I was left with various questions for Anna Deveare Smith after her lecture was concluded. She had exited the stage at this point though so I was left only to ponder the queries she had posed for us, the audience. ‘Why was there so much trash left after the inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20th, 2009?’ Now I had not attended the inauguration, merely watched it on TV, but after hearing of the refuse strewn about so carelessly, it really started to bother me. It was not the way Anna Deveare Smith orated her lecture, because truthfully it was short and consisted mostly of audience participation.
Here we are as a nation, still ecstatic after electing the candidate of ‘change,’ yet people still can’t remember to throw their garbage away.
Before the lecture began, I was completely unaware of the accomplishments and awards Anna Deveare Smith had received throughout decades of work in the arts. Truthfully I did not know one thing about her. What I did notice right away was that this lecture was not about her, or her accomplishments. She began the lecture with a tribute/impersonation to the late Studs Terkel, whom had clearly shaped her definition on the merits of art. Again, her lecture paid little attention to her artistic contribute, rather it was about the future of the arts, and the artistic community, and the opportunity for anyone to contribute to them. She genuinely wanted to know how we, as students and faculty of an art school will respond to the president’s call for change.
She was encouraged by the possibilities that lay before us, but in the end I could not help but feel there was a tone of disappointment in her speech. No one really gave her the ‘right’ answer to her question, which was more or less about the future of institutions, like Columbia College of Chicago. I’m not saying there was a right answer to this question, given that it was open to much interpretation. The notion that one of us in the audience may have had the correct answer to her question though is unrealistic. She knew this. Instead it was the idea that institutions have the ability to collaborate, and collaboration is what will eventually lead to change in any aspect of life. Many people collaborated to elect Barack Obama, but many people collaborated to trash Washington D.C. nearly two weeks ago as well.
It was evident that Anna Deveare Smith cared more about what we had to say, compared to fielding questions about her more famous literary works, Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992. If you were to go see Anna Deveare Smith lecture again be prepared for a brief look into her own genius, and rather a deeper look into society’s as a whole. In the end, the forty-minute lecture was short because it had to be, there’s no time to waste. The opportunity for collaborative change is here, just remember to throw away the trash.