| Abstract | In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Theater 31.3 (2001) 127-137 [Figures] Before I begin, I invite you to join me in a stroll down memory lane. To tell the truth, I'm a little tired of going by myself. Looking back, I am simultaneously touched by the intensity of my generation's hopes and appalled at the hyperinflated idealism that fueled them. The idea that art can make society more just, equitable, and democratic is hardly an artifact of the sixties (though I admit I am). The impulse to instruct -- to take note, to rebuke, to celebrate -- was probably part of the first story ever told. But our claims for art's power to effect social transformation were among the grandest ever made, and our efforts to put them into practice were prodigious. The thing is, correcting for youthful hyperbole, I still believe most of these claims. With my own eyes, I've seen theater mobilize a community, alter the self-image of its members, peel back layers of disinformation to expose galvanizing truths. When I began work on this essay, I immediately wanted to revisit a particular moment in the history of progressive theater, one richly encrusted with both personal and political associations. I made my way to our archives to pry a pile of folders out of the drawer labeled "Minnesota." They contain materials from The Gathering, a festival and conference of socially conscious performing artists--"cultural workers," we were called -- that took place August 9-16, 1981, on the campus of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, a small town in southern Minnesota. In late 1980 Don Adams and I were directors of a coalition of artists and organizations dedicated to cultural democracy: pluralism, participation, and equity in cultural policy and cultural life. Out of the blue, theater people across the country suddenly began receiving invitations to an impressive-sounding event sponsored by a theater group called Cherry Creek, which no one had heard of before. At around the same time, Cherry Creek launched a bimonthly publication, Theaterwork, featuring coverage of progressive performance work. The phone calls began: Who were these people? Where did they get the money to bring so many companies to Minnesota? Should their invitation be accepted? We checked them out, but no evidence of Moonie or CIA taint turned up -- and a year after Ronald Reagan had taken office, few of us were inclined to ignore what seemed to be an encouraging sign of life in our movement. The Gathering was programmed to within an inch of its life. The week started off with a parade and pageant of masked figures and giant puppets (Cherry Creek's rhetoric favored rustic grandiloquence; the parade was entitled "Let the Bird of the Earth Fly!") and took its theme from the writings of Ivan Illich: "'To reconstruct society means, above all, to empower individual persons to remake it.' We will try to speak out clearly and effectively from this ancient valley about that empowerment as it is found in the rights of a free people to a name, a place, a story and a song." The five hundred participants were channeled into five "working collectives," with titles like "Performance and Collectivity: The Emergence and Transformation of Societal Structures through the Enactment of Communitas" (I was one of the leaders for that mouthful, along with Harry Boyte, George Lakey, and Max Kaplan) and "Performance and the Transformation of Historical Perspective: The Living Story" (led by Barbara Meyerhoff, Meridel LeSueur, Doug Paterson, and Tom McGrath). There were dozens of workshops, from one given by Barry Opper of the now-defunct Provisional Theatre on "Collective Management," to "Relation between Physical Disease, Healing, and Community" by Naomi Newman of A Traveling Jewish Theatre and "Singing -- An Acting Workshop" by Paul Zimet of the Talking Band. There were just as many performances, including Inching through the Everglades by the Provisional Theatre from Los Angeles, then very near the end of its life; The Last Yiddish Poet by A Traveling Jewish Theatre, then based in Los Angeles; Worksong by the Talking Band; Junkie! by At the Foot of the Mountain, a now-defunct feminist theater company in Minneapolis; If I Live to See Next Fall by...
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