{"id":16734,"date":"2020-02-20T16:53:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T22:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/offtheshelfandonline.blog\/?p=16734"},"modified":"2020-05-02T20:27:06","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T02:27:06","slug":"new-kind-of-storyteller-anna-deavere-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/?p=16734","title":{"rendered":"New Kind of Storyteller, Anna Deavere Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anna Deavere Smith, revered as a genius who created \ufffda new form of theater\ufffd held a performance at the Colwell Playhouse in Krannert Center<\/a> on Tuesday, February 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Aejin Shin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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People waiting before the show began<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Anna Deavere Smith. Who is she? According to\nher program profile, she is an actor, playwright, and educator. These days,\nthanks to the FAA110 class, I am watching many performances at the krannert\ncenter. Some of them I was able to understand the content by seeing the title\nof the show (like Shanghai Ballet and Drumfolk), but others were impossible to\ngrasp until I saw the show, like Somi. This performance is in the latter case.\nUntil I entered the concert hall, I had no idea what kind of show I was going\nto see today. Nor did I know if she was a singer, comedian, or even an actor,\nbecause I had no background knowledge of her. However, it took only five\nminutes to fall into her charms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The appearance of the stage before the show began<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This was definitely a new kind of show.\nThere were no fancy stage settings or costumes for the performance, nor were\nthere any other performers. However, she had the ability to dominate the stage\nby herself. She interviewed others, then recorded their voices and changed the\nrecordings into a performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tickets and pamphlets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Anna Deavere Smith’s performance made her\nshow very special. It was completely different from news stories,\ndocumentaries, and dramas that tell only objective truths. She delivered to the\naudience what she wanted to convey through her acting. Her performance was\nquite different from any other performances that I\ufffdve seen at the Krannert\nCenter. Her performance was neither news, nor drama, nor stand-up comedy, but\nhumorously allowed people to know the exact truth. She tries to express\nAmericans’ diverse opinions on various social issues. She has already\ninterviewed more than 2,000 people so far. Smith acts out a variety of people\nby making variations in her voice. She describes people with gestures as well\nas her voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A portrait of Anna Deavere Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She also communicated with the audience\nthrough questions and answers after the performance. I didn’t fully understand\nthe stories, but I thought it was wonderful to have a moment like this. She\ncould use the audience’s questions as more material for her next performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anna Deavere Smith, revered as a genius who created \ufffda new form of theater\ufffd held a performance at the Colwell Playhouse in Krannert Center on Tuesday, February 18. By Aejin Shin Anna Deavere Smith. Who is she? According to her program profile, she is an actor, playwright, and educator. These days, thanks to the FAA110Continue reading “New Kind of Storyteller, Anna Deavere Smith”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2235],"tags":[2300,1449,1365,992,617],"class_list":["post-16734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fine-arts-in-motion-spring-2020","tag-anna-deavere-smith","tag-colwell-playhouse","tag-faa110","tag-krannert-center-for-the-performing-arts","tag-storytelling","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16742,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16734\/revisions\/16742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaching-without-borders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}