Birth and Death ceremonies

How do we mark births and deaths?  How do we make sense of these miraculous events?  The coming into and the leaving of existence of life forms is something that has been discussed by religious, humanistic and scientific philosophers.  Much of our art on some level responds to the emotional and cognitive challenges that we come across when trying to comprehend the nature of both our existence, and our non-existence.

I've been very influenced in this area by two events.  Firstly by reading books by Roger Grainger, a dramatherapist who works with ritual and who has written about the importance of the death ritual - the funeral, and how this is used to make sense of loss.  This includes both the loss of our loved ones, and the knowledge of our impending loss of self, as we inevitably move closer towards our own impending cessation. The other event was a naming ceremony that I was invited to some years ago.  The parents of the child were christian, however, aware that many of their friends were of different religions, or even of no religion, they called the christening a naming ceremony.  There were many elements of christianity in the ceremony, however there was an implicit acknowledgement that the people present, the friends, neighbours and family of the child, were  from different backgrounds which were all valid, and this tactful and inclusive approach to a traditionally sectarian ritual was very impressive to me.

Births and deaths are not marked by ceremony for any other reason than that they are extremely important to us as individuals, and as social groups, right across the planet.  They are the times when we are struck by the miraculousness of life, and fear the dreadful awesomeness of death.

Ritual, or ceremony, contains these experience.  It uses metaphor, repetition, shared understandings in an atmosphere of deep intensity in order to reflect, express and hold our deepest wonderment and terrors.  Or at least it should do.

Drama and ritual are inseparable.  Ritual is drama, and traditionally, drama is ritual.  The use of masks, song, dance, archetypal characters, folk tales and so on, give us a framework, a sense of shared understanding and learning.  Being part of the same thing, Safety in numbers.

A christmas tree, an easter egg, a straw man burning on a bonfire.  Rituals contain our need for something greater, the hope of new life, and the dread of pain and death.

After a short warm up, the group was divided into two.  Each group was told that they were to devise a naming ceremony for a person or thing, that the other group would be invited to take part in.  Following this, the groups devised death ceremonies for the person or thing that was named by the other group.  I had reasoned that under normal circumstances, it would be unusual for the main people attending or presenting the birth ceremony to be the same as the people attending or presenting a death ceremony.  It also meant that there was a richer ceremony, as each group embellished the initiall ideas presented by the other.

We learned several important things

1.  A ritual may be performed in all seriousness, but may be experienced as funny.  This may be because of nervousness in the part of the participants, or because of ridiculousness, as the actors may take it too seriously, and this may result in visual absurdity.

2.  An effective ritual involves the active participation of all present.  If the attendees are confident enough, a being able to be creative about their involvement leads to a greater level of engagement.

3. Change of dynamic energy are also good ways of drawing people in to further engagement with the ritual. This can be done by a leader or leaders presenting sounds and gestures that are reflected by the participants, and gradually altered, to bring about a transformative shift.

4. Giving people particular roles or characteristics enables them to enter into the drama with less self consciousness.  One group gave each participant and element, earth, air, fire or water, and the element became an object that took focus and self consciousness from the participant, again enabling a greater engagement.

We have one more session this term, and then in January we start looking at the idea of devising a horror production.  Horror in this sense, not to be blood, guts, vampires etc, but to contain the elements that we have been working with, and to include pathos, romance, tragedy and comedy.  All of the things that give us our lives and dramas meaning.

Creations and Transformations

As a facilitator, I am starting to learn to be able to use whatever energy I bring into the session, be that angry, apathy, lighthearted, downcast, troubled...

I also try to encourage others in the group to use whatever energy that they bring into the session.  There is no bad energy.  There is energy that blocks us, energy that we get confused by, frightened by, energy that releases us, energy that drives us.  I call energy that we can use "energy", and energy that we can't use (or rather haven't learned to use yet) "difficult energy" ...

Starting the session with something personal, such as 'the most interesting thing that happened to me today', brings our personal emotional responses to the session.  These emotional responses are the expression of our energy, whether this mostly expressed inwardly, by the physiological experiences we have - churning stomach, racing heart, inertia, or the opposite, restless agitation, or mostly expressed outwardly - e.g., by our non verbal communication - how loud do we speak? how much eye contact are we making?  Is our posture open to the group or are we physically closed off and guarded?  Language wise, we may be critical of others, or eager to please,  we may mumble our words, or enunciate clearly.  Do we sing when we speak or do we have a dull, flat monotone?  Difficult energy - maybe sadness,or fear, might block communication, as well as our ability to be creative and expressive.  This happens when we are trying to work against how we feel, for instance, surviving a day at work whilst in grief, we try to mask our feelings, or block them out of existence, in order to survive the social and practical demands of the day.  This is exhausting and debilitating.

