Last week’s PPPPPPurim 2018: Prophetic Post-Patriarchy Purim Performance Party at the House of Yes was a powerful night of patriarchy smushing, narrative flipping, boundary pushing, and radical ritual reinventing.
Check out the ELECTRIC PHOTOS from Alexandra Levin Photography (vid coming soon!) + The Forward’s hilarious REVIEW (our favorite lines “Lab/Shul employees and random attendees are friendly to the point of seeming Midwestern.”) + artist Shoshanah Tarkow’s inspiring reflections on her Digital Happening: #ImaginePostPatriarchy
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John Lennon once said, “A dream you dream alone is just a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality.” Last Wednesday, the LabShul community joined together with REBOOT, and House of Yes to do just that—to imagine a world post-patriarchy. I was honored to be asked to stage my Digital Happening project as part of the Prophetic Post-Patriarchy Purim Performance Party. The Digital Happening project was conceptualized in 2016 as an interactive online experience which uses social media to expand the performance art Happenings of the 60’s beyond Greenwich Village to the larger global village.
For the PPPPPPurim Digital Happening, participants and attendees were asked to “imagine a world post-patriarchy”, then post about it on social media. The response was a beautiful combination of poetry and prose, pictures from the event and imaginative imagery, hopeful prayers and planned courses of action. During the course of the evening I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with a number of attendees; I found these exchanges incredibly thought provoking. One particular encounter stands out in my mind: two men in masquerade masks approached the area where I was stationed looking for somewhere to sit:
“Are you here to participate in the Digital Happening?!” I asked them, knowing full-well they just wanted to sit-down, “have a seat and let me tell you about it!” I explained the project to them and suggested we brainstorm together and come up with a response to post online.
“So,” I said, “let’s imagine a world post-patriarchy. What would it look like? What would it smell, sound, and taste like? How would it be similar to our world, and how would it be different? How would your day-to-day life change: conversations, entertainment, government? I know it’s a lot to think about, but it’s important to imagine it in both the abstract and the concrete; otherwise, how will we know when we’ve gotten there?”
The older gentleman responded almost immediately, “Well, it would be cleaner.”
“Cleaner?!?” chuckled the younger of the two.
“Yeah, cleaner!” responded the older, “It would be cleaner, safer, less violent, more organized…”.
“But wait, aren’t all these things based on our gender stereotypes?” asked the younger one. A brief moment passed before anyone spoke—a small caesura in time, overfull with questions. The younger man continued, “…it’s actually hard to tell.”
In the days that followed I thought more and more about my conversation with these two men; it’s not often you share such a thoughtful, self-reflective, and “real” moment with two strangers. I think about what “a world post-patriarchy” means to me on a personal level. In my opinion, this kind of honest and earnest dialogue would be commonplace in a world post-patriarchy–difference would be mediated through respectful discourse.
While we definitely aren’t “there” yet, last Wednesday night we got to be visitors in this world; for a brief time we imagined into reality a world of post-patriarchal possibilities. We need to now perform what we prophesized on a daily basis. We need to perform post-patriarchy into action through open dialogue, discussion, debate, and discourse. We need to keep talking–and, we need to listen. I believe John Lennon was right, there can be a prophetic power in dreaming together. Thank you for dreaming post-patriarchy with me.
