Blog — Jan Dworkin

On Theatre as Worldwork: Hands Up and the August Wilson Red Door Project

To demolish racism you have to dismantle the system. You have to dismantle the parts—the beliefs, the attitudes, the values and the behaviors. ... We have to dismantle the culture of white utopia. Kevin Jones (on OPB’s State of Wonder, April 16, 2016)

Most people I talk to feel very unsettled. As it should be. Things are heating up.

I go to sleep worrying. I wake up pressured to act, to somehow be helpful. Mostly I don’t know how or what to do. So when I experience something that feels transformative, that I believe does make a difference, I want to shout it out.

Last week, in the midst of everything bad, I witnessed the power of art, specifically theatre, to create a situation that almost forcedpeople to empathize. I've written before about this special power of art. Sarah Lewis calls it aesthetic force. Not force by gunfire. Not force that maims or leaves us lifeless. But force that leaves us “changed—stunned, dazzled and knocked out.”

Art & Design, Creativity, Deep Democracy, PowerJan DworkinJuly 19, 2016 Comments

Color Fields and Relationship

“In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is, as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” Josef Albers

Many people are confused about color. I can understand why. Color is all about relationship. About perception. And that can get complicated.

Art & Design, Processwork, PsychologyJan DworkinJanuary 18, 2016 Comments

THE USE OF ART AS FORCE

It was 1861, a time of unthinkable national fracture. Frederick Douglass stood before an angry crowd at Tremont Temple, the integrated church one block from Boston Commons, and made an audacious claim. He said that art could play a role in the abolition of slavery.

From the famed abolitionist and volcanic orator who said, “it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake… the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed (1) ,” his views on art must have seemed irrelevant compared to the issues at hand.

Art & DesignJan DworkinSeptember 8, 2015 Comments

The Message Under the Bed

Another sunny day and Mattie is spending it under the bed. I’m not at all happy about this; despite the fact she has been limping for a few days and needs rest. She should at least be staring out the window at the waves, or on the deck sniffing sea air.

Art & Design, CreativityJan DworkinApril 20, 2015 Comments

On Being Ready

Anything worthwhile, any project worth doing has an outcome that can’t be predicted.

My brain doesn’t like that. And if you’re human, neither does yours. We humans are pre-wired to feel vulnerable around risk and change. When we move towards something new or unpredictable, a little voice in our head warns us off.

Be safe. Stay with what’s known.

Leadership, Psychology, Art & DesignJan DworkinApril 11, 2015 Comments

Designing Your Pirate Ship

The ability to design a really cool thing has a basic skill in common with the capacity to have a really good relationship. Both pursuits demand that we empathize with the end user.

Power, Psychology, Art & DesignJan DworkinNovember 10, 2014 Comment