LEVEL 1: DAY 1

JULY 10, 2023

I arrived at the Ukranian Hall on East Pender Street about half an hour early - a good thing considering how difficult it is to find a parking spot!

Prologue/Disclaimer

This blog is a very subjective and partial account that reflects my own personal experiences  with the Theatre of Living training sessions. If you were there also, you will recognize much (perhaps most) of what I share here, but of course your experience will be different in important ways. 

My particular interest is in finding applications and adaptations of this work for my own work teaching in the university classroom and in the community. I do something I call The Theatre of Empowerment: storytelling, dialogue and performance for person and social transformation. The topics we deal with include communication, conflict transformation, and Shakespeare in prison.

If you feel moved to share your own orientation to this work, and/or your experiences of a particular day, exercise, or moment, I welcome you to do so in the comments section. That would actually be wonderful! 

Also, if you see any errors of fact or omission in anything I write here, please let me know, and I will make the necessary revisions.

In keeping with our community agreement to refrain from naming individuals, I will not be naming anyone, unless I have an exact understanding and their express permission in advance.

Level 1: Day 1

The first thing David had us do was to walk across the room, shoulder to shoulder, scanning the wooden floor for nails that were sticking up. The hall is used by a number of groups, including flamenco dancers, and so nails do pop up regularly. When someone called "got one!" David would run over, hammer in hand, and tap it down.

Our first formal exercise is something I will call "Point - And Point Again." (If any educated reader of this blog knows the precise name that David uses for this exercise, and it is different from what I have written, please let me know, and I will correct the title. The same thing goes for any other exercise I mention here.)

Point - and Point Again. David asked us to stand with our feet firmly planted on the floor, then: Extend one arm straight out in front of you, and point. Then: still pointing, turn clockwise from the waist and hips, with your feet still planted. Point to an specific place that you can comfortably see by turning this way. Then reset, point, close your eyes, and imagine yourself turning back to that point. Do it with your eyes still closed, and see where you end up. Then repeat the process: reset, point, close eyes, and imagine turning... further. Then turn, and see where you end up. Do it again, going further still. Finally, imagine yourself turning 360 degrees, like a cartoon character...  David asked us about our experience with the exercise, and how it might apply to the work we do in various social justice arenas.

Push/Balance. We worked in pairs. Facing one another, we placed both hands on the other person's shoulders, and pushed. The objective was to gradually increase our force until we were pushing with all our strength. If we began to overpower our partner, we let up just a little, to find a balance. We talked about our experience with the exercise, and about the challenge of balancing power, both in the exercise, and in other areas of our lives, including social justice work. 

David also used this exercise (Push/Balance) as a jumping-off point to talk about that which is essential to theatre, and that is conflict. The actors should want something, and should experience at least one other person as an obstacle to getting what they want.

As he invited our comments and questions, David also invited disagreement, since (as he pointed out) without disagreement, or at least the possibility of disagreement, there is no dialogue. He bemoaned a trend in contemporary culture where disagreement has become equated with disrespect.

Hypnosis. In debriefing this exercise, we talked abut the challenges of staying connected and coordinated, especially as the exercise became more complex. 

General advice: don't crowd others, don't over-protect. Respect their agency. Know that a "safe space" is a space where it is safe to fail.

Lead the Blind. This is verbatim from David:

Take a partner. You are both going to do both parts of this, but don’t switch over until I ask you to. One of you is going to be the leader (eyes open); the other will be blind (eyes closed). Decide on a sound together. No words; not language. Also not a mechanical sound, not clapping or stamping feet, but something you can make with your breath. The leader makes the sound and the blind partner follows. The leader has two signals: sound and no sound. No sound means stop. Everyone is going to be doing this at the same time, so you really have to listen! Take your blind partner around the room and don’t have any collisions.

 

After a couple of minutes: Freeze. Take four or five steps away from each other. This is the closest you can get to each other. Continue.

 

After a couple of minutes: Freeze. Leaders, go as far away from your partners as you can. Not behind any furniture, please, and you must stay in the room. Leaders, stay where you are now, and start making your sounds, bringing your partner ‘home’ to you. Partners, once you reach ‘home’, please just wait silently until everyone is finished.

What is "Dialogue?" Fully attending to the other. Not prepping your own thoughts while they speak. Letting go of the agenda to persuade or convince the other of the rightness of your perspective. 

I forget how this came up, but David shared his appreciation for Boal's injunctions about sensory experience: seeing what we look at, listening to what we hear, feeling what we touch, and so on. I am reminded of a Buddhist injunction that urges us to do this without reference to a self: for example, feel the feelings in the feelings themselves - nothing extra.

Blind Magnets. We closed our eyes, and placed our arms at our sides, or crossed over our chest. Then we moved gently through the space, encountering one another like bumper cars. Next, we we told to imagine ourselves as repelling magnets, with a force field around us,  repelling others as we moved through the space. Simply imagining this seemed to have a real effect on how we moved through the space. For me and others, there were fewer "bumps." Then, we were invited to see ourselves as magnets that attract, which meant that very quickly, we all became stuck to one another. We got out of that by imaging ourselves as repelling magnets, once again, with force fields.

In debriefing this exercise, we talked about belonging and community, connecting and disconnecting. I was touched (both physically and emotionally) in ways I did not expect. I thought about the importance of being at home in oneself, even as one is in motion, in the midst of this whirlpool of connection and disconnection.

David highlighted the importance of the mind/body/environment connection in this exercise, which helps us to reconnect with the fundamental, organic nature of how the world really works. Since the time of the Enlightenment and Descartes ("I think, therefore I am"), there has been a mind/body/environment split. The world has been mechanized. We have become mechanized. That has produced innumerable harmful effects. For example: when someone acts out in a violent manner, we see them as a broken part that needs to be fixed or removed. We don't look at the systems they are a part of.

After lunch...

Circle Clap. Standing in circle, we began with one person clapping both hands together, arms extended outward, to another person across the circle. The receiver "pulled in" the clap by extending arms outward, and clapping "backwards" (bringing their arms back toward their body). That person then became the sender, and the game continued around the circle. A good game for generating focus, energy, and coordination.

IMAGE THEATRE

David introduced us to the basic concept and practice of Image Theatre, with an emphasis on what I would call "the play of interpretations." All interpretations of an image are valid, because the purpose of an image is to evoke a response, not to convey a single meaning. David dramatized this by standing and leaning forward, with his right leg forward, right arm extended directly outward, right finger pointing. He asked: "What is this?" Many interpretations were shared. "He's pointing at a police officer assaulting a citizen." "He's a captain of a ship pointing toward land." "He's doing