Election Theater class brings politics to center stage

Echoing the classic scene from “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” more than 10 students break into carefree dances like ballroom and the Bernie, their moves as different as their preferred studies and places of origin. But minutes into the impromptu performance, the dance comes to a halt and the students reveal why they actually gathered: politics.

“I’m here because I don’t vote, and I’m afraid to tell people I don’t vote,” said Skye Serijan, a fourth-year world arts and cultures and religious studies student.

As part of the month-long class Election Theater, Serijan and a handful of other students were tasked with examining the current political race. Afterward, they formed a theatrical play around the topic in just under a week, the initial dance being a demonstration of the varying opinions and backgrounds present in the group. Tonight, and for the next two weeks, the class will perform its piece in the residence halls in hopes of starting a discussion about how college students can get involved in politics.

UCLA’s Election Theater was developed out of the Re-Generation Initiative, a 2011 startup group that similarly challenges audiences to discuss pressing national issues, the main topic being politics.

Dr. Debra Vidali, an anthropology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Re-Generation Initiative’s founder and an organizer for Election Theater, said the engaging visuals of Election Theater will probably attract more students and raise their interests.

“It’s mainly a form of civic theater,” Vidali said. “It’s really a chance to voice difficult issues and get voices out there, and sort of debunk this idea that young people are apathetic or that they’re all going out to save the world. There’s everything in between.”

While Vidali provided a few general ideas as structure for the project, it was really the students in the class who created the generative theater performance, a form of theater in which the ensemble develops the material.

After meeting for the first time to watch the first presidential debate earlier this month, the students pulled from their own personal political experiences along with what they viewed during the debates to create each scene of the 15-minute performance.

“Everybody bounced ideas off of each other and … it was super collaborative,” Serijan said. “It was a really cool new experience (and it was) the result of a lot of people’s work and input.”

Other than the initial dance piece, the students will reflect on pundits, the complexity of propositions and will even host a short debate, all while informing the audience through song and dance of the current issues in this year’s election. Afterward, audience members are invited to talk about any part of the performance that caught their interest.

Remembering her own college experience, Jenna Delgado, Election Theater’s teaching assistant, said she wished she had had access to a similar performance years ago since politics have still remained an avoided point of conversation.

“I know that when I was in this college-age demographic most of my peers were not interested in voting and it’s something that I hear remains true through the last couple of generations,” Delgado said.

And while it’s the theatrical play that gets students involved, it’s the discussion portion that determines the project’s true success, said Bobby Gordon, director of special projects for the UCLA Art & Global Health Center and one of Election Theater’s organizers. Gordon said he thinks theater is the perfect medium to garner the intended effect.

“Theater asks more questions than it answers,” Gordon said. “It’s an opportunity to create art that sparks dialogue and make the UCLA campus think about the election and really think about the issues that are far more complex than just Democrat or Republican, but are as unique as every single person that’s in the conversation.”