Drama, the way that we do it, aims to release some of this energy.  Allows emotion and all the expressions that go along with it.  Fear, death, love, craving, conflict ...  all of these things can be acted out.  Now the barriers to expression are lifted, we have permission to be how we feel.  Unfortunately, days, weeks, months and years of denying ourselves this inner liberation, mean that we have great difficulty in allowing ourselves, we feel we cannot create, or express, sometimes we have convinced ourselves we do not feel, or we have replaced one emotional response with another, the result being a conflictual, unconvincing presentation that confuses, angers or bores our audience.  So in the workshops that we do, we work with transformation and personal experience, in order to become more aware of our own inner experience, and our outward presentation, taking ownership of ourselves and becoming more comfortable in our expression.

This also results in some really good drama.

In turns, we sculpted the group into a picture, that represented some element of our personal experience.  Having done this, we told a story, a snippet of a story that was represented by the picture.  Each character devised a movement and sound for their improvisational motif.  Then, the creator said "3-2-1-Action!"  And the scene came to life.

As the scene was described, in the positions of the sculpt, the actors began to have some inner experience of their role within the story.  When they devised their motif, they imagined ways that they could describe, physically, their inner experience, as well as move the plot of the story.

After some time, the creator would shout "Freeze!"  or "It's a wrap!", and the characters would once again become statues.  the creator would then take the position of one of the statues, releasing this person to be the next creator.

However this time, the new creator did not make a new sculpt...  They would interpret the existing sculpt in a new way, and describe the new story, and the new characters that it contained.  Whilst this re-creation was occuring, the actors would, in thier frozen state, respond inwardly to their new role, and whilst these physiological changes were occuring, they would use this emotive response, and the cognitive element of "knowing the story", in the decisions that they made in producing their next motif.

There were many themes explored during the session, conflict, monsters, the mob, crime, nature.  These are common themes for our current group to engage in.  We have 2 more weeks left of this terms work.  All the sessions have been improvisations based on the notions of birth, death and transformation or evolution.  From January we will start thinking about our next performance, the theme of this will probably be horror.  Who knows?  Only time will tell.

Seasons - life cycles

 We used lots of props today, which is unusual for konnektiv, but there was a good reason.  I wanted lots of colours, cloths, and sound making implements for the group to map out the four seasons onto the workshop floor.  This would provide us with a space with an ever changing dynamic, and external, physical, shared cues to mood, movement and transformation.

Four Seasons - Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn

Equating with - death, sleep, rest, recuperation and preparation, breaking down, slowing down (winter); beginnings, hope, new life, dance, sun, green shoots, (spring); fruit, productivity, leisure, (sun) decay, colour, harvest, (autumn).

We can make a lot of this cycle as a metaphor for our own experience, in terms of our life, our love and our ideas.  Also many other things, but these were the notions that we focussed on.

We had plenty of people today, so went into groups.  3 groups, one worked with "life", one with "love" and one with "ideas".  Each group devised a movement sequence that describe the theme, in terms of the cycles of the four seasons.

This of course was just the beginning of the workshop, although as far as the group knew, it was an exersise in itself.  this was built up on, because once the groups had performed their devised pieces to each other, and each commented, we continued to use the dramas, along with sculpt, to bring about and experience dramatic transformation, the magic of theatre, on a personal level.

Each group devised a set of sculpts, one for each season, that described the story that had previously been shown in a very fluid manner.  They decided quite randomly at which part of the cycle they would begin and end.

Once they had shown four sculpts, they stayed in position in the last one.  This gave the rest of the group the opportunity to join in, each new person adding a new dimension, or strengthening the original one.  The last person, once everyone else had taken their position, told a story, based on the picture.

This is where the transformation came in.  The picture had been built up based on a shared understanding.  The story teller changed the picture, so for instance, a group of creatures evolving from a swamp became zombies in a horror movie; elderly people walking next to some autumnal shrubbery, were now fleeing from a burning fire; young men, distressed by ardent female attention, became a group of bitter, disappointed carnival competitors, who all blamed one person for their failed attempt to win the cup.

As the story teller described the new scene, the actors sometimes felt an inner shift, a transformation, so that once the story had been told, even though their position had not changed, their energy had done, and the movement reflected this change in energy, and the picture, once moving, was very different dynamically and graphically, to the original story.

I was very taken with this transformative nature that the workshop took.  Not everyone felt it the same, though most people entered into the spirit of it.  In terms of personal development, personal themes were played out, and an unexpected variety of personal experience was felt, shared and communicated, which helps to broaden our own expressive abilties and range of potential dynamic responses.

Story making, birth, death. Horror.

At the start of tonight's workshop, 5 of us sat in a circle, with a selection of instruments.  I instructed the group that they were to create a story.  The story was to begin with the birth, and end with the death, of a being.  The instruments were to illustrate the narrative as it transpired with sound effects.  I gave no other instruction.  We sat in silence for some time before the first threads of the story began to come forth, awkwardly, hesitantly, and eventually, the story came to life, as creature was born that became an object of horror, fear, pain despair and eventually, death.  None of us guessed at the start of the story, that it would be so horrific.  

