Theatre for Development:
Gossip, Silence and HIV/AIDS -
Africa to New York
A Weekend Residency
December 2 - 3, 2006

Africa to New York

In the summer of 2006, students and faculty from Empire State College traveled to Lesotho, Southern Africa, to join with others from the U.K., South Africa and Lesotho, to launch the first Winter Summer Institute (WSI) in Theatre for Development. The WSI creates collaborative, issue-based, aesthetically provocative theatre that empowers participants with the tools to create similarly inspired performance work. We will share our experiences exploring the interrelationship of gender inequity, tradition, taboo and HIV/AIDS in the rural communities of sub-Saharan Africa with residency participants in New York City.

Take the Next Steps With Us

See WSI in Lesotho, a 60-second video:

• Streaming version
• For better quality, you can also download the video:
  • Low resolution (3 MGs)
  • High resolution (7 MGs)

NOTE: You will need the QuickTime player to view the video. To download the file onto your PC, right-click on the link and select "save as"; Mac users, please use the option key and click on the link.

View a documentary of WSI’s work.
Learn about critical issues affecting Lesotho – gender inequities, tradition, taboo, HIV/AIDS education, stigma.
Improvise the relationship of those issues to our own cultures in workshop.
Experience Basotho music and dance.
Create a collaborative performance in response to the residency and present it in a public forum.
Engage in individualized research and projects in related areas of interest.

Earn College Credit

Students can earn 4 to 8 college credits for completing the residency and associated projects. SUNY cross-registrants welcome.

Benefit from the Reasonable Cost

*plus prevailing fees

Noncredit enrollment: $199
Alumni Discount 25 percent

Residency Faculty and WSI Members

Lucy Winner, WSI faculty, is a professor in performing arts at Empire State College. She has worked in activist and educational theatre in hospitals, schools, settlement houses, streets and theatres. She founded the Theatre for Adolescent Survival Project and works in the area of theatre and community health.
Katt Lissard, WSI and Empire State College faculty, is a writer and director. She spent most of 2005 on a Fulbright at the National University of Lesotho, teaching, producing theatre and researching the dramatic response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Tamu Favorite is an actor, playwright, drama teacher and activist dealing with African-American issues. She was born in Louisiana. Her theatre credits include: “Marriage Proposal,” Cadiz, Spain; “The Darker Face of the Earth,” New York. Television credits include “One Life to Live” and “All My Children.”
Eric Feinblatt has been a teacher for 13 years. He is assistant professor and coordinator of the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Center for Excellence in Teaching where he works with faculty to improve teaching practices. He has performed with popular and experimental theatre groups in New York and Chicago.
Marjorie Moser works with New York City youth to develop peer-led programs in art, women’s health and HIV/AIDS awareness. She also designs and prints textiles for Broadway productions – most recently “The Producers,” “Hairspray” and “The Music Man.”
Jussara Santos-Raxlen has worked in activist theatre in her native Brazil and also in Europe, performing in the circus, the streets of Germany, the Commedia dell’Arte and at The Paris Opera House under the direction of Dario Fo.
Melissa Shetler is a teacher, jazz singer and amateur ethnomusicologist. She teaches theatre and storytelling to recent immigrant high school students in Queens, an intergenerational theatre project with the Elders Share the Arts (ESTA), and choir and capoeira in the Bronx.

For More Information

Contact Lucy Winner, Empire State College,
325 Hudson Street, Fifth Floor
New York, NY 10013-1005
Lucy.Winner@esc.edu

www.esc.edu