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Art and Freedom

Sarah Kay Peters, Author

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Signifying Monkey: Breaking Cultural Codes

"To the Signifying Monkey the Lion has foolishly let himself become ensnared in his own cultural code. To the Lion, it probably isn't a 'code' at all, it's 'The Way Things Are', and the Monkey, for whom that is not the case, can therefore toy with the Lion by toying with words" (Hyde 277). 

What if we, as cultural fieldworkers, really developed this in the communities we worked with? What if we were able to really find a way to release ourselves and our communities from "The Way Things Are" and begin to remake the world to our own liking? Humans made things this way in the first place, why not remake them? But becoming a trickster isn't anything that can be studied or taught out of a book. It is something to be experienced through play and mischief making. When working in communities, then isn't it important to make play and mischief making a vital part of our time together? I think the quickest way to end a revolution is to make it all about work and objectives without enough time on taking care of individuals and allowing time for personal expression and development, allowing the trickster within us all to come out to play. To see around the way things are into unseen, unspoken possibilities. That is capoeira. That is Theatre of the Oppressed. That is revolution. A good joker doesn't allow herself to become ensnared like the Lion in a specific cultural code, but playfully and curiously looks at the unseen possibilities generated in a community. Hyde uses the term detachment, but I prefer unattachment. We can learn a lot from Buddhism here. Commitment without attachment to the outcome. This is essential to the joker.
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