Restarting the Machine

Today we used group juggling technique to look at several themes that will be important to the machine: patterns, rhythm, interactions, and sound.  We used a group movement excersise to start working with complicite and also to start to play with the different types and styles of movement that the group can create.  We also began to look at whether there is an optimum number of people to create our machine, through free impro.

Group juggling - our first machine

Free Improvisation - pic 1

In a circle, we began to throw juggling balls to each other.  First, one ball, and clockwise around the circle, to the person standing on our left.  Once the ball had gone round a few times, and we felt a rhythm forming, Another ball was added.  We passed the two balls around the circle, once again, waiting for a rhythm to form itself.  Another ball was added.  In total, we ended up with 6 balls going round the circle of 8 people.  We needed to focus.  As soon as we had thrown a ball to the person on our right, we had to return our attention to the person on our left, so that they could throw a ball to us.  The rhythm worked on 3 levels, and was not perfectly regular, as people dropped the ball from time to time.  When this happened, a ball jam occured, as one person could not pass their ball, and thus could not be passed to ( I introduced a rule that people could not have 2 balls, to prevent balls being thrown without a recipient.)  Once the jam had cleared, the machine was once again working. and the rhythm returned.  We talked about how enjoyable it was when the machine worked, something very satisfying about a repeating rhythm, and a coherent whole made up of several interacting parts.  We added sound to the movements, accentuating the rhythm, vocal and body sounds, beeping, whistling, stamping feet and so on.  Once we had mastered this technique with the ball going round one person at a time, we repeated the excersise with people throwing the ball to people in different places in the circle, still repeating a sequence, but the sequence being variable.  Once the rhythm had been emphasised with sound, we realised that we had formed quite a complex structure.  As time went on, the passing of the balls became smoother, people became more relaxed, and the sounds more interesting and lively.  This was our first machine, appearing complex but with simple rules.

Movement skills and creativity development.

Free Improvisation - Pic 2

The group moved around the space.  Like atoms, moving to fill the available space.  They were in high spirits and automatically doing casually silly walks.  After a while I told the group to watch one member - they stopped.  For a moment they watched Billie, she froze and looked back, startled.  Then, in response to an unspoken expectation, she began to make sharp, nervous little movements, like a meercat, (or a badger kettle).  The group, after a little hesitation, responded, making similar movements.  We moved around together, sniffing the air, on toes.  "Everyone go back to your original walk"  I said.  They did.  They focussed on their breathing.  I wanted this to be a relaxing experience, in preparation for the group impro, and to warm up people in their bodies, to prepare the bodies for sensitive, playful, interactions and different levels.

One by one, each person's walk was reflected by the group.  In between I instructed members to be aware of their breathing, after about the 3rd person, when they were getting really warmed up, I instructed them to be aware of their beating hearts.  Later I drew their attention to the heat of their bodies.  Once everyone had been reflected by the group, people were starting to get quite out of breath.  I had wanted the group to be focussed on their body's signs of being physically warmed up, because at the end came the relaxing part.  I instructed the group to slowly, like a big steam train, come to a halt.  They did.  They got into a comfortable position and spent some time listening to and feeling the changes occuring in their bodies - their breathing became less deep, their heart started to beat more slowly again.  Gradually the tingling in the warm palms faded.

They reflected upon the experience that they had just had.  This was a time of rest and a bit of a time to relax and gain familiarity with the sense of a creative body.  They thought about the machine, and what form it might ultimately take.

From: http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2011/09/17/artwork-steampunk-larisa/

When they were ready, people rejoined the group in a loosely knit circle and discussed what form the machine might take.  We talked about steampunk, the notion of history meets science fiction in ridiculously beautiful artifacts.  We talked about a machine that might sometimes break down but would be very resilient, and fix itself, getting back into action just as people thought it's end had come.

In the last section of the session, the free improvisation, we began to ask, is there an optimum number of persons for a machine? in terms of complicite, as found in bouffon work, the magic number is 5.  Our experience in Konnektiv would so far suggest that this is the best number for what we are devising.  However this would mean splitting the group into two, and make rehearsals difficult, so for practical reasons, I am hoping that this is not the case.  Time will tell.  If 5 it must be, then 5 it will be.

The group sat in the audience chairs looking into the performance space.  They looked at the empty space for some time.  One person walked into the space.  They looked around, exploring imaginary objects, creating a scene through their responses to these creations.  A second person entered the space.  With a slightly different plot in mind.  The two entered a negotiation, a new scenario developed.  A third person.  Jogging.  Jogging?  In a gallery?  At once the scene was thrown.  Later we talked about how in drama anything is possible, of course you could go jogging in an art gallery!  We are testing our grip on our schemas in these improvisations.  One by one, each member of the group enters the space.  The new members are keen, and enter early, the older members holding back, waiting for their moment.  One member doesn't want to enter the space, another persuades her to, through the improvisation.  Moods, themes, responses, offers, rejections, sadness, play, hope, requests - all are played out.  I freeze the action and ask the group members to name the character they are playing.  then they carry on.  Eventually the whole group congregate, and a rhythm is formed.  We love rhythm in this group.  Rhythm is the beating heart, the lungs, working like bellows, the stamping feet, the drops of tears.  The pumping and whistling and whirring of the machine, the creaking of an old forgotten tree, snow falling silently on a starlit landscape.  Rhythm is infinate, of nature and of machine.  Even when, whistling through space, the earth crashes into the sun causing billions of tons of explosion,he final screams of her burning up in the sun's fiery belly echo through space.

