Humanizing Politics through Performance
Humanizing Politics through Performance
“Leveraging Georgetown's dual strengths in performance and international affairs, The Lab has greatly enriched the Georgetown and Washington communities... For in bringing performances from around the world in which local voices give us their perspectives, they humanize today's foreign policy challenges." GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT, JOHN J. DEGIOIA
The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics humanizes global politics through performance. With highly visible original productions, partnerships, courses, and initiatives, The Lab cultivates a distinctive global community of collaborators that includes students, emerging and established artists, educators, policy leaders, and activists. Our work harnesses narrative, memory, and acts of witnessing with the aim of sparking transformation and change. The Lab has received national and international acclaim as a unique program at the intersection of the arts and global affairs, providing distinctive training and mentoring opportunities for students and professional artists working in a global context. We are passionate about helping to train the next generation of innovators to use their artistry and voices to shape new understandings and to humanize others in pursuit of a better, more just world. The Lab’s leadership role in the UNESCO International Theatre Institute, and the Global Theatre Initiative, in partnership with Theatre Communications Group allows us to promote global citizenship and international collaboration as we build relationships beyond the lifespan of individual projects. Founded in 2012 by Professors Derek Goldman (Director, co-author; award-winning global theater artist) and Cynthia P. Schneider (School of Foreign Service; Former US Ambassador to the Netherlands), The Lab is the first joint initiative of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Department of Performing Arts.
Derek Goldman Artistic and Executive Director / Co-Founder, Ersian Francois General Manager / Associate Producer, Cynthia Schneider Co-Founding Director, Emma Jaster Associate Director / Resident Movement Artist, Ijeoma Njaka Senior Learning Designer for Transformational and Inclusive Initatives, Melisande Short-Colomb Community Engagement Associate, Ashanee Kottage Research & Programming Fellow for Environment & Performance, Rabbi Rachel Gartner Associate Director (In Your Shoes™ Research & Practice Center)
Global community Connecting pathbreaking artists and thinkers on campus and around the world
Our expansive network includes the Global Fellows, a group of pathbreaking artists and change-makers from around the world working at the intersection of performance and politics; a Think Tank, made up of visionaries in these fields with whom The Lab collaborates closely; a Campus Cohort consisting of Georgetown faculty collaborators from a wide range of disciplines; and the Lab Student Fellows, an active body of current students working closely with the Lab, within and beyond the classroom, at the intersection of global affairs and the arts.
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Original productions Harnessing narrative, memory, and acts of witnessing to humanize global politics
“The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics gives me hope... I was deeply moved to witness this brilliant production, anchored by David Strathairn’s astonishing performance, which captures the soul of Jan Karski. It was a privilege for me because I knew him as a student and welcomed him to the U.S. Capitol as a Member of Congress... Karski’s legacy of moral courage should always be a challenge to our conscience. We must bear witness to our history, face the truth, and act upon it.” 8 HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI
“Our ancestors have waited patiently through centuries for us to come to the table of acknowledgement. Here I Am fulfills my desire to give voice to those families, including my own, and to our tenacity and strength as a people—to close the full circle where we began our American lives three centuries ago and where we are today.” MÉLISANDE SHORT-COLOMB
“Working with The Lab on I Pledge Allegiance has given me the opportunity to amplify my own voice as a first-generation American and assert my complicated and beautiful identities” ALY PANJWANI, GEORGETOWN STUDENT, SFS ’19
Facing page: Academy Award Nominee David Strathairn performs in The Lab’s internationally celebrated original production Remember This; The Lesson of Jan Karski. Top to bottom: Mélisande Short-Colomb performs in the World Premiere of The Lab’s original production Here I Am in Georgetown’s Gaston Hall. I Pledge Allegiance, an original internationally-touring play created by first-generation and immigrant GU students and recent alumns. Gabriel Brumberg and Lab Associate Artist Heather Raffo in the workshop production of Raffo’s award-winning play Noura, originally commissioned by The Lab as part of the Myriad Voices Festival.
