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Day 1 - September 9th - Organisational Theatre Exploratorium
The buildings feel institutionalised. Our rehearsal room is large but bare - not a single picture on the wall, though, of course, a picture-postcard view out of the window. But too many plain rooms, a corporate feel, a sense that the creativity is what goes on between the people, inspired by the surroundings, and feeling of feet planted on Blackfoot land - a creativity achieved in spite of, but not because of the buildings.
Two and a half days and four actors - Jane, Lief, Morgan and Maria - go with the flow, and that makes a strong and moving performance possible in the Margaret Greenham theatre. I end the day, feeling happy and tearful that the play worked so well. I am also left wanting to know more about deep listening and wondering if the deep listening of the aborigines is similar to the deep listening in Goethean conversation, and in the moral technique of Bernard Lievegoed. I loved their concert but wished for more on how deep listening is used in organisational theatre. I saw an elk, a coyote, a squirrel and a leadership guru, all in their natural habitat. Banff.
Back to Death by PowerPoint...
Holding up a mirror is an act, not without consequence. To hold a mirror before someone is an act that facilitates reflection, should a person choose to look. The holder of the mirror must never insert images into the mirror that are not already there. The reflection must be true. The mirror may be true and clear, though it may be roughly made and offer back only a distorted image. It makes use of New Naturalism.
In a theatre, there is a certain pressure to remain in one's seat until the end of the performance; there is a sense of being captive in one's chair. When a mirror is suddenly placed before one, one could look away, but the pressure it to look into it - a peer pressure, a pressure of convention, an unspoken agreement that the stage is what one is here to look at.
Yet most people do not expect to look into a mirror on the stage, nor see it as part of any unspoken agreement. On the contrary, they expect to look through a transparent glass pane, stage-sized, a window onto the performance. The looking is to be one way, the looker detached, non-involved, certainly not part of any image to be seen on the stage. If they chose to reach forward with their gaze, their heart and even their will, it is for them to do so alone.
Our theatre piece holds up a mirror. People see themselves (not always) in the mirror held before them. Beauty (and ugliness) is in the eye of the beholder; we see what we choose to see. Goethe talks of people who live life with "a gaze that stops at the eyes"; the mirror may be before us, but we choose not to look at it, or to not recognise the mirror reflection as anything to do with us.
But also we may indeed look. The archetypes in the play call our gaze forth, as we cannot but connect with their universal voice. We may suddenly see aspects of our self in the villain present before us, in the behaviour, in the tragedy or the comedy. Suddenly we are the king about to throw away his kingdom, we are the coveter of thrones pouring hemlock in the ear of another; we are the liar, the fool or the betraying or betrayed lover. Suddenly we have two heads with two faces, or it is we who fear to take the next step. We see ourselves in the mirror of the drama and we are affected by what we see. The image pierces our heart, a critical incident occurs, and we are never the same again. More here.
What right does a theatremaker have to hold up, unbidden, a mirror to an audience? "You came to see a king and a queen, and instead you saw yourself as your own kingdom rose or fell before you. What will you do next?"
Day 2 - September 10th - Design
Kate Boisvert’s laptop is working! Though, her relaxed session about lawyers, creativity and innovation, I wish had been longer. Do we label professions as uncreative, or buy into their own self-labelling? Can’t a lawyer be as creative and innovative as a visual artist? What are the criteria for measuring the “creativeness” inherent in certain professions? Does linearity in work always inhibit creativity? Or can linearity actually provide a firm, stable foundation for it?
Artful Iinquiry led by Steve Taylor and Matt Statler. Is there a methodology for selecting and designing appropriate artistic interventions? Lotte Darso observes that music is a particularly necessary artistic process for “going deeper” but also reminds us that there must be time to do this. That get’s me wondering. Death by PowerPoint is an hour. A performance. No more - no feedback, no follow-up - just the art, then the space. At what point is an “intervention” decided as necessary at all?
What is the motive for the intervention? Motive is all, (Bernard Lievegoed). Where are we coming from, what is our orientation when designing or deciding method?
In I-Ness, we know what is needed. We feel a personal (often ego-felt) restlessness to offer something to bring something. I can come from intuition and from past experience. It can come from a passion to express. In I-ness the facilitator is self-centred. In a good way, this is from a motive of the urge to do the good. In a less good way, it is from personal wish to make an impact, to impose, to drive something through, and sometimes to “prove” the validity of the artistic process. I-Ness can often occur from a place of trust where consciousness of what is needed is low, an the help is sought from a facilitator whose self is trusted enough to respond on behalf of the community or organisation and “make the judgment” personally.
In You-ness, the facilitator/designer reaches out towards the client and community; questions are asked (what do YOU want, YOU need?). The choice of design and method arises from and analysis of this YOU-inquiry. Often I-ness is dressed up as YOU-ness. In you-ness, research is key. Research precedes choice of method or design direction.
