implicit art

I’m tired of living in renovations. I’m typing this at 11:36AM, Joburg time, but
I can’t get online because they are in the process of sanding the floors in the
study – how am I supposed to teach online without being able to get there? How
am I supposed to get work done with all this noise and saw dust? It would all
be OK if they were actually doing a good job….
But in all of this, yesterday still had an amazing highlight. The FATC
has started a fully-funded, subsidiary group called ART (Anti-Retroviral Theatre),
which offers, for free, courses and workshops about making art in and around the
discourse of HIV, here in South Africa (also reimburses travel money, and gives
free lunch). I gave a workshop to about 20 students yesterday (ranging from early
teens to early twenties, and a couple a bit older), all from the townships, more
than half of whom were HIV-positive, all of whom were AMAZING. I, and they, actually
left feeling healthier, and full of life. The workshop was on performance and
group poetry, where I shared some of my own work, and modified a workshop on "group
slams" that I took when in Minneapolis for the nationals in ’02. You should
have seen the performances these groups came up with! I’m going back
next week…