Chicago Tribune: American Theater Company has hired a new artistic director — Will Davis, a 33-year-old, New York-based director and choreographer who will now become one of the very few transgender creative leaders of significant American arts institutions.
2 comments:
Have you ever met or heard of someone who is so amazing that you just stop and have to wonder how they are even real? People who use their lives to the fullest, travel and achieve heights that you can't imagine reaching yourself? Quite frankly, Will Davis stuck me as one of these people. So I did a tad bit of research on him. Curiously enough, he does not list the fact that he is trans on his website (wmjdavis.com). The article takes great care to state this little "fun fact". I believe the information is even included in the sub-description on the green page.
This isn't a cause for concern, I'm sure that Will Davis is fine with this information being published. This just brought up a few questions for me, that all. Why is it that when someone in a minority or oppressed population does something significant, the first thing that gets mentioned is the fact that they are different? "Female director wins award", or, just last week, "First Hijabi Ballarina". Yes, people in these groups face much more difficulty than others. Privilege is a thing, and I'm not trying to argue that their efforts are not heroic in overcoming many more obstacles than someone with privilege would face. It just seems strange to me that that is the first thing we see about a person. It sounds like we're saying that they shouldn't be able to do this, that we don't expect as much out of them. But in reality, people of every class, race, religion, and gender are capable of amazing things. Nothing will change soon, but wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where what group you identify with is not the most important thing about you? We'd have a new artistic director at an important theater who is 33 (not that much older than us), has an amazing portfolio, and is stretching the world of theater. But for the time being, since we do not live in a world where all people are equal, we should acknowledge that in the race of life, Will Davis won after getting a late start and hurtles to jump over.
After reading both this article and Lauren's comment above, I had a brilliant idea. Now that the zeitgeist seems to be pushing all things ironically social media related, I have come up with my response to this article in a a medium a tad different, and perhaps very new to this illustrious blog: hashtag. Are you ready, world? If you're till flipping the fuckuggets out over the fact that *gasp* trans people are also very talented and capable, despite, you know, the trans thing, (let's just gloss over the actual problem of cis privilege and heteronormativity while we're at it, why don't we?) are you, dear world, ready for my beautiful, succinct, and oh-so-trendy summary of the events that have transpired both through the reading of my reading of this article and my reading of Lauren's comment? Well, get ready.
#aboutdamntime
#abigdealbutnotforthereasonsyoureallywantittobeabout
#thetheaterworldmovesonlyslightlyfasterthanopera
#butnowwehere
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