Situation Room
The Situation Room is a performance-conversation that takes place throughout a performance with elder audience participants, inspired by the traditional custodians of the land in New York City, the Lenape people.
The Situation Room takes the first step towards solution which is to gather together some Elders in conversation.
the backstory
The Situation Room was developed during the creation of the performance Unexploded Ordnances (UXO) in 2016. It came in the wake of Brexit and the 2016 US Election when everyone was seeking ways to take action and have conversations, but conversation felt more difficult than ever.
The Situation Room provided a framework for interactive conversation on shared anxieties surrounding personal, environmental and political issues. These interactive conversations invite the eldest members of the audience to the ‘Situation Room’ table onstage subverting expectations of control and voice, and experimenting with a new model for community conversation. This model investigates the way conversation is different and in some ways easier when it is couched within a performance.
when to use a situation room
to incorporate elder knowledge into a performance
to lift elder voices in your communities
to hold conversations that bridge the political, personal, and performative
to raise issues and edge toward solutions