As the story was told, individuals in the group attempted to steer it this way and that - at times attempting to stem the flow of the horror, to bring redemption to the tale.  But it was not to be.  A blind, kindly priest was drained of his blood and innards, his skeletal remains being found later by the terrified congregation.  An exorsist came, and drove the evil from the creature, leaving the creature nothing but a mass of impotent pain and torment, and who then crawled into a corner and died.

We then took it in turns to direct a short phrase of action from the story, taking on a character in our own story.  One phrase showed the exorcist driving the spirit from the creature.  The evil spirit was destroyed, leaving the creature drained and heaving for breath.  

Dark, cold nights, tiredness, burden of life, dissapointments.  These were some of the themes that we had brought with us to the session this evening, and it was fitting that we ended up creating a tale of such pain and despair.  

I am glad that we don't feel the need to only create nice pretty things, but that we can dig into the darkest parts of our souls and drag out the things of pain, despair, anger, revenge and tragedy.  

The surprise to me, looking back, was that the birth was full of pain, horror and torment, whereas the death came as a peaceful relief, the end of an agonised struggle.  In life, we often think we see it very differently, that birth is a joyous and wonderful event, and death a great tragedy, even, in our culture, being seen as an unnatural event that we must defend ourselves against with great vigour.

In one of the scenes, the final death of the creature was depicted, with one director, describing the action, and one actor physically depicting the words of the director, who reflected the movements of the actor.  We got great satisfaction out of making the death as painful and drawn out as possible, and the ending, when it came, was one of peace and release.

This is sometimes the case with horror.  The object of horror is a tragic accident of nature, that cannot experience anything but pain. It is unlovable, rejected, often starved, sometimes beaten.  When someone does offer kindness, they are repaid with suffering.  maybe the person who offers kindness has their own disability - for instance in this case being blind.  The disability brings empathy for a fellow creature in suffering, and also prevents the kind person from perceiving the true nature of the object of horror.

 Through horror, by breaking the rules of the natural world, we can explore fear of death, superstition around disability and physical difference, the terrible consequences of the self fulfilling fear of people who percieve evil in ugliness, malevolence in difference.  The tragedy of rejection, cruelty and neglect.  Through the experience of the monster, we can feel our own experiences of rejection and cruelty.  Through the revenge of the monster we live out our own need to be cruel, and then, through the death of the monster, we kill our scapegoat, and can bury the secrets hidden in our most vulnerable selves.

We also explored the role of the exorcist.  Calm, confident.  Funny enough, no-one had considered the monster evil until the exorcist turned up.  They just thought it was horribly ugly and frightening.  The response of the creature to the predicament of it's birth, though shocking, was in a sense, understandable.  Once the exorcist drove out the evil spirit from the creature, the creature had lost it's last defence.  It had nothing but it's pain, and could only exist, in a state of torture, until death came.  This was a tragic horror.  In the final scene creation, the father of the creature silently, thoughfully, walked onto the stage, holding the wrapped up creature.  He slowly waded into a river, and placed the creature, in a basket, onto the top of the flowing water, watched it for a while, as it drifted up river, and then walked silently away.  Disappointment, loss, fear for an object that was almost loved, but could never be nurtured.

From mud to mud

Following the theme of 'birth and death, today's main them was the notion of being a created object, and being initially ignorant of one's purpose, working it out as a group by a series of experimental responses to an original sculpt.

Today's warm-up consisted of some sound and movement.  Each person chose one sound and one movement.  This became their personal 'motif', they did not change it, but changed the texture of the sound by altering its tempo, pitch, or volume.  What they could do, is to group together and join with another person or people.  This created an interesting piece of music and movement, as the sound drifted, shifting but remaining true to it's original form.  In this picture, the group was all walking behind and reflecting the sound and movement of one member.  A fifth member chose to remain with his own sound and movement, which was not altered during the piece.  This of course is allowed.

By the end of the piece, the group decided to break the rules, and take up different movements and sounds.  At this point the warm up broke down, as there was confusion about whether rule breaking is ok or not.  It is actually allowed, but it was an interesting experiment while the rules were being followed!

Creating with intent

For the main part of the session, we played a game in which everyone started lying down on the floor, as mud.  At some point, one person would 'come to life', and become the Creator.  They would wordlessly sculpt the other group members into an object, or a set of objects.  In this picture the group are being sculpted, at this point not having any idea about what they are supposed to be.  

Once the  creator has finished forming the object(s) into shape, they 'breathed life' into the object.  At this point it started to move.

As the group members experimented with different sounds and modes of movement, they imagined what they might be.  In this picture, the group gradually came to realise that it was a merry-go-round in a children's fair.

 What I was interested in during the game was the process of experimenting with modes of being - and wondering, as created objects, what our purpose was.  Also, in the case of the creator, what was their response while the group experimented, and made guesses, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, about what they were supposed to be.

