As teachers, we know that teaching is one of the best ways to learn. As people who want to live in a better world, we ask ourselves, to learn what? For what purpose? We in the Spark Theater Collective have been teaching and learning together for three years now. We have performed our pieces on the street, at conferences, demonstrations, and workshops. Our performances and workshops are the culmination of weeks, sometimes months, of study and discussion. And while most theater troupes would spend their time together blocking, memorizing lines, and developing their characters, we spend our time studying.
Our politics are both revealed and transformed through this praxis. For us, street theater has also made studying a way to connect with each other and push each other’s thinking. A way to find joy in work that so many would see as depressing or draining.Street theater is also meant to disrupt. It disrupts our comfortable lives and our false consciousness. We want to use it to disrupt that of others as well.