The whole session wasn't that bad really. We had some fun having an invisible juggling session and played "helicopter", in which we passed a spinning poi around the group from one member to another, starting off fumbling and falling around and then eventually getting quite a smooth flow of movement.
Invisible juggling involved really thinking about the weight and timing of throwing and catching the invisible balls. It was actually a very good mime excersise, and required well positioned body, and the eye to be following the ball, and the 'stroika' of the hand catching the ball, not too exaggerated, just the right amount of tension. This was very hard for most group members. The best ones were those who had had actuall
experience of juggling.
The helicopter game involved the group members practicing changing the direction and height of the poi, and spinning it in a controlled way, in order to help the next person to take it and carry on it's journey around the circle without interrupting the flow of the spin. We got quite good at this in the end.
During these games, in some parts of the group, energy was extremely low. We were all tired, for various reasons, and whereas usually one or two people may be tired, tonight, everyone was. Whereas some members of the group have the skills to work through the tiredness, and become so absorbed in the drama that the tiredness is forgotten, others find this difficult, and one of our members, who finds that they are not able to cope with the tiredness quite often, wanted to leave.
This was difficult for me to negotiate. The client centred facilitator in me wanted to say "Of course, it is your choice to be here, off you go and hope to see you next week", the more challenging facilitator wanted to say "I think you have it in you to work through this tiredness, why don't you stick with it and see how it goes?", the drama practitioner wanted to say "Of course you can't leave! We need you - we are rehearsing your part, and you are a vital part of the performance. You must stay, and please make more effort to keep with the group and stop drifting off." I eventually said "Would you feel able to sit out of this part of the session and watch for a while, and join in when we start to do the rehearsal?" the member agreed.
In the past, this member had left when feeling very tired, and I had allowed this, the group then carried on with restored energy and vigour. However, when I persuaded them to stay, this time, the energy flow in the room seemed to stop. I couldn't force the energy from the group. The rehearsal was lacklustre and lifeless. We trudged through the rest of Good Thunder, and I found it more and more of an effort to keep with it. My own energy drained completely. I felt myself getting angry and frustrated. It had become like pulling a steam roller up a pebbly slope.
We all battle a bit with tiredness, but on this occasion, there just didn't seem to be much will to carry on, especially among the two group members who had the most prominent parts to play. One by one, we disconnected from the dramatic process. I have never had a session like this in my life. So dull, so slow, so lifeless. I stopped the rehearsal early.. We sat in a circle, and I explained to the group that we had all been very tired but it was too difficult to carry on working when there was so little energy or connectedness in the group.
As we prepared to leave, the member that had wanted to leave earlier, came and said that she felt she should leave the group, as she couldn't give what was needed to it. This person has been having treatment for some physical symptoms and difficulties, and had been mentioning that she felt "like a lab rat", having one drug after another tested on her. She has been suffering from tiredness for a long time, and this wasn't the first time she had talked about leaving, but this time she was resolved, and I didn't feel it would be right to try to persuade her otherwise.
I felt very sad, and frightened. A group faciltiator never likes to lose a member. The feel the loss of the individual, and fear for the solid status of the group - will others follow? There is also the feeling of failure - I couldn't make it right for her to feel able to stay - maybe I pushed her away? Lots of thoughts come. We said a few words, I was a bit terse, probably. Other members of the group assured her that she would be welcome to come back at any point.
Another group member, who had also been extremely tired but without the physical illness, was very upset. She had been very disconnected in the session, and I had spoken a little of my frustration at her lack of involvement in her part. She had picked up on this and after the situation with one leaving, this other got upset - I said "You're not going to say you are leaving too are you", she began to cry. Oh no! At once I was convinced that she had been planning to leave as well.
However after some conversation in a separate room, it transpired that the second group member was just very tired. She has been working late shifts, doing voluntary work, and is now preparing to start university. How will it all fit in? And it is so late on a Monday night.
So, as the nights are beginning to draw in, and the temperature drops, and the rain has been falling all day, we prepare for the challenges that winter holds for a group like ours.
I am also struck once again, by the differences between this and a therapy group. In a therapy group, we would make a theme of the tiredness, the exhaustion, the battle, the illness - we would talk about it, model it, work around it, work through it. As a drama group, we can't work like that. We have a work of art to be getting on with. I don't think I agree with some theorists who believe that drama is therapy, and that the drama is enough. Drama by itself may well have therapeutic effects, as do most social and/or artistic persuits, but to be classed as therapy there needs to be something else. How to work with a situation where you have people disconnecting from the session, how to encourage people to gently challenge their fears and self doubt, without being co-ersive or using emotional blackmail, how to manage your own feelings within a session, and responses to group members, how to allow and encourage freedom of expression, and facilitate a space where each group member can be heard? These are all the challenges of the therapist. For the drama facilitator, the product of the group is the drama, the point of the session is the drama that is created - you need the members of the group for the drama to take place, and you need them to be confident and able to develop skills and function productively with the group, and engage with the exercises, no matter how crazy they are. For the dramatherapist, the point of the session is the people that take part. The drama and the exercises are a vehicle through which the group members may learn skills in confidence, team work, may become more self aware, able to contain powerful personal experience, able to look at life openly, with courage and honesty, to share thoughts, ideas, memories, without shame, to experience a sense of trust and safety.
That is therapy. We are a theatre, and we have a play to put on. People have to learn scripts, devise movement sequences, learn about levels of tension, increase body awareness. The group needs complicite. We will soon need to be working on masks, costumes, getting the music in, promoting the show, finding audiences, finding venues. Stress levels increase, fear of performing, the need for everything to be in place, the need for people to be on the ball and functioning, these demands are very different from the easy shifting flow of the therapy group.
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