09 Mar Who Are We/Who Are We Becoming?
Earlier this evening I completed a six-day residency period of The International Class of the East Side Institute. It was an intense period of conversation on all manner of psychological, phiosophical, political, cultural and completely mundane matters. The 9 current members of this year’s hail from 5 countries—Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Serbia and the US. They work as educators, theatre activists, youth workers and therapists in their home countries.
The International Class is a program in the methodology of social therapeutics—which means it’s an intense group-building activity, an improvisational continuous zpd-creating process, and a playing with new and varying ways to get to know each other and grow as human beings and change agents. I love being part of their growth as individuals and as a group, inspiring them and being inspired by them, creating “aha” moments and making mistakes together. Our ongoing question throughout the year—created through our collective practice—is: “Who Are We/Who Are We Becoming?”
This was the second time we’ve been together in person (the first was in October). They’ll all be back in June for their last residency for more conversations, observations and new performances with me, other Institute faculty and other organizations in the metropolitan NYC area. In the meantime, we’ll be together online.
Here they are preparing a slide for a public presentation they were making on “Developing Without Borders.”
We’re currently taking applications for The International Class 2014-15, which will include the October conference, Performing thw World 2014: How Shall We Become? To learn more about these innovative people, the program and the application process, visit the Training page.
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