This election day, join a professional development seminar for high school teachers, part of the New Museum’s Fall 2016 R&D Season: DEMOCRACY. This Season reflects on the potential redemption of a government “by the people for the people,” in a moment when the urgency to build consensus may require the compromise of certain revolutionary principles.

Educators will learn about My Barbarian, this Season’s artists-in-residence, who return to the museum after eight years of touring to present the culmination of their Post-Living Ante-Action Theater (PoLAAT), a performative investigation employing tools borrow from radical theater. The title of their exhibition and residency, “The Audience is Always Right,” takes on a critical and ironic undertone in this dangerous moment when politics are more hyperbolic and spectacle-driven than ever before. The PoLAAT responds to historic theatrical models that attempted to create social change, such as Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, which was inspired by radical pedagogy. The PoLAAT occupies a space between memory and rehearsal, joke and laugh, and commentary and critique. It is the theater that happens after an experience but before action is taken. It is a rehearsal.

Morning Session
Free
9:30 AM: Registration
10–11:30 AM: Artist talk
Artist Alexandro Segade of the collective My Barbarian will lead a talk and discussion with images and video illustrating how the group uses performance to theatricalize past and present problems and imagine ways of being together.

Afternoon Session
$5, payable on the day of the workshop
1–3 PM: Performance workshop
In this intimate workshop, educators will participate in performance exercises from My Barbarian’s PoLAAT manual, which is composed of five techniques: Estrangement, Indistinction, Suspension of Beliefs, Mandate to Participate, and Inspirational Critique.

The New Museum welcomes educators of all disciplines, but this program is geared toward high school teachers. Reservations are honored on a first-come, first-served basis. Workshop space is limited.