Critical conversations Enriching and deepening dialogue on campus and in global politics
“The Lab brought refugee policy experts, employees from the State Department and Iraqi embassy, Iraqi Christian and Iraqi Muslim mothers, college-age Middle Eastern women, college-age Americans, global theatre practitioners—all in the same room—commenting and asking questions of our piece, and then offering help with research and connections. There is no other place besides The Lab that can create a conversation like this.” 10 HEATHER RAFFO, PLAYWRIGHT AND PERFORMER, NOURA
“Artists are the canaries in the coal mine. If you want to know what’s really going on, don’t ask the political leaders, ask the artists.” CYNTHIA SCHNEIDER
Anna Deavere Smith, Secretary Madeleine Albright, Ambassador Cynthia Schneider at The Lab’s residency of Deavere Smith’s On Grace. Incarceration, Innocence & Justice: Zandezi performance and discussion with Zimbabwean director Lloyd Nyikadzino and Marc Howard, founding director of the Prisons & Justice Initiative at Georgetown. Honoring the Past/Shaping the Future panel at The Gathering 2019 with Michael Rohd, Stephanie Ybarra, Maria Manuela Goyanes, and Raymond Caldwell. The Land Acknowledgement that Isn’t a Land Acknowledgement: Workshop led by Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner, Assistant Professor and mentor to Circle of Indigenous Students Alliance at Georgetown.
Festivals & convenings Bringing together students, artists, educators, policy leaders, and activists from around the world
“The Gathering was a powerful demonstration of the urgency of theatre in today’s polarized world. We heard from artists and companies around the world whose work speaks to issues of climate change, migration, white supremacy, unequal justice, authoritarianism, and fundamentalist attitudes of all kinds. These are the forces shaping our world, and theatre makers have a critical role in bringing new awareness and creating forums for education and dialogue.” 12 HOWARD SHALWITZ, FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, WOLLY MAMMOTH THEATRE COMPANY
“And I wonder what kind of a role culture, the presentation of the ‘other’ in humanized terms, can play in a situation where politics, diplomacy, appears to fail; where it is the people who need to talk to one another... rather than the leadership talking between themselves.” WOLE SOYINKA, NOBEL LAUREATE, AND LAB FEATURED ARTIST AT THE GATHERING AT GEORGETOWN, 2019
“When I work there (in Cambodia) I do the work I have to do. But I work alone. I have come here and I know I am not alone.” SOUNG SOPHEAK, THEATER DIRECTOR OF KHMER ART ACTION FROM PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
Ping Chong + Company’s Beyond Sacred, Voices of Muslim Identity presented at Georgetown by The Lab. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate, performs his epic poem “A Humanist Ode for Chibok, Leah” at The Lab’s CrossCurrents Festival. Next-Level Global Hip-Hop event at The Gathering. The Lab presents Dreams Deferred with the Global Theater Initiative (GTI), and the International Theatre Institute (ITI) featuring actors with Arena Stage in D.C., The Market Theater in South Africa, and Riksteatern in Sweden performing A Raisin in the Sun for World Theatre Day.
Partnerships Working with changemakers to address the most critical issues of our time
“Nothing gives me greater hope for our shared future than the fact that in the face of trauma the world over, this group of people can come together and celebrate and love each other. The Lab is where I can do the vital work of envisioning and practicing the more just and creative world I want to live in.” INAUGURAL LAB FELLOW & FIRST RESIDENT ARTIST OF THE EARTH COMMONS, 14 CAITLIN NASEMA CASSIDY
“Today alarms are being sounded across America—by artists, writers, activists, and, most of all, by those who have experienced the rise of authoritarianism elsewhere. This is happening while we still have time to “do something, anything.” If the worst happens, will those who did nothing say “I never knew”? AMINAT TA FORNA, DIRECTOR AND CHAIR OF THE LANNAN CENTER FOR POETICS AND SOCIAL PRACTICE AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, IN HER ESSAY ‘DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING’ FOR THE BOOK OF ‘REMEMBER THIS; THE LESSON OF JAN KARSKI’
Global Fellow and Resident Artist Caitlin Nasema Cassidy performs from We Hear You at COP27 in Sharm-ElSheikh, Egypt in partnership with The Earth Commons and The New York Times’ “Climate Forward” initiative. Flash Acts Festival of virtual plays by U.S. and Russian playwrights produced by The Lab in partnership with Arena Stage, the Forum for Cultural Engagement, the Lubimovka Young Playwrights Festival, the Center for Modern Drama in Yekaterinburg, and the United States Embassy in Moscow. Cynthia Schneider with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, Vishakha Desai, and Joseph S. Nye Jr. at The World Stage event on Soft Power, a collaboration between The Lab and The Public Theater, New York. How We Go Missing by The Anishinaabe Theatre Exchange presented at The Gathering in partnership with The Racial Justice Institute at Georgetown.
