Thursday, December 15, 2011

Occupy DC Circus


So for the past month I've been organizing an event down at Occupy DC. A circus really. I've been gathering friends and artists around DC sympathetic to the cause and wanting to contribute. It's been a wonderful journey of organizing and watching as so many talented people sign on to contribute. Very eager to see how it turns out with the understanding that these actions I have begun to do more and more frequently never turn out quite how I plan them. We've got an exciting plan though. Side shows like debating puppet politicians where the Democrat and Republican are fighting over the best possible way to get the money to the bankers, a hug off run by a clown, a slack line, jugglers, a unicyclist, an OccuWHY booth that my dear friend Nate built with markers and poster boards with questions to fill in like: How Not to Get Your Shit Stolen and When Do You Know Your Done. We're also having a participatory piece of theater using playground games and pie to have a mini clown sit-in, a rehearsal for a revolution as Boal would say. If we can pull it off, it will be epic. Don't worry, we'll take pictures.

As I send out the announcement to friends and co-workers, a few people have paused and scratched their heads, maybe even a few have chuckled under their breath, "Who would want to have anything to do with that mess." seems to be the sentiment. And I have to sit with that for a moment and reflect. The Occupy movement has so many many many faults. So disorganized, such a lack of clear direction, and don't even get me started on the internal politics of the camp, ouf. But, for me, that is SO not the point.

I firmly believe that taking civic action, no matter how difficult it may be to measure policy change correlation or number of mouths fed, engaging in a civic action with the intention to make your own community a better place is HUGE. It is EPIC. It is the only thing we can do to change the world. In our own community, for the things we care about.

I think what I would ask each and every one to do, whether you're supporting the cause or not, is to find one single thing that you do agree with in the Occupy movement, and lord knows there are so many causes you're bound to find one you agree with. Find that one thing and ask yourself what can you DO to change this? Take your reflective intelligent analytical critical thinking skills you typically use to blame and brush off others actions and creatively brainstorm what you can do to influence this issue...and then go and fucking do it.

Happy clowning.

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