In We-ness, the situation is often changing and only partly known by facilitator/designer and client/community. A process of co-creation takes place. “We” identify the needs and the method together. Partnership is key, though sometimes we-ness is a kind of new-age flight from I-ness or You-ness and fails because of this.
In Themness, the facilitator stills the self and attempts to become detached and objective, to gain a helicopter view of client, organisation and self. It is a scientific effort to view the need dispassionality, often using logic, cause and effect, and already existing decision models. It can be a flight from connection as well and can be mechanistic and superficial. It can also be ideal where emotions are high, and interest groups abound.
These orientations are not mutualy exclusive. Often You-ness and We-ness can work one after the other. The design process is contingent, as are the orientations.
Reference: Levy, P. (2007), “Orientations in Artistic Intervention”, resource from CATS3000 Limited, web site www.cats3000.com
5pm
Deep Listening...
- is patient, even unto hundreds of years
- perseveres
- is silent, even when the opposition speaks
- finds it words over time, and through patient silence
- listens with the heart, not only the ears
- is hopeful
- is born through story, through music, through the land, through the ancestral line and the community spirit.
“A healthy social life is found when, in the mirror of each human soul, the community finds its reflection and when, in the community, the strength of each one is living.” Rudolf Steiner
Day 3 - 11th September
Iterative, rehearsed yachts?
Jan Rae shares her initial research into developing a model for organisational theatre intervention. The actor-facilitator is a new beast. Often in forum theatre (Jan presented research based on a couple of depth case studies) the actors find a relief in their audience at not being asked to do the “dreaded role play” - the actors do the work in terms of performance. Some of the actor-facilitators have reported a sense of not being in a safe zone with what they do, even though the participants feel “safe” at not having to step onto the stage. Jan’s developing model is interesting in raising the importance of the actor in the process.
A lot depends on the quality of the drama - it should never be second-rate writing or performing but often is. Actors do “corporates” as a second-best while they are waiting for their agent to call with “real work”. Also trainers are jumping on the forum theatre bandwagon all too often. Should forum theatre scripts be able to hold their own against the same critics that judge conventional theatre? I think so. Now, I’ll contradict myself. In some circumstances, behind closed doors, I think theatre can be threadbare, messy, obvious, flawed in a way that actually gives permission for people to explore and experiment. The polished nature of the performance could, in some circumstances be empowering. Personally I feel forum theatre always needs quality writing and performing; but more emergent forums of problem and issue exploration can simply use drama and an exploring tool among many others. Rich Pictures, for example, do not need to be works of art, and some theatre, likewise, can be unfinished ad unready, and be all the more powerful for that in an adventurous, problem-seeking and solving context.
In my own work I see the performance as a thing-in-itself, and needing to be striving for excellent for that reason. It’s something to see, and to see oneself in.
I found Rob Austin’s and Lee Devin’s session about economic drivers well observed and articulated but feel their view of iterative design as similar to rehearsal as narrowly defined. Not al rehearsal is collaboratively iterative, building on what went before. Many excellent performance are derived from firmly fixed, astounding directorial and writer vision, and actors are the means of implementation. Listen for example to my interview with Guy Masterson.
Theatremaking is often deliberately un-iterative! It is often one-off plan and implement and produces many 5-star shows. I personally believe iterative rehearsal often creates mediocrity. But, then again, it’s the usual trap these days to confuse commercial successful products, regularly updates and iteratively innovated with excellent in many sectors which are simply marketing-fuelled collusions of mediocrity.
However, the motive - the spirit of over-mechanised and boring companies moving towards more flexible, collaborative iteration, enabled by computer-integrated production technology is a good one.
How sharp and clear the air and sky are this day.
Digital Storymaking
Terry Melvin ran a very inspiring session that really explored both the way men can be encouraged to tell stories as a way of accessing their emotional landscape., and also the way digital stories have democratised storymaking and telling for us all. I found some of the digital stories too tidy and (dare I say it) Disneyfied. Digital storytelling should try to retain the small of old, half-torn photographs. Stories allow us to put issues “before” us by sharing what went “before”. I loved the double and opposite meaning of that word - before, meaning past, and, before meaning in front! I believe we can change the past, but first we have to tell our stories in order to put them before us.
And then onto a crisp and profound presentation from Anka Strauss drawing on systems approaches and distinguishing between businesses which see the world as “What” and “Not What” compared to artists who are immerses in the “How”. Artful approaches address the “what”, addressing organisational taboos and healing the organisation’s processes. “Art” both addresses organisational processes but also alters organisational processes. Ultimately, excellent facilitation is art. It may be artful, but art emerges from it. Often the change process itself is a living art installation. That sounds real bullshitty to me, which probably means it has some truth in it.
I adore contradiction and the notion that contradictions sit merrily together at higher levels of view. Artfulness is too “what-Ish”. Art may be to how-Ish, and that is why it can blow up organisations and leave lovely wastelands.
This was a bold session. An installation of ideas - both what and how!
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