Thursday, Week One, Block 7, Year 4.
This week is the first of four in which a group of 14 Colorado College students will be focusing their academic energy on the connections between acts of insurgency, civil disobedience, protest, regime opposition and performance. The focus is largely in the Balkans. What roles did performance play in the usurpation of Slobodan Milosevic? A short documentary about the non-violent anti-Milosevic organization, Otpor!, along with readings highlighting acts of civil disobedience and discussion of effective insurgent strategies have guided us this week. We explored the tactics that effective movements use to gain a following, to become legitimate, and to ultimately achieve a goal. Many of these strategies, we found, are based on varying types of performance: street performance, humor, political performance, public image, and the arts.
Sta ima, bre!
If you don’t speak Serbian that’s a nice, “What’s up, dude?” Our afternoons are spent learning the basics of Serbian in preparation for next week’s journey to Belgrade, the capital of the Balkan state whose turmoiled and fascinating recent political history is our morning focus.
Tomorrow, we will perform our first project. Using performance, doing rather than saying, to provide an insight into power relations and obedience.
Dovidenja! Goodbye!
JR
