One Clap Speech and Debate

Camp One Clap 2, Episode 10: Izzy Garcia's Activist's Guide to the Clapocalypse, Part 2 - Performing Advocacy

• Lyle Wiley / Izzy Garcia • Season 6 • Episode 10

Share episode

Send us a text

6:10 - Camp One Clap 2024: Day 10

For notes and details about the episode, check out the website here:
https://www.oneclapspeechanddebate.com/post/camp-one-clap-2-episode-10-izzy-garcia-s-activist-s-guide-to-the-clapocalypse-part-2-performing

Can impactful storytelling also be ethical when it involves reliving trauma? Coach Izzy Garcia explores this crucial dilemma in Part Two of the Activist's Guide to the Clapocalypse: Performing Advocacy. Izzy presents a nuanced discussion on the potential harms and benefits of performing traumatic pieces in speech and debate. Through personal anecdotes and expert insights, we confront the pitfalls of shock-value performances and emphasize the importance of authentic representation and self-care for performers. Finding a balance in advocacy is never easy, but it's vital. Izzy emphasizes the need to tell heartfelt stories and acknowledge the positives amidst the negatives.

If you’d like to join the discussion here at One Clap Speech and Debate, shoot me an email at lylewiley@gmail.com or reach out here on the website.

You could also contact me on social media:
Facebook: @oneclappodcast
Instagram: @one_clap_podcast
TikTok: @oneclapspeechanddebate
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCyvpV56859lLA-X-EvHVYUg 

Your voice matters!

Get your cool One Clap Speech and Debate merchandise here (now featuring hats!): https://www.bonfire.com/store/one-clap-speech-and-debate/

Lyle Wiley:

Hey campers, don't worry, it's only the Clapocalypse. After a little day off from napping yesterday, we're high-stepping into day 10 of Camp One Clap. Izzy Garcia is back with part two of his activist guide to the Clapocalypse. I'm your camp director and host of the One Clap Speech and Debate podcast, lyle Wiley. I hope that this year's camp will usher in the best forensic season ever. Quick reminder check the One Clap socials for today's social media challenge. I sure have had fun seeing all the engagement from everyone out there.

Lyle Wiley:

Today Coach Izzy Garcia is back with his series for camp. Just in case you missed it last week, let's learn a little bit more about Izzy Cheyenne. South assistant coach Izzy Garcia cares about delivering the best Camp One Clap experience and providing perspective and thoughts about advocacy and speech and debate. National qualifier in original oratory, performer in duo drama, poi and poetry, and newly turned coach, izzy is determined to not only keep you safe in original oratory, performer in duo drama, poi and poetry and newly turned coach, izzy is determined to not only keep you safe in the clapocalypse, but wants to ignite thinking in the masses about all things speech and debate. Advocacy, education and advocacy in the world of speech and debate is paramount and Izzy is here to help. It's time for Izzy's Activist's Guide to the Clapocalypse. Part Two Performing Advocacy.

Izzy Garcia:

Hello and welcome to the second episode for Izzy's Activist's Guide to the Clapocalypse, part 2, performing Advocacy tournament. During the National Drama Final Round, we were graced with a wonderful performance called Dreamland. In this drama we saw a talented performer act out a person who went through the burning of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, oklahoma. Her performance was so genuine and heartbreaking and taught me a piece of history that I wasn't fully aware of. Performing stories like this is essential to speech and debate. For Interp, this is the backbone of a good performance telling a heartbreaking story with a message behind it. But I want to take this conversation a bit further. Before I continue, I want to start with a bit of an observation. Talking about advocacy and performance is a double-edged sword. We should be telling stories that talk about certain subjects, because it's the only way those stories get told. However, when does it go too far? Solomé Scamoroni, in her oratory speech at this year's Nationals, conducted her own personal research about the traumas we perform in speech and debate and the performer's attitude towards them. In her study she found that 61% of performers feel as if they were required to perform traumatic pieces in interpretation. She later explains that this requirement of traumatic performance harms advocacy and the judgment of said performance acts as allyship, harming the activist, the advocacy and the situation that has occurred. It harms the advocate because it places them in a position of having to relive trauma for judgment. Essentially, whose pain is more worthy of reward. It harms the message because it commodifies it and eliminates the authenticity behind it and the source the actual traumatic event, is left as a vehicle for someone who didn't experience the trauma. Now, that was intense and this breakdown of performing intense stories isn't always the case. More times than not, when people perform these stories, it comes from a place of personal experience. Take 2022 Poi National Champion Jade Ismail on her personal experience during Poi. She performed a topic on trans identity and found success and peace in her performance, leading her to the national championship. Performing these messages and the ethics around all of this is very intense and shaky.

