Funeral for D.A.D. - thanks, Birdie!

At the Performing Arts Exchange here in Nashville, connected with Lisa Mount (Sautee Nacoochee, Alternate ROOTS, Home for Wayward Girls and their Dogs, oh so many connections) She shared that the newly birthing SNAP (Sautee Nacoochee Arts for the People) lead artist, Birdie James (a twenty-something), has come up with the idea for their first production.  "Funeral for D.A.D (Death of the American Dream)" - Birdie says the American Dream is dead and it needs a proper funeral so we can all move on. Love it!  She is planning on working with her artists to create this funeral, Southern Style - which means plenty of music, storytelling and food.

I immediately wanted to bring the idea to Ensemble/ACTivators at Grinnell - but reflected.  Perhaps the notion of the American Dream  is a lived experience post-graduation?   When you are still in college, what is your relationship to the notion of The American Dream?  Is it a tangible yet?  Is it what your parents are sending you to school on (their American Dream)?  Or maybe your parent(s) were let down by the "American Dream" and your being at school is in a different relationship to that dream?

Certainly I went to school because my parents were living the "American Dream" and could afford to send me. That I dropped out is another part of the story.  I immediately began to shape my own life – which at the time if you had asked me if it was my “Dream” I would have been puzzled.  I was living in the moment, with the enthusiasm and commitment that anything was possible. 

What is the American Dream, after all?  Essay from Library of Congress:
"James Truslow Adams, in his book The Epic of America, which was written in 1931, stated that the American dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." (p.214-215)"
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/lessons/american-dream/students/thedream.html

Begs the question: What is your American Dream?  A little searching about "American Dream" and I look at the slippery place where "American" falls out and it becomes about "dream"?  Does America somehow promise a dream differently than other countries?  Why? When?  Is there a French dream?  A Somalian dream?  Why an American dream? Why has this term become a certain metaphor? And (as in the LOC essay quoted above) has it morphed from an idea about equity and access to one about material wealth?

What is your American Dream? Is the American Dream dead?
Some responses from interviews from a July 2012 Frontline story
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-financial-crisis/two-american-families/what-does-the-american-dream-mean-to-you/

And when I put in "Dance American Dream", I came across this story:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/community/2012/06/11/our-american-dream-lombard-twins-400-dollars-and-dancing-destiny/

Google image search for "American Dream" images this classic came up:

Is below the 2013 equivalent -  the image that comes up on the Netflix page?

I guess this is supposed to represent a family living their "American Dream".  

I am a bit obsessed with this picture.  It goes through subtle changes every month or so and I keep tracking them.  But it remains a fact that:

  There is no art on the walls, no family photographs, no books, no plants, no flowers, no view outside the window, no pets……It is absolutely NOT the place I want to call "home".  

This is more of my dream about the family hanging together: 

What do I dream about, in terms of how I want to be living my life? 

To be in a creative environment with others.

To have a life alive with meaningful interaction with others, a life that matters, that is inspiring, that is a reason to get up every day. 

I would like to make enough money that that could be a stable reality. 

I keep getting tangled up in the “American Dream” and “money”, and “American Dream” as the right to“life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.  “Pursuit” being the active word. 

 I wonder if we all shared photo images of our "American Dream"? (Or lose the word "American" in front and just say "Dream"); Maybe we could do it Pecha Kucha style.

What is the life we want to (or are) living and we have worked/are working for?  

I think about privilege - the privilege I have.  My daughter, after a complaining session about what we don't/can't have, always ends with a sigh and notes that we do have a safe and sheltered place to live, we have food on the table, we are clothed - and we have more than that as well. 

In the Dance, Human Rights, Social Justice course that I am teaching right now, the text (by the same name) uses the International Declaration of Human Rights as a foundation for much of the writings.  I think that maybe my take on the “American Dream” (again, trouble with the “American”) is that I feel that we all should be able to have those rights, myself included.  My dream for how I want to live is tied to that I want others to also have access to those rights. That we may all pursue meaningful lives, working with one another to live in peace and generosity.

My larger family, Alternate ROOTS

And even though I am the"prodigal child", absent for a very long time, I know when I get back, I will find family again....

Peace and generosity. People just wanting to make art=life, life=art together and share those processes with those around them.