Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

Since Happenings emerged from New York’s art world in the late 1950s, andthrived there in the 1960s, the Yippies would probably have been aware of variousmanifestations of the concept of the Happening. The Yippie headquarters were in UnionSquare in downtown New York, where the art world overlapped with the performanceworld and the counterculture. This was a time and place for vibrant exchange betweenvisual artists, theatre artists, and activists. Art historian Judith Rodenbeck argues thatReuben Gallery artists like Kaprow attended the same lectures and performances in thedowntown art and Off-Off-Broadway scene as theatre practitioners like Judith Malinaand Julian Beck of the Living Theatre (56). They too used the language of Happenings:for example, in a 1968 interview with the East Village Other, Malina argues that“revolution is a personal happening, a non-violent one, a change in each person’s modesof perception” (4). Beck and Malina were also friends with Ben Morea, the anarchist,artist, activist, founder of the revolutionary art magazine Black Mask, and leader ofUATW/MF (McMillian 536). During the spring of 1968, Hoffman and Rubin heldmeetings with Schechner about possible street theatre protests they could create togetherat the Chicago National Democratic Convention (Schechner, “Speculations” 8-9). Art andactivism intertwined in the downtown community.Reports of Happenings also appeared in the same alternative media used by theYippies to publicize their manifestos. New York’s activist community was continuallyholding events that they called Happenings that winter to protest the war. For example,on 23 December, 1968, hippies and other peace activists created the Christmas “Mill-In”125