If the group really had no idea, then they would create some sort of cohesive movement.  Rules may be implied in the original positions, such as in one case, the sculpts were placed facing outwards from four corners.  Each person sensed from this that we were not supposed to interact; they all responded differently to the positions they were placed in, yet all obeyed the rule of no interaction. 

In this sculpt, the group were bell ringers, and again, this was guessed following the movement suggested by the original position, to move up and down in different intervals.

These games are good for experimenting with sound and movement, but also for continuing our work with group cohesion, as each individual member, as well as finding and testing their own hypotheses about what they are, also responds to the actions of other group members.  

As human's, unlike other animals, we often question the purpose of our existence.  Why are we born?  What to our parents/teachers/bosses etc want from us?  As parents/teachers/bosses, we communicate with varying degrees of success, what it is that we want from our children/students/employees.  We hope that they will understand our intention.  We hope that we correctly interpret the intention of others, when they indicate that they want something from us.  The guesses that we make depend on the clarity of the original instruction, along with our comprehensive skills.  That's just the cognitive stuff.

What is happening emotionally?  What happen's when we don't make ourselves clear and people misinterpret us?  Do we get frustrated?  angry?  Do we blame them?  Ourselves?  Might their interpretation of our request be as valid as our request and thus acceptable, or do we stick rigidly to a request and insist that only the correct interpretation is valid?  What happens when a complete lack of understanding occurs?  Is there fear?  Do people worry about 'letting someone down'?

There are many many more questions that are posed during this game, but ultimately, it's success, as in all of the work that we do, is based on how much people are enjoying themselves.

Negotiating change and finding our part in the machine

Last week, I didnt' get around to blogging, however, we did have Lauren to take some photo's, so here are a selection of the ones that she took.

The theme was still death, the action was more like a story, rather than the abstract interactions of the previous week.

Phenomena that we came across included sabotaging the story plan in order to avoid the intended killing, which actually make the killing happen sooner.

Also the need to end the death process, to "get it over with", which also sabotaged the initial point, which was to have drawn out, dramatic death scenes.










Anyway, on with today's session, altogether closer in time and easier to remember, however no pictures this time.

Warm up - Sound
Inspired by a music therapy awareness workshop that I went on earlier this week, I started the group with a sound based warm up. In a circle, group members used their body, including their voices, to create sound, eg stamping, clapping, whistling.  They were instructed to change the sound that they were making as often as they wished.  When they felt ready and comfortable to do so, they closed their eyes.  I moved slowly round the circle, In turns putting my hands on one members shoulders.  This person was to stop making a sound, and just listen to the sound that the group was making.

Questions I wondered about included:
What was it like creating the sound?
What was it like being made to stop contributing to the sound?
What was it like listening to the group sound without being part of it?
How was it joining back in again once the person had stopped?

Some people enjoyed listening to the sound the group made, however, others felt that they wanted to get back in again and weren't so keen on just listening.  The eyes being closed helped to focus on the sound and be involved, however two group members didn't like having their eyes closed.  One of these found it easier to stare fixedly at one spot on the floor.

As time went on group members became more comfortable with making the sounds and contributing to the total sound, we got some quite adventurous rhythms, and I also noticed that some people were very physically involved in the sound that they were making.  These may have been more relaxed.

There was talk of a "trancelike" feeling, of being part of the group sound, and when listening to it as a witness.

Internal and external changes, fitting in, accomodating, negotiating and initiating change.

The group became a machine, each with a different interacting part.

Once the action of the machine had a smooth and interactive flow to it, I said "stop".  Based on the position each person was in, they had to decide on how they would change their move when i said "start" again.  Everyone of course, had decided on a change but then they had to accomodate the changes made by others, so a period of initiation, negotiation, and accomodation had to take place, in order for the machine to become functional again.

Changes that we made included:

Making the parts of the machine closer together and further apart
Making the parts of the machine have contact with each other
Introducing sound (some people did this automatically, for others it was more difficult)
During the stillness part of the exercise  deciding upon a "primary other" to interact with when the machine started moving again (of course this also would conflict with the "primary other" that other group members had decided upon)

The transition was quite a challenging period for the group, and lots of variation was witnessed in terms of how different people negotiated the changes imposed, and fitted in with the machine.  At times one person would seem to be separate to the rest of the machine.  Some would take on a liaison role, linking different elements of the machine together.  Sometimes, there would appear to be two or three different machines rather than one.  At times the complete machine was quite a spectacle to witness, smoothly operating, with differently functioning and interactive parts, all having negotiated the change period without exchanging a word.

At different times I took group members out of the machine so that they could witness from the outside, the functioning, changing, negotiating and refunctioning elements of the machine processes.

I would like to explore this further in different ways:

Have a biological machine (inspired by the interactive functions of the living cell), which has random elements to its activities.