Courses & curriculum Developing and facilitating innovative classes, workshops, and methodologies on campus and across the globe
“Theater isn’t good at everything, but it can be spectacularly good at countering this polarization through the empathy it enables in a live, communal setting, and through its capacity to humanize others .” 16 DEREK GOLDMAN
“Going to Cambodia with The Lab showed me the power the arts have in rebuilding a nation. I was awestruck watching artists engage all forms of performance as a way to talk about Cambodia’s recent traumatic past under the Khmer Rouge, and as a way to empower marginalized people in Cambodia’s present. Without The Lab, I would not have experienced this side of Cambodia.” SARIKA RAMASWAMY, GEORGETOWN STUDENT (SFS ‘18)
“What The Lab is doing today is so critical... the power of performance, the power of storytelling, and the power of narrative are absolutely essential. In my mind, they are some of the only things that can actually have an influence on the political dialogue.” JOEL HELLMAN, DEAN OF GU’S SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE
Global Fellows in workshop at LaMaMa Umbria. Sofia Doroshenko (Student Fellow 2023) in Cambodia as part of The Lab course Performance and Politics: Confronting the Past, Shaping the Future. Derek Goldman and Georgetown students conduct a workshop at the 35th ITI World Congress in Segovia, Spain. Bearing Witness; The Legacy of Jan Karski Today class meets by his statue on campus, led by Derek Goldman and Ijeoma Njaka.
Programs Supporting projects and building life-long relationships
“The Lab has been a growing and learning space for me—in every sense of the word… It is rare to find opportunities like this where you are cared for as a human—beyond just your artistic capabilities. I felt heard, and guided on how to be a better human in the world, beyond my artistic practice - how to listen actively, how to treat others with compassion and grace.” 18 GLOBAL FELLOW KARISHMA BHAGANI (KENYA)
“The Lab has created a platform for like-minded artists, scholars, and activists to build a network with each other and to hear voices from around the world. It is very important for all of us to join forces in creating work that decreases polarization, division, and misunderstanding.” INAUGURAL FELLOW, CHANKETHYA CHEY (CAMBODIA)
“I think this cross-cultural, professional network is important for the sustainability not just for the art, not just for the Lab, but for the human race.” GLOBAL FELLOW, LLOYD NYIKADZINO (ZIMBABWE)
Global Fellows at The Gathering in 2022 with Lab Associate Artist and UNESCO Ambassador for Peace Ali Mahdi (Sudan). Global Fellows Kiyo Gutierrez and Aganza Kisaka engage in The Lab’s signature In Your Shoes methodology during their residency at La MaMa Umbria International. The Lab is featured in the Edinburgh Culture Summit at the Scottish Parliament, with Global Fellows and governmental leaders and culture ministers from around the world.
“Being one of The Lab Fellows means so much to me—as an artist, as a Syrian woman, and as a refugee. This is an amazing group of people, and I’m so proud to be one of them. We are more than friends, we’ve been united under the name of humanity, culture, and art, a connection that eclipses the different places we’re from. These are relationships that will last forever.” INAUGURAL FELLOW, REEM ALSAYYAH (SYRIA)
In Your Shoes™ An innovative technique rooted in theatrical performance, group dialogue and deep listening to counter polarization and engage across difference. The foundation of the In Your Shoes Research and Practice Center.
