In a compelling speech yesterday at the auditorium of the Juvenile Justice building, Dr. Soyini Madison challenged students to look beyond themselves by using critical and radical performances to advocate causes that gives voice to the voiceless.
Dr. Jennifer Erdely introduced Madison as the woman who “practices what she preaches.” Madison, a professor of performance studies at Northwestern University, used her own experiences doing ethnographic research in Ghana to explain how to analyze oral narratives and histories.
The Tanner Universal Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching recipient told stories about the activists she encountered in Ghana, such as a group that brought domestic violence to light through a radical street performance. Women and men dressed in wedding attire, the women bloody, bruised and bandaged while standing in front of traffic lights.
Madison explains that by analyzing narratives, the researcher is able to “evoke the ability to respond in others.”
She shared narratives of people who suffered through inhumane treatment and brought about change through performance which she believes transcends words. One example is the story of a dancer that was asked to dance for the guards as she faced death and used the distraction of her performance to shoot her captors.
Faced with an array of similar unspoken tales Madison published works, such as her books, “Acts of Activism: Human Rights as Radical Performance” and “Critical Ethnography: Methods, Ethics, and Performance Studies” to bring awareness to her causes.
Madison believes “we are trapped in history, and history is trapped in us” and that by sharing often overlooked moments new realities are created.
“If we limit everything to the knowledge that we have, we limit everything to the knowledge that we have,” she said.
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