Have people change their function one at a time, so that the machine has to restructure itself in response to someone changing what they do, or even leaving altogether, and maybe rejoining at a later time.

Ending ritual:

We did a group story for the ending ritual.  With eyes closed we composed an adventurous journey with heroes, lost maidens and fierce and friendly monsters.

As a closing thought I note that Everything that we have done today, and for the last few weeks, has been about building group cohesion and the sense of complicite.  A good thing as we have lost and gained a few members, so the shape of the group is very different.

I would like to do some more work on slow movement and body awareness, in the near future, and then maybe come January to start working once again on bouffons.

Discovering Death

This was a fabulous session.  I have spent quite a few weeks wondering about how to approach this season's experimental work on life, death and rebirth.

I didn't want to sound like a mad hippy.   Too much emphasising of the seemingly cosmic nature of the cycle of death and rebirth, could reduce my discussion to the level of the religious.  My intention is to be academic.

During our lives, with varying degrees of success and difficulty, we need to be constantly adapting to the environmental changes that we undergo.  These may be thrust upon us, such as a death of a close family member, or disability following an accident.  They may be changes nature bestows upon us, growing up, growing old.  We may choose these changes willingly - a course of study ending in a professional qualification, having a child, or getting married.  The changes may be big, small, sudden, planned, slow and tortured, or marked by grand celebrations.  They all result in the necessity for our brain to make huge adaptive neuronal changes, as it remaps it's world, over and over again.  Accompanied with these stages of adaptive neuronal changes are emotions.  Emotions like sadness, anger, fear.  These are also adaptive, but how we respond to our emotions can make the difference between sanity and breakdown, wellbeing and dis-ease.

In stories such as that of the phoenix, rebirth is often depicted as a cosmically beautiful, glowing, triumphant even.  This belies the transitions that we go through in our own lives, which can be painful, undergone with reluctance, dread, anger and perhaps terror, as we finally give in to the need to let go of memories of the old and familiar and step into the realities of the new and  unknown, in order to psychologically keep up with our ever changing reality.  This is one of the bedrocks, if not the bedrock, of optimum mental health.

So that's the theory.  Mine anyway.

Here's what we did yesterday in the first of a series of sessions in which we explore and discover our knowledge, attitudes and feelings around death.

Group Discussion
there is a philosophical element to all of this.  I wanted the group to discuss their own feelings around death before engaging in the drama.  This was to provide a framework through which we would dramatically explore the subject.  I felt the need to remind the group of personal safety.  The subject of death is still a taboo.  I reminded individuals to be aware of their responses to the drama's, and to make the group aware if they started to feel distressed.

In fact, no-one did.

Following our initial conversation, which touched on many subjects such as fear of death and religion, we ended up centering around the idea of death being a necessary tool for social and biological evolution to take place, we agreed on an improvisation strategy.

It was to be free improvisation, in all aspects, except that I would secretly elect one person to be the one who at some point, was to die.  Once I had let the elected person know that it was to be them, we all sat in the audience chairs, and one by one, the individuals in the group entered the drama space.  Once in the space, each individual improvised around their own feelings and responses, and those of the people around them.  Once all of the group were engaged in the drama, when they were ready, one of the group died, in whatever way they wished.

Findings:
1)  everyone wanted to die.  Being able to die on stage is a form of expression that we don't normally get.  Some individuals were distressed that they hadn't been chosen to die, and I comforted them with the assurance that over the next few weeks everyone will get the opportunity.
2) People tended to distance themselves from each other in the dramatic space.  There was a subdued element to the improvisation.  It was very focussed and concentrated.  People were focussed more on their own responses than that of the whole group.
3) Saying that, there were brief moments of intimate interaction within the improvisation.
4) People differed in their stated need to be surrounded by others at the time of death, death would be prolonged if people noticed and cared.  Without this, the person dying might die quicker, wanting to escape the fear of ultimate aloneness.

In the final improvisation, I again secretly elected one person to die, but this time, they had an infectious disease, that during the drama, everyone would catch, and eventually die.  For myself as the audience, this was of all the most tragic of the dramas.  It was a bit like watching a slow motion, silent armageddon, as the virus was spread through the group by the infected person, who was the first to die, then followed by others, some alone, and some being cared for, temporarily, before the carer themselves became too ill and began to die.

There were brief moments of humour in these dramas.  The main tone was thoughtfulness.  The playing of death was done simply yet dramatically, with just enough melodrama to remind us that it was play.  The responses to the dying person were varied, mainly focussing around trying to help or distancing.

At the end of the session, all of the group said how much they had enjoyed it.

We will be doing more of this, and also looking at birth.  Also in a literal way, rather than using the elusive metaphor that I had been seeking.

Viewing and reflections - Japanese Fairy Tales

Thanks to Kaush Patel we now have a dvd of the Japanese Fairy Tales performances from the summer.  It's great to finally have a film of the performances that reflect the work we put into them and that we can be proud to show off.  The dvd will be on the You Tube from Sunday, and there will be links to this site.