Izzy Garcia:

I cannot touch every corner of the conversation, but what we can do is talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. I'm going to rip the band-aid off and talk about the bad and ugly culture when it comes to performing certain stories. To limit the scope here, I want to talk about my personal experiences with what I believe is a bad use of advocacy in performance. What I don't want to do is point fingers and say this interpretation is bad just because it's a traumatic story. I have personally seen performances in both high school and college that were used for shock value. This is what I want to talk about and nothing more.

Izzy Garcia:

The first time I saw what I call a shock value piece was during my first year of speech and debate, watching a performance of A Child Called it. If you're not aware of the material, a Child Called it is a story of a child who goes through some pretty intense abuse. There are many graphic scenes and it's a very tough read. Intense abuse there are many graphic scenes and it's a very tough read. In my first year in Speech and Debate and watching this performer's interpretation of the piece was nothing short of traumatic. Some of the worst scenes were performed and after there was an uncomfortable air in the room. A lot of people praised that performance for its shock value, but in conversations with this performer I saw that this person was pretty unaware of how shocking the performance was. At some point they told me that the performance was autopilot. At that point it was second nature that they celebrated the fact that it was autopilot because it helped them with the performance. The issue with the concept of autopilot during a performance this traumatic is we fully detach ourselves from the message that we're trying to convey. While I do agree some elements of performance should be second nature, running on autopilot for such an intense performance is not good for anyone who watches or experiences this performance.

Izzy Garcia:

Another performance that sticks out to me was one of mine During my senior year. I was in a duo performance of the Other Room by Airden Blaine. This play was about a student who was on the spectrum of autism and had a potential love interest that met him during his usual studies autism and had a potential love interest that met him during his usual studies. The entire play was really well written and had a great story, but in hindsight I felt uncomfortable playing the role of Austin. I'm not on the spectrum of autism, nor do I believe I had the agency talking about the subject.

Izzy Garcia:

This was a piece that was suggested by my coach after a host of misses that me and my duo partner were facing. It was at the point of the season where we really wanted to take things seriously, With the clock running out for us to have a great start of the season. We took this suggestion from our coach and it led us to some pretty successful performances. It was only after the smoke had cleared did I realize how uncomfortable that whole situation made me. For the longest time, even including this year, I tried to shy away from the conversation around that piece. I was too ashamed to talk about it, because I have a completely different mindset about performance now than I did back in the day. I guess that's why I'm talking about this now, Not only to get rid of the shame for me, but to give you guys a very important lesson.

Izzy Garcia:

There is a right way to do a shocking piece Nowadays. I think if you're performing a very shocking piece, there should be something in your intro that alludes to it, whether it's a very direct trigger warning or just an explanation of the story. At the end of the day it is personal how you want to deliver that message. Just a piece of advice, I guess If you plan on doing a shocking piece, please make sure that your head and your heart are in the right place for it. I can understand that we want to tell the most dramatic stories, to set ourselves apart from the rest of the world. But if you're performing the piece for strictly shock value, it detracts from the person's story and experience. You are essentially using that person as a platform for your success. This is why I ask, as a coach why are you doing this piece? If you ask yourself the same question and reach a wall on the reasoning why, I would refrain on using that piece. There is a real situation where you could perform the piece for shock and win and be very successful. But I would argue that if you find the right piece that you want to talk about and perform it well, you'll have a better time with the entire performance.

Izzy Garcia:

Dramatic performances in speech and debate are one of the most emotionally taxing forms of interpretation. To perform a dramatic piece over and over again for months at a time with little to no breaks, it takes something out of you after a while. Take it from me. I have performed some really intense pieces that have stuck with me to this day. I do tend to be a bit dramatic, but the impact of what we perform does take a toll on us and the audience we perform into. If we're going to put ourselves and others under so much pressure, we have to do our part and make sure that we're telling stories for the right reasons and that the stories that we are telling are something that we can stomach for the entire season. I think, as speech and debate is so competitive and requires so much from us, we lose a lot of what we should be talking about, and how we perform makes lasting impressions in the entire circuit. One final point before we move on here is a concept that I've seen more and more around the circuit and I want to give my two cents on. I understand, especially in the Wyoming circuit, that there's a lack of representation in so many minority groups. However, what doesn't help representation is if we choose to throw performances onto performers because they fit a certain identity.