“We can talk theoretically about empathy, but to experience it is a whole other thing. In participating in In Your Shoes, it’s like a third perspective emerged for me as I started to notice what I myself was experiencing as I shared my partner’s narrative. That is empathy.” 20 FATHER GREGORY SCHENDEN, SJ, DIRECTOR FOR CATHOLIC LIFE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
“Through In Your Shoes I challenged myself to engage with unfamiliar spaces and to frame my thinking around new political perspectives through voicing my experiences and sharing community with others.” ALEXIS JADE FERGUSON, GEORGETOWN STUDENT (SFS ‘21)
“In a macro sense we’re at a point where to me, it feels like we’ve given up. You either talk to those who are the same as you or agree with you, or try to win over or talk against those that don’t. In In Your Shoes, we deal with really difficult, divisive topics with honesty, respect and compassion. It’s tremendously valuable and hopeful.” SAMUEL KEHOE, GEORGETOWN STUDENT (C ‘23)
Student cohort for In Your Shoes, a pilot project in U.S.China Student Dialogue through Performance. The Art of Care, a project in partnership with Georgetown’s Global Health Institute, Medical Humanities Initiative, School of Health, and School of Nursing, commissioned by Mosaic theater in DC. Pictured here in development using the In Your Shoes methodology. Caroline Slater, Erika Rose, Susan Rome, Mark Jaster, KenYatta Rogers and Tuyet Pham. Student Nyasha Gandawa (B ’23) and Prof Sivagami Subbaraman perform in In Your Shoes; Reckoning with Our Past/ Imagining Our Future developed as part of The Lannan Center’s Symposium Reimagining the American Narrative. Student Fellow and Facilitator Lyndi Tsering speaks at the launch of the In Your Shoes Research and Practice Center hosted at the House of Sweden.
In the News
‘An innovative Georgetown lab looks to theater to quell political fires’
‘Artifacts from ShortColomb’s journey, are now part of the new exhibition: Make Good the Promises: Reconstruction and Its Legacies at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).’
‘The legacy of Reconstruction reverberates. So why aren’t students learning about it?’
‘Listening for Unheard Voices—Syria; The Trojan Women’ ‘The Everyday Artistry in Sudan Shines on World Theater Day’
“A lodestar of what is possible, powerful, and a permanent testament to what the theater can and should be in this time.” ‘A powerful theater of witness marks Emancipation Day in Here I Am’ ‘Theater tools help these students accept different perspectives’
“Starring a masterly David Strathairn, and adapted from Karski’s own words by Clark Young and Derek Goldman, it brings Karski’s recollections to anguished life.” Alexis Soloski, NY Times Critics Pick
“Theatrical in all the right ways... The filmed version, meanwhile, recorded for PBS’ ‘Great Performances,’ is a study in elegant and eloquent minimalism, drawing the viewer in with simple sound fragments.”
“Superb... Young and Goldman... have penned a fine work.”
“Masterful... packs a powerful punch... this story is more timely than ever... Instead of easy platitudes, [Remember This] zooms in on the intractable knot of one of humanity’s worst sins—complacency... And that is [its] triumph. ‘Remember This’ poses the radical thought that every action, no matter how small, has great meaning.”
Join us
The Lab raises voices rarely heard in Washington, DC through compelling, authentic, cross-cultural narratives, engaging policymakers, artists, students, and wider audiences in forums that cast critical issues in a new light. In the midst of increased polarization, division, conflict, and lack of understanding between peoples and cultures, The Lab works to bridge differences, offering opportunities to better understand each other.
Make a tax-deductible donation. As we create opportunities to bring these initiatives to our communities and the world, we can only do so with your support.
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“Because ultimately when I dream forward, I see a world that fully utilizes the power of communal narrative to help re-humanize our families, our cities, our countries, and our world. But more importantly than that, theater ultimately re-humanizes the most powerful tool on the planet: the human heart.” KWAME KWEI-ARMAH. ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, YOUNG VIC THEATRE, LONDON; LAB THINK TANK MEMBER, WORLD THEATRE DAY 2017, HOSTED BY THE LAB AT GEORGETOWN
We Hear You performance for Coal & Ice at the Kennedy Center.
Photos: Rich Klein, Manaf Azzam, Cambodian Living Arts, Jameson Nowlan, Jeremy Bennett, Wolf Hertzberg, Katerina Vitaly, Makuyeika Collectivo Teatral, Sarah Martin, Teresa Castracane, Luca Giraudo, Margherita Buzzi, Reamur Adaza David, Michaela Farrell, Sophie Garcia, Colin Hovde, C. Mead Jackson, Lynn Alleva Lilley, Jati Lindsay, Greg McGoon, Henry Wamai, Jamie Sandel, Jordan Silverman/Georgetown University, C. Stanley Photography, Rafael Suanes/Georgetown University. Design: Margherita Buzzi
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