November 16, 2006

The Antioch College multimedia production, “The Listening Project,” is a collaboration between theater professor Louise Smith and her students. The players are, from left, back row: Alexandra Kesman, Sunny Franklin, Tony Colella; front row: Haminy Silba, Zoe Julich, Amanda Calder. Performances take place Nov. 17–19 and Dec. 1 at 8 p.m. in the Antioch College Theater.

By Diane Chiddister

Antioch College theater professor Louise Smith hopes that those who attend “The Listening Project,” come away thinking about what it means to be human.

“I hope it resonates,” she said in a recent interview. “I hope they consider the act of listening more intentially. For me, it’s a plea to say, let’s remember, people are complex.”

“The Listening Project,” a multimedia production created by Smith and the six Antioch College students in her performance class, will take place this weekend, Nov. 17-19, and Dec. 1 at 8 p.m. in the Antioch College Theater.

Smith’s collaborators, who all perform in the production, are students Haminy Silba, Zoe Julich, Amanda Calder, Alexandra Kesman, Sunny Franklin and Tony Colella.

It’s no accident that the production involves Antioch College students and takes place on the Antioch campus, Smith said, because recent controversies about the campus climate have been especially divisive. Antioch College students have been cast by some in a negative light that doesn’t ring true to her experience, Smith said.

“I want people to come away from the play looking at students as deep people with struggles, people who are very thoughtful,” she said.

Campus dialogue can be harsh, Smith acknowledged, and students sometimes do act inappropriately. But she believes all members of the college community need to take responsibility for guiding young people and serving as role models.

“We criticize students for how they sometimes act, but we’re not helping them learn how to be different, how to have the skills for listening and being more respectful,” she said.

While Smith originally intended the production to specifically relate to the Antioch campus, she later decided to broaden the scope of “The Listening Project.” While the Antioch community faces its own challenges, the difficulties that arise when humans aren’t able to listen to each other can be readily seen in Yellow Springs and the world at large, she said.

And she has no problems relating to the play’s topic herself, she said.

“Listening has always been a challenge for me,” she said. “Especially in meetings, I get jazzed up, and stop really listening.”

To explore the topic of listening, Smith asked the six students in her performance class to create ways to talk about listening with other students. They used the statement “I want to listen to you talk about listening,” in a variety of ways, including inviting students to discuss listening on a campus chat board and setting up a model ear in the Student Union, at which young people were invited to talk anonymously about their feelings on the topic. Smith and her students used some of the statements they heard, with the speakers’ permission, to create their performance piece. She took the raw material and shaped it, Smith said, using a collaborative process that involved the students as well.

“I think it’s important to let the creative process happen in all of its messy glory,” she said.

This particular creative process has been especially satisfying, Smith said, and she deeply appreciates the trust and commitment she felt from the students she worked with. Antioch students can be like that, she said, willing to give themselves on a heartfelt level.

“If you get on a certain wavelength, they will go with you the whole way,” she said.

As well as pushing herself and her students to address the challenge of listening, “The Listening Project” has helped her to find a way back to her own creative process, Smith said. After having created several solo performance pieces in the past several years, she felt discouraged and unsure why she should ask people to focus on her as a performer.

“The Listening Project” has helped her to see that her performance pieces, and all theater, isn’t about focusing on oneself, but about challenging our ways of seeing the world.

“It’s not about me. It’s about making a space for people to see things differently,” she said. “On a fundamental level, theater changes our perception.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com