Alarum

1. A call to arms

2. A loud disturbance or conflict

3. The movement of soldiers across the stage

   How do we turn fear into action? How do we ​use​ it to empower us rather than paralyze us? How do we engage with our fear to achieve empathy?

Our current social and political climate is so soaked in unrest and terror. The summer of 2017 was particularly frightening for me as I watched events unfold over my Facebook feed while I did performance work in an isolated summer graduate program in Vermont. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Back-to-back days. I had no outlet. Then Paris. Pulse Nightclub. Germany. Everywhere was a potential warzone. I was now sitting with this unfamiliar version of fear- one that was constant and immediate. I feared for my father and my cousins. My classmates. Friends back home. It didn’t take much to provoke a bullet to the chest. Provoke is actually the wrong word. We’ve gotten to the point where provocation is barely a factor. What scared me the most was that my fear was no longer ascribed to any particular group of people or inspired by any particular event. It was becoming perpetual, universal, and inevitable.

Then Trump happened.

I woke up on November 9, 2016 in a different world. It didn’t even really matter that he won (or didn’t win the popular vote). We were now living in a country where almost half of its citizens wanted an unqualified racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic white supremacist to lead us. This was no longer fear. This was terror.

Alarum was originally developed as a means through which a community could engage with fear. Originally performed by four actors, it required them and myself to interrogate our own sources of fear in addition to recognizing and analyzing how current events contribute to that fear. It was important to all of us to develop the piece from a foundation of community engagement. All of our material was birthed out of surveys taken of Acting and Directing students about their fears and how they deal with them. We even ended up using some of their responses as dialogue.

In addition to the community surveys the piece will also use the following as source material: current event articles, personal letters, research on the psychological and physiological effects of fear, podcasts, and pop culture. We will use this material to jump into the development of movement, dialogue, and song by using theatrical exercises for exploration (i.e. Contact Improvisation, Dance, Viewpoints, Rhythmic Vocal Play). The cast and I together will allow the process to dictate the form, structure, and narrative of the final piece.

We won’t seek answers. The power is in the inquiry and exploration. Part of the thrill of this process is living in the unknown. We have the unique opportunity of being able to dissect ourselves and somehow sew everything back together to create something exquisite. My hope is that instead of cowering in apathy, we can dive in, feel everything, and fight for each other.

If interested in producing Alarum, contact Alexis here.