We had a group showing at Staffordshire Performing Arts this Wednesday instead of the usual drama workshop.  I felt very proud watching it.  There were certainly things I would have changed if we did them again, but that will always be the case.  In all, the performances were as picturesque as I had hoped, helped by the fantastic extra costume design from Becky, and Sam's backdrops looked great (although we could only see the bottoms of them).  All of the performers were very natural in their presentation, and looked extremely confident.  They were very familiar with the material, and the style of performance that we had devised.

Now it is time for Konnektiv to move on, a new chapter is opening up for us, and I am not quite sure which way it is taking us.  However I did have a bit of an epiphany this week during a conversation with Merv.  I had been really stuck on how to take the cycles of life theme forward.  I'm worried I will sound like a mad hippy, and I'm also worried that I will scare people off with my crazy ideas.

However, there is no point letting worries stop me taking this thing the way that I want to.  I want to look at cycles of life (including themes of death and rebirth).  I really think that this has to be done by first looking at death.  How is death portrayed in film/theatre/books/video games?  What do we make of the stories of death?  What does death mean to us?  How can we portray our own ideas of death in a way that make sense to ourselves and others?  Once we have done this, the rebirth element can come later.  However we need to examine death first.

Anyway, the next step is to approach the Newletter and see if they will do us an article looking for some new members.  We have lost members to education, pregnancy, illness and the winter nights, and the group is feeling a bit small.  That's fine for me, I'm happy to have a small group; it's better in many ways.  But I just think that as the Performing Arts people are keeping the Centre open for us especially late on a Wednesday night, we need to have plenty of members so they think it's worth while.

It may be that the artsy drama-ish populace of Stafford don't want to come out of their houses on dark cold winter nights to experiment with ways to experience and portray images and themes of death, but you never know.  We may start of a fashion.

The Cauldron Extended, and some freestyle impro

This was a session of mostly tired people.  Congratulations to the group for coming up with the goods and putting so much effort into this session.  Some members, including myself, seemed to be fighting the need to be asleep in bed and far from the dramatic action.  At times like this I feel very grateful and appreciative of the people who come along, even when unwell or exhausted, and give it their all.

It is always interesting when something goes really well, in a way that you didn't think possible, and then you try to recreate it the following week.  Last week, (which I didnt' blog), the few that came engaged in some amazing freestyle impro that was completely intense and absorbing, and everyone who came said how much they enjoyed and was blown away by.  The group became one moving, sentient, creature, complete with rhythm, sound and and energy that transformed itself over time it a seamless way.  At the end, we all felt that we had been part of something very special.

This week, we embarked on the same sort of routines, however the feeling of seamless group unity just didn't happen in the same way.  There was many interesting moments, and one or two moments of daring and cleverness, however the group energy flow (complicite) just wasn't there in the same way..  

Why was this?

Many of the group made a lot of effort to come in under some duress - the weather has been foul for about the last 3 months, and we all seem to be drained and tired.  There is illness, depression lurking in the corners, I think weather related; exhaustion, weather and working very hard.  

As a group facilitator I never know how much to push the group and how much to allow the energy to build itself.  Ieopl don't want to try to push to hard and influence the group too much with my own energy, however \I worry that if people aren't interested and guided in some ways there is a general lack of direction and we don't get the magical moments that we seek.

it takes energy to be creative, to be spontaneous, and more energy to do this in front of an audience, and even more to do it in collaboration with others.

To be aware what others are doing, and to respond to it, to give feedback to the group action, takes focus, and concentration.

There were times when people tried to force their interpretations and directions onto others, this never worked.  

Saying all of this, there were some times during the session, when things fell into place, and group members gave their all.  Some more enthusiastic and some more tired, but all giving what they could to the group process.

Yes Game

We didn't seem to play this right.  My feeling is that it needs someone outside of the group to ensure rules of being enthusiastic are being followed.  Also if I'd thought about it I may have been able to predict that the latent levels of enthusiasm in the group, being very low, would be evasive in this game.  Anyway, I will go back to Johnstone and re read the rules on this one.

Cauldron

We did a new thing with this - that is to first of all have one person in the performance area at a time.  This gave each person an opportunity to have the stage to themselves.  I said we wouldn't move the game on until everyone had had a go in the performance area to ensure that everyone did go in.  This is one of those things that is less scary than people realise.  Once in the performance area, people can do exactly as they like.  That may be nothing.  However, they do have to be aware of the audience, and how it feels to be alone on the stage, in front of an audience, with the potentiality of limitless number of actions.

Gradually more people got involved.  After the single sessions, we played for a while with pairs.  There are themes that repeat in the pairs - fighting, co-operation, competing, exploring the space, exploring each other, becoming creatures that mirror each others movements and sounds, or are completely different.  Sometimes one creature seeks comfort or nurting from another, at other times one creature frustrates or frightens another.