The group form a rhythm, palms of hands on wooden floor.  As each person joins in it becomes more complex and exciting.  After a while I ask them to find an ending.  The rhythm is slowed.  People withdraw from the group, Eventually it stops as the movement freezes and the rhythm stops altogether.

I have made a video of the ending of the improvisation - hopefully I've uploaded it correctly - if not, I will try again tomorrow.

In a circle, we discuss each persons experience of the impro.  The new people have joined in very well, more experienced members share their ideas of how to create optimum fluidity and dramatic interaction in the impro - we talked about the importance of thinking with body, and sound.  We talked about not clinging to notions or characters, or intentions, but offering, and accepting the offer, of negotiation, awareness of other.  Ideas necessarily become fuzzy in the improvisation space.  The individual tends to disappear and the group takes on it's own identity.

In this impro the action tended to be a little disparate.  Small groups were formed as they group failed to agree on themes until the very end.  The question is, does this suggest that there were too many?  Would 5 have been better?  Or was it just due to the fact that half the group are not really experienced at this sort of thing, and the rest of the group are maybe a little rusty after our break from Konnektiv workshops.

Needless to say we will explore the matter further!

A new season begins

A great session, and a fitting start to a new season of Konnektiv.  We saw some old and some new faces, and everyone threw themselves into the activities and all said they had really enjoyed themselves.  

Konnektiv is changing.  

Now that the Research and the Health side of our organisation are more productive, the Drama side can focus more on the important factor of performance, and in a sense a different level of wellbeing benefits - confidence raising; training the body and the senses to a higher degree, a deeper level of interpersonal skill and social interaction.  

Performance is an essential part in all of our lives; we have different roles, with different scripts, that take part in different storylines in different scenes in our lives, and who may all write distinctively different personal narratives.

We did some simple activities in groups, using balls and hoops.  In one set of activities each person in the group had a ball (in one group) or a hoop (in the other).  They choreographed a simple routine in which we were looking at how a simple move done simultaneously by 5 people can look very effective.  

Especially with the balls, this was more difficult than I had thought it would be.  Some times, I spent more time picking up the ball than throwing it in the air.  That being said, we began to remember the tricks of group performance - the basics....

How does the group begin - how to they know when to start?  How do they know when to end?  How do they end?  these factors are extremely important.  And it is very important that the whole group knows and agrees on these factors.  

A good start and a good ending are of vital importance to any performance.  As in life, you can recover from a bad start, but it may be difficult, and takes energy from the job of realising ones full potential, at least temporarily.  A bad ending is a lost cause, and no matter how well your epitaph is written, the audience are left with an unmemorable impression, or one that is memorable for the wrong reasons.

The start is difficult, because people are nervous.  People may mumble and fumble their way through a beginning, as this is the worst time for performance anxiety.  Control is vital, being fully focussed and aware.  Knowing your moves intimately - nerves are an enemy of memory.  Enjoying yourself, despite the nerves.  

Endings I find easier.  However during the rush and excitement of putting a performance together the ending may be easily forgotten.  I have been 2 minutes before the end of a full length live performance, and realised that we haven't rehearsed any kind of ending.

In the second set of group work, we mixed up the balls and hoops.  One group got 3 balls and 1 hoop, the other was given 2 hoops and one ball.  These both gave an extremely interesting choreographed routine.  The different affordances suggested by each prop, as well as the different combined personalities of the members of each group, meant that the two performances were very individual.  This is something that I am constantly in awe of; the skill of a group of individuals in creating something meaningful and entertaining, with very little initial input and guidance previously given.

I was reminded of the importance of discipline.  Especially as now, in this incarnation of Konnekiv, we have decided to be more performance based.  We need to be highly dedicated in terms of working on balance, control, body awareness, and having a purposeful and confident presentation in all that we do, whilst maintaining the lively and spontaneous feel that we pride ourselves on.  As always there is much work to be done.

When is it work and when is it play?

As a drama for health group, the experience of taking the journey from initially devising dramatic ideas, to putting on performances, was the most important thing, and the magic of the performances, was in the liveliness and sponteneity of the actors.  As a performance based group, we may begin to expect more of ourselves in terms of technical ability and expertise.  I will certainly be requesting that each member of the group does some form of daily physical excersise, even if for a short time.

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.