Izzy Garcia:

When I was competing in high school, the one type of piece that I wanted to stick away from was a gay piece. I wanted to perform pieces that told more of a story than just one part of my identity. I wanted to perform stories that I wanted to tell, stories that fit my experience. My entire speech and debate career in high school was a bit shaky. I came from a school that is fairly young and that was trying to establish their own foundations in the world of speech and debate. Sometimes corners were cut. When I qualified for nationals, I was entered in two supplemental events prose and poetry. I already had a poetry program, so that was no problem. However, the prose that I was given was a story about someone who was dealing with their own struggles of being gay. I protested so hard against this piece to no avail. I ended up going to those prose rounds reading from a script and nearly running out of the room out of embarrassment because it was something I didn't want to perform. But according to the person who gave it to me, it would be a good representation and it would work for me because I'm gay.

Izzy Garcia:

Tokenism usually ignores the stories that want to be told by the performer, commodifies actual stories and representation and does nothing for the nuance and advocacy of the story. There was something pretty profound that was said by another one of my creative friends when it comes to this topic, as we were brainstorming this episode. He said Reducing someone to their one singular traumatic experience reduces that person to the people who help performers gather script or want to help their performers be the most successful. Don't fill a quota, don't push a story just because it fits a person's identity, or they can promote some quote-unquote good representation. We should stick away from using marginalized communities for just their experiences in that community, we reduce them to that experience. These performers have so much more that they could talk about rather than their identity.

Izzy Garcia:

I hate having to talk about these parts of speech and debate sometimes. I have devoted nine years of my life to this program and I believe all of the good that comes from this. I truly do believe that speech and debate gives young people so many valuable skills that they can take into their careers and into their lives. However, it is necessary that we talk about this so we can prevent this space becoming something we don't want to see. I want to talk about the national champion of dramatic interp in 2023, kylan Williams. Kylan Williams performed a piece called Miseducated, a piece about a Black educator and how society and the people around him believed that he could be nothing more than the stereotypes that plagued his community. There was a moment in the intro where Williams dedicated that performance to his coach, to the one person that believed in him that he could be as successful as anyone else. It was a touching and powerful moment. After that dedication and powerful performance, he went and took the whole round and stood as the national champion. That night was filled with a lot of tears.

Izzy Garcia:

When I was in college, I had the amazing opportunity to tell a very personal story in prose, far different from my first experience. I performed a podcast episode called Brown Bad Boy. In the podcast, two Latin men were discussing the struggles of identity as Latino. A lot of representation that they saw in media was bad boys, people on television who had this bravado that was unmatched. But still, even though they had some representation, the pieces of the puzzle never fit right. I never related to a piece more in my life For years. Growing up in a place that has little diversity, I was always confused on where I fit in and where the people that looked like me were. There is a recorded version of this performance that exists out there. When I look back on it, it was one of the times on this platform that I felt that I was speaking about what I wanted to and could potentially help others who were feeling the same.

Izzy Garcia:

In speech and debate, we perform advocacy in ways that could help and harm certain communities. It is our responsibility to be on the right side of that spectrum. When we tell stories that are true to us. Not only will we find success, but we heal some wounds in our society that only few can heal. There is good here. There are a lot of really good memories and stories and good representation.

Izzy Garcia:

Not all of this conversation I want to focus on should be about the bad. We should be reminded that sometimes in the good there is some bad. Remember always tell stories from your heart, tell them because they mean something to you, and remember that throughout all the trauma that we see in speech and debate, there is so much good that exists. Ugh Okay, another week of heavy conversation and a real heart-to-heart. There's so much good that exists. Ugh Okay, another week of heavy conversation and a real heart-to-heart. Thank you for tuning in to the second episode of Izzy's Activist Guide to the Clapocalypse, where I not only teach you how to be a good performer, but a good person as well, and do something nice for yourself today. You've earned it. Remember that your refrigerator is running and you should probably go catch it and, as always, stay awesome.

Lyle Wiley:

Thank you so much to Izzy for more of his thoughts on advocacy and speech and debate. Izzy will be back next week at camp. What's going on in the clapocalypse tomorrow? Well, bailey Patterson and Marcus Viney are back with part one of their two-part series, chronicles from the Crypt. You're not going to want to miss that. Remember to check the social media challenges on our socials every day of camp and we'll see you tomorrow, campers. Oh golly, though. I'm so tired of my neighbor's horse talking about the apocalypse. He keeps saying that the end of the world is nay For Camp One Clap. This is Camp Director Wiley signing off.