Introduction

McIsaac, Peter M.; Mueller, Gabriele

doi:10.3138/9781442620742-003

Cited by 1 publication

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“…44 Visual media have for some time been recognised as key sites for cultural learning, as they provide spectators/ audiences with interpretations of the past/present and offer a basis for the forging of identities and imaginations. 45 The contributions in this issue deal with early experiments with emerging new media, such as illustrated postcards at the turn of the twentieth century and classroom film in the 1930s. These adventures, sometimes set up as test cases to assess their educational value, appear to have been underpinned by a strong belief in the medium as something which appeals, arouses emotion, and triggers imagination.…”

Section: Visual/materials Media Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Adventures in cultural learning

Herman

Roberts²

2017

Paedagogica Historica

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Surprising celebratory spectacles An inspiring interview with Jennifer Miller, conducted by Tessa Overbeek, about Circus Amok, a New York City-based circus-theatre company which Miller founded in 1989, provides a very good insight into what we would like to call a contemporary adventure in cultural learning. 1 The playwright, director, juggler, dancer, stilt walker, fire eater, and teacher of performance courses at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, as Overbeek describes Miller, wanted to provide free public art while simultaneously creating a local public platform, tailored to the city, to address contemporary needs and urgent sociocultural issues-public housing, urban planning, immigration, unequal rights for minorities, police violence, public health care, and education policies. Overbeek describes accurately how acrobatic performance fuses with politically engaged debate on the stage: Like traditional circus shows, Circus Amok's performances are made up of separate numbers, which can include anything from dancing on stilts to acrobatics, but also juggling and clowning, sometimes combined with text, something rarely heard in the circus. Both clubs and statements about topics such as racial profiling or radical feminism may fly back and forth between jugglers. 2 From 1994 onwards Circus Amok started touring the city and temporarily occupying public spaces, such as parks, playgrounds, squares, and streets. In doing so, and because their shows are freely accessible, they managed to be inclusive and to reach out to varied audiences. Moreover, the format of a circus show seemed to work, as Miller describes further in the interview: Circus works incredibly well with issues of social justice. It's a popular form in the old-school-sense, and it is a celebratory form. It is enticing, it is available, it has a blasting band, it is joyful and it is free. The fact that it is celebratory is a particular nugget, because people don't often combine a sense of celebration with a sense of concern in the way that Amok does. 3

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Section: Visual/materials Media Ecologymentioning

confidence: 99%