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.
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