Most students do not actively engage themselves into the political environment around them, but senior Ben Levine has found that he loves to show his opinions there. Levine is participating in two independent studies this year relating to the topic of Marxism and sociopolitical structures.
“It’s great he’s so interested,” senior Dana Megargle said. “He’s really into the literature.”
His unique ideas are far from things the average high schooler concerns themselves with. Levine is interested in Marxism, what most consider to be a controversial idea. He started learning about it in depth about a year ago from discussions held on the online forum Tumblr and taking American Government and Comparative Politics.
“Involvement in social science classes helped me become aware of social and political constructs and what they mean,” Levine said.
With this interest and desire to make others challenge what they would not normally consider questioning, Levine set out to do two particular independent studies. The first is one he is currently doing, one with theater teacher Nicole Voss on Epic Theater.
“Epic theater is, in general, a movement that with emphasis on the conscious, active sociopolitical content of drama,” Levine said. “It’s like Marxism put into art, I chose studying the theory to get an understanding of how important theory is.”
This study is not just for him, though. Levine also seeks to have the student body challenge what they want to, trying to gain a more perceptive and active youth.
“I want to get teens to develop a consciousness of freedom,” Levine said.
To do this Levine is studying theories and applying them to two different performances. One is classical monologues and seeing how different theory influences his style in those, but the other is less heard of. To get the student body involved, Levine is implementing invisible theater, a style of theater where the audience is unaware of actors being there. The actors perform a realistic situation that uses the reaction of the audience as social or political commentary.
To study further theories about these subjects, Levine hopes to do an English independent study next semester. Not wanting to do another unit of drama-based curriculum, he is still deciding where exactly he wants his focus next semester to lie.
“Ben is the type of student who thinks outside of the box,” Voss said. “He needs something that challenges him but lets him be creative and bring out his individuality, and epic theater does just that.”
