publication - Jumblies Theatre

IntroductionThis publication was conceived in 2007, out of enthusiasm for Jumblies’ new publicseminars, which grew, in turn, from our learning and mentorship program – theJumblies Studio – and the realization that there is a lot of knowledge and experienceto share. The seminars, continuing in their fifth year, have been presented byJumblies staff, associates and special guests. They take place over breakfast, lunchor evening refreshments at one of Jumblies partner sites or at the home of anotherproject or organization. The subject-matter, ranging through the historical, current,anecdotal, polemical, poetic, practical and theoretical, is always intriguing, sometimescontroversial, and hard to come by via other routes. People have often expressed theirregrets at missing a particular seminar, and we have often wished that there were alasting record of a lively presentation or discussion.These essays respond to these desires, and provide an accessible forum for our interns,artists and colleagues. We invited past presenters to create a record of their seminars,in a style that suited them. The proposition was met with general enthusiasm.Completing the task, however, in the midst of the busy lives of artists and artsorganizations, took longer than anticipated. Because there are several more essaysalmost ready to go, as well as interesting new projects and subjects to write about,we are optimistically presenting this as the first instance of what we hope will be aperiodic – or sporadic - Jumblies occurrence.The title, Out Of Place, refers to a theme that I proposed at the start. Although theauthors were free to - and did - follow the threads of their own topics, questions ofplace and dislocation tend to inform all of the work of Jumblies Theatre and, indeed,of community-engaged art-making at large, it being a kind of art that connects withpeople and places and the complicated relationships between them. As artists doingthis work, we learn to ask: Who lives here? Who doesn’t live here? Why not? Who is getting leftout by various definitions (including our own) of “place”, “home”, “community”, “history” and“art”?Out Of Place, Issue 1, Spring 2010, Jumblies Press