultural southern Texas, low-income central Appalachia, the economically struggling South Bronx of New York and cross-continental Native America. The study lays down a base of 86 interviews with these diverse artist ensembles and their communities, then layers it with comments by the site visitors and critical writing by experts in the field of community-based arts. Also included are theater profiles, photo galleries, play excerpts and documentary resource inventories. "Performing Communities" determines that these artist families are not only affected but forged by working in and with their communities over time, and that they share a vision of theater as a vital part of community life. The investigating team concludes that "grassroot ensemble theater" is neither "alternative" nor "marginalized," but "vanguard," a natural evolution of the movement that propelled regional theater "away from the commercial restraints of New York and toward a theater expressive of the rich diversity of American culture, rooted in the specific communities that abound everywhere around the nation." |
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