Once three people are in the performance area, the action takes on different themes.  Two may join together, with one being separate, the single one may be being bullied, studied, nurtured, ignored, hunted or otherwise manipulated by the pair.  This happened more often than the three joining in as a single creature, or three of the same creatures.

As more people gradually joined in the impro, at the time when last week the group took on a persona of it's own, this week this didn't happen.  There was several disparate themes going on at once.  This was very interesting to watch in some ways, as thedisconnectedness of the various groups of activity going on simultaneously gave the improvisation a surreal feel.  However i was aware that some of the actors were becoming disengaged.  At times like this I wish I could play back what people have done so they can see how they looked.

In retrospect, I do wish that i had done a physical warm up at the beginning of this session.  This was done last week and to good effect.

The first workshop of Autumn/Winter 2012

The session last night had 3 sections:

Discussion on the way forward for Konnektiv over the next 3 months.

Game - Foodchain!

Ritual - rebirth


The Way Forward has been discussed quite a lot so I won't go on about it here, except to say that despite the fact that we are not doing any rehearsed performances for a while, so we can focus on process/workshop based experimental stuff, we are going to be doing some improvisational street performance for Stafford Arts Fest on the 15th Sept.

We will be having the theme of pirates.  This is a very interesting theme, and I've been looking up things on the internet.  Already found 2 good pages:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/06/10_random_and_t.html

http://www.piratesinfo.com/cpi_Ahoy_Matey!_That_Pirate_Has_Breasts!_523.asp

Inspiring stuff.  We should get some good stuff for the blog.

Foodchain
Game.  I made up this game earlier in the day and it made me laugh, but it needs a lot of development.  It made me think a bit of traditional drama games, which could be funny and energetic, but also a bit of the Boal theatre of the oppressed stuff, and I thought at the end it was interesting to see how people respond to percieved threat or invasion of territory.  Basically, everyone thought of an animal, and then I told them the name of the game.  This is because I wanted to use the animals that people would naturally come up with, rather than them coming up with something influenced by the name.  This caused 2 problems, one is that none of the animals actually would eat each other in real life - we had a gorrilla, an elephant, a dog, a caterpillar, a snake and a stingray.  This leads us to the other problem - that they often had very different habitats, and so would have reduced likelihood of meeting and engaging in dramatic interactions.

I didn't want it to just end up with a chaotic running around and screaming session, so I told everyone to close their eyes, so they had to feel, hear and smell their way around the room and discover who their adversary was in ways other than seeing.  This was a theme for the day, and which will be repeated over time, as being deprived of our primary sense, makes us more reliant on our other senses, and thus overall, more aware of our whole body experience.

Basically, the rules last night, which need to be adapted, were as follows: 1.  each group member selected their animal, 2)we allocated areas of the room for 'habitats', with a few props made out of chairs or clothing, and each animal chose a habitat.  3)  The animals were all informed that they were very hungry and on the look out for food.  4) On my command of "Forage!", the group would close their eyes and look for food. 5) if they came across any object or other animal, they would carefully  examine it without opening their eyes, and decide how to interact with it.  5)  When something dramatically interesting started to happen between two animals, I would then shout "Foodchain!" and the group would all open their eyes ... then I would inform them whereabouts in the room something interesting was happening, and the animals concerned would perform their interaction to the rest of the group.

Now I am reflecting on this, I think that in fact, the set up of the game may not have been problematic, but it may have been that when the group opened their eyes, and the interacting animals began to perform, it broke the spell.  Someone suggested that instead of shouting "Foodchain", I should walk round tapping the non interacting animals on the shoulder, to inform them that an interesting interaction was taking place.  In this way, it would not break the spell of the interactions as they occur, and let them come to a natural conclusion.

Ritual - rebirth of Konnektiv

We left this until the end, so that everyone could join in.  Basically I let a guided meditation for the group which started with everyone in the foetal position with their eyes closed.  There was a gradual awakening, in which people gained consciousness of themselves, their senses, the room, and the other members of the group.  The idea was to let go of old "knowledge" and  expectations and see each other, the group, the space, differently, to allow for different, fresh and new ideas to flow.

At the end of the session, everyone had enjoyed the rebirth ritual, and some said they felt relaxed and energised, which is a great result for a guided meditation.  comments included that it helped people to let go of the many thoughts in their heads, and focus.  As the guide, I really enjoyed watching the process of people experiencing an "awakening" in their own private world, and then acknowledging others in the group, and beginning to share their experence of this new world with each other.  It was a great way to re-introduce group members to each other after the long summer break.  

I'll post the ritual onto the blog, but remember if you read it, that I changed it in the reading so it isn't exactly as it is written.

Membership forms!

Another great leap for Konnektivkind!  We have some membership forms, and some people have filled them in.  It's like we are a proper group!! :)

An introduction to tonights session - drama and wellbeing

Finally Konnektiv is starting workshops again, after a good long and well needed rest for the summer.  With the exception of a few of us getting together for a fire juggling show, which didn't get onto the blog, but has pics etc on the Facebook group so you can see them there if you want.

This evening will be an introductory session, and a statement that there will be no performance focussed workshops until at least after Christmas.  Instead, we will be focussing on the more process based wellbeing workshops that were our original reason to be.

My intention is to introduce the ideas that I think are some of the fundamental tenets of dramatherapy - I want to do a little chart here but not sure how.  Basically, the three areas are physical, emotional and social.  All three are strongly interlinked and improvements in wellbeing in one area may also result in improvements in another.  In each of these areas, we may through drama gain improvements in awareness and ownership, integration and communication.  Through drama we may discover, experience and learn to be able to share (both in terms of giving and taking) ourselves and our companions.

On the diagram, the body represents the physical aspects of our work,(what we are) the pictures inside the body represent the emotional aspects (what we contain) and the arrows represent the social aspects (what we share)

Over the next few weeks we are going to look at all of these things, and in addition, focus on the idea of the metaphoric deaths and rebirths that we experience within our lifespan.  These occur through times of loss and of building - a new project begins, a dear friend dies, we reach a certain age, we leave school, retire, buy a house...  each of these experiences can be assimilated with more or less difficulty depending on our own levels of personal awareness, ownership, integration and communication.

What we will be using to examine these themes will be the tools that the various schools of theatre and drama offer, and thus we will be training our dramatic selves.  Because of this, the sessions will be very useful for people who want workshops in drama, wellbeing, or both.

New Term start date, Sept 5th 2012

The new Konnektiv term starts on Wednesday 5th Sept at Staffs Performing Arts building on Eastgate St, Stafford at 6.30pm.  These will be along the lines of drama and wellbeing workshops with a long term agenda of performance with Ellie Davies composer at the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke on Trent

Anyone with a twitter account please retweet the Konnektiv tweet re their Sept start date as seen on their Twitter account.


Web: http://konnektiv.co.cc
Blog: http://konnektive.blogspot.co.uk/ NB E added on the end!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Konnektiv
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/185290328168082/
Nicky Barron: http://www.d-list.co.uk/2012/04/spotlight-nicky-barron.html

The Gatehouse Performance, the AGM, and Wellington Drive Festival

A very overdue blog, just incase anyone is chewing their fingers to the bone wondering how our performance at Stafford Gatehouse theatre went - it was fantastic!!  It was amazing for us to perform in a proper theatre, although as luck would have it we booked the place on the same night as the annual performance of Shakespeare play at Stafford Castle, which had taken up nearly all the Gatehouse resources. 

Needless to say we did not get a discount, however I voiced our feelings to one of the workers and we did get to use the MET (small theatre) for about 7 hours on the night and only got charged for 3.  
This meant that we managed to make a small amount of money from the performance, which will be used to buy equipment for a fire juggling show we are doing at Wellington Drive Music Festival on the 28th June.


The idea of having a colourful backdrop for Badger Kettle really worked, and this was the most popular piece of the evening.  We put this energetic comedy on last, to surprise the audience, who had just been treated to two quite moody, slow, dark performances. 

I was really pleased with the confidence of the actors - even when they felt nervous, the audience feedback was that the group were polished and professional looking.  There was a great variety of characters, and this is due, I think, to the fact that as with the exception of the narrator, 

all of the actors communicate through movement, they were able to dig further into themselves to come up with their character.  
Words can be so restrictive, I realise more and more.  I can see why much of the work that we do through dramatherapy aims to focus on the non-verbal, it gives a quality of meaning that words cannot describe. 

There is some confusion, which has always been the case, about what Konnektiv actually are about - drama?  drama for health?  dramatherapy?  
experimental drama?  performance?  I share the confusion.  This will be the hot topic of the AGM which is coming up on the 13th. 
 What will our direction be in 2012/13?
How we promote ourselves influences how people view us - for instance audiences may not turn out to see a drama for health performance, or it may not be supported by arts funders, as they may not see the performance as being 'art'.  However, if we want to gain interest and network with health organisations and funders, we do need to demonstrate our commitment to investigating health factors.  This, to me, is crucial.  

So, all in all, there is a lot to think about.  My own personal vision is of an arts and health centre in Stafford.  Resources are limited, a workshop space of our own would be great, and enable us to put on many more different kinds of group, some more performance based, some more arts and health. Some may be more health than arts; especially around lifestyle, but always with some focus on the arts, and specifically, the performance arts.


In the meantime, there will be no more regular workshops until September, as the Performing Arts Centre is being used for sorting musical instruments for the summer.  Our practice sessions for the fire show will take place at the fire station community room, or the park.  And when we use real fire, not sure...  

Anyway, here's some pics of me and Merv practicing poi and juggling balls without fire, at the Community Room...