[Scpg] Summer Session: June 1-30, 2004 desire & design Hillsboro, West Virginia

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

Summer Session: June 1-30, 2004 desire & design at the Gesundheit! 
Institute  Hillsboro, West Virginia
Composition, cybernetics, clowning and permaculture*



The School for Designing a Society, in its eleventh year, is a project of 
teachers, performers, poets, and activists. It is an ongoing experiment in 
making temporary living environments where the question "What would I 
consider a desirable society?" is given serious playful thinking 
discussion, and taken as input to creative projects.

Rather than orienting participants to find a comfy spot in the current 
social system, the School offers time, ambiance, tools, and company in 
which people can imagine and design a system they would prefer.

Based in Urbana, Illinois, The School For Designing A Society will travel 
this summer to the hills of West Virginia and rest at the Gesundheit! 
Institute. The Gesundheit! Institute is the dream of a growing number of 
people, an experiment in holistic health care based on the idea that one 
cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the family, 
the community and the world. The Gesundheit! Institute's land in West 
Virginia is the future construction site for a free, silly hospital 
incorporating all the healing arts to address the major problems in health 
care delivery and provide a model of joyful service to the world. Situated 
on 310 acres in rural West Virginia — with two waterfalls, a four acre 
pond, extensive gardens and orchards, and several unique buildings — we 
will use the land itself as a teaching tool as well as establishing 
connections between the Gesundheit! project and a desiring and designing 
society.
Participants will explore the question,
"what would I consider a desirable society?"

In addition to asking participants to formulate and consult their desires, 
the classes and projects in the school will make use of conceptual tools 
from the areas of critical theory, cybernetics, political economy, 
feminism, epic theater, theater of the oppressed, radical pedagogy, media 
critique, community organizing, permaculture, and collaborative composition.
Why design?

Criticisms of the problems of the present society are often met with 
justifications. Once these justifications fail, many a conversation of 
hopeful intention is stopped with the (final) statement:
"The present organization of society is the best we have."

or the question:
"Do you have a better idea?"

This is a moment of possibility and not one to be left speechless. Indeed, 
many a time, the respondent finds herself sputtering, filled with a spirit 
of rebellion which unfortunately gets watered down to the mere language of 
complaint. Having had the time and opportunity to create — in conjunction 
with others of diverse experiences — detailed maps, dreams, plans, scripts, 
scores, videos, and blueprints of her desirable society, we imagine the 
situation could go differently. Imagine an atmosphere of audacity: She's 
asked the question: "Do you have a better idea?" Everyone taking a 
coffeebreak looks at her or their shoes. She looks the interlocutor in the 
eye and reaches into her purse? knapsack? briefcase? kitchen drawer? for a 
booklet of proposals, slaps it on the table scattering cigarette butts, and 
answers:
"Here, read this—this will give you an idea of what I want."
Teachers and guest presenters

Mark Enslin
Composer; actor; bassoonist; has worked with composition students in 
Brazil; taught such classes as "Music and Protest" and "The Art of Acting 
as Audience" at the University of Illinois; cofounder of the Performers' 
Workshop Ensemble.

Susan Parenti
Composer; playwright; poet; has written and lectured extensively on 
composition and feminism; has taught courses on creativity in activism, 
"Protesting the Forms of Protest;" present interests: creating a feminist 
composition curriculum, cybernetic theory, the politics of managed health 
care, the politics of vocal timbres. Has published a book of plays, The 
Politics of the Adjective Political and a book of poems I and My Mouth and 
Their Irresistible Life In Language. Has been performing partner with Patch 
Adams for 10 years.

Rob Scott
Designer; connosieur of pedagogies and problems; interlocutor; performing 
artist; organizer. Rob has taught classes on Permaculture, Cybernetics and 
Language. He is the founder of the Urbana Permaculture Project, a 
decentralized multi-site community gardening experiment in Urbana, IL: 
www.prairienet.org/upp

Andrew Faust
Currently the Permaculture Designer and Bioregional Educator at the 
Gesundheit! Institute. Faust is also a certified Alternative School 
Teacher, having instructed at Upattinas Open Community High School for ten 
years, where he developed the Center for Bioregional Living. He has been 
developing the land at the Gesundheit! Institute to provide abundance and 
to teach those who come, how to provide abundance for themselves.

Jeff Glassman
Experiments performing counter-intuitive structures in theatre solos and 
with ensembles. He tours, teaches and collaborates, starting thirty years 
ago as co-founder of the United Mime Workers, an experimental and political 
movement-theatre company. He since worked with the Performers' Workshop 
Ensemble and now collaborates with Lisa Fay. A recipient of NEA and state 
awards, he has taught social issues theatre at the University of Illinois 
and was a recent visiting faculty at The Evergreen State College. The task: 
to design performance techniques for untried relationships between action, 
gesture, and speech performable by individuals and groups, as the basis for 
theatre composition appropriate to a hypothetical new society.

*And for one week we will be joined by Patch Adams and Judy Wicks:

Patch Adams
Doctor; clown; traveling lecturer; instigator of the Gesundheit! Institute, 
a large scale project to build a free, silly hospital in rural West 
Virginia and transform the present society's understanding of health 
care-an irrepressible wanter.

Judy Wicks
Founder and CEO of Philadelphia's 20 year old White Dog Café, is a national 
leader in the local, living economies movement. She is cofounder and 
co-chair of both the national Business Alliance for Local Living Economies 
(BALLE), and the local Sustainable Business Network of Greater 
Philadelphia. She is also president of the White Dog Cafe Foundation, 
dedicated to building local living economies by making small grants and 
running programs to support local family farmers and independent 
community-based businesses.

For more on the School for Designing A Society go to www.designingsociety.com

For more on the Gesundheit! Institute go to www.patchadams.org/home.htm
Application

All interested people, ages 18+, are encouraged to apply. Tuition is $1,000 
for the month. The money will go towards the cost of food (which is 
prepared collectively), housing, and compensation for the teachers.
Application Deadline: April 15
Name:		
Address:		
Phone:		
Email:		
Age:		
How did you hear about us?		
Submit	

If you have any questions call or email Andy: (304) 653-4338, 
android at patchadams.org