HASTAC 2023 Conference

Can we build communities through Play? In my performance proposal for HASTAC, Critical Making and Social Justice, I want to answer this question through engaging in play with the audience. I have created a trivia style game that wants to test your social, cultural, and emotional knowledge. By questioning “What day did Beyonce turn Black? Can you walk like an Egyptian? Would Bill and Hilary Clinton be invited to the cookout?” It also wants to know “do you know the age of mortality for Black Trans women?” It’s not just about Black culture or pop culture, It’s about American culture and how we all fit into it.

Through coded cultural language, it activates nostalgia for some. While activating obscurity for others. It asks players to be okay with not knowing an answer, and to feel even more comfortable engaging in dialogue to ask for the answer. That’s the functionality of a community. We create our own communities based on what we share and how we care for one another. My Game asks players to show their care through play, (verbal discussion) dance (intellectual conversation with one’s body) and investigation (openness to learning).

As a part of my performance for HASTAC, I plan to engage participants in a participatory performance trivia style game. The game is simulaccrum of a trivia night. The audience orginically creates small teams and within that team they discuss their ideas on possible answers to my questions. There are six questions per round, and I plan to present 3 rounds, with a physical bonus question at the end of each round.The game includes; true or false, fill in the blank, and identification questions, along with bonus questions that include movement in some form. The game concludes with a facilitated reflection on the questions and conversations that arose during the trivia game.