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.