Somewhere Over the Rainbow...There's the Real Bloomington
Submission Type
Event
Expected Graduation Date
2013
Location
Room C101, Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University
Start Date
4-20-2013 10:00 AM
End Date
4-20-2013 11:00 AM
Disciplines
Theatre and Performance Studies
Abstract
Bloomington has a very nostalgic, dream like feeling to it according to the common IWU student's impression, myself included. It wasn't until I became heavily involved in volunteer work thorough the Summer Enrichment Program (SEP) that I realized that Bloomington is not the affluent IWU bubble and Veterans Parkway shopping utopia that we usually have in our minds. Bloomington is a community that isn't drench in affluence, as we perceive it to be, because right east of Market St. is a majorative population of low-income, underrepresented minorities. I set out to discover what the community of Bloomington truly is at its core, what problems lie within this community where students spend four essential years of their lives, and why those problems exist.
I used a sociological qualitative and an ethnodrama research method in interviewing several members of the Bloomington community: students, faculty, not-for-profit organization leaders, and long-time residents. The result became a docudrama play in which I attempt to paint a realistic picture of the community we live in.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow...There's the Real Bloomington
Room C101, Center for Natural Sciences, Illinois Wesleyan University
Bloomington has a very nostalgic, dream like feeling to it according to the common IWU student's impression, myself included. It wasn't until I became heavily involved in volunteer work thorough the Summer Enrichment Program (SEP) that I realized that Bloomington is not the affluent IWU bubble and Veterans Parkway shopping utopia that we usually have in our minds. Bloomington is a community that isn't drench in affluence, as we perceive it to be, because right east of Market St. is a majorative population of low-income, underrepresented minorities. I set out to discover what the community of Bloomington truly is at its core, what problems lie within this community where students spend four essential years of their lives, and why those problems exist.
I used a sociological qualitative and an ethnodrama research method in interviewing several members of the Bloomington community: students, faculty, not-for-profit organization leaders, and long-time residents. The result became a docudrama play in which I attempt to paint a realistic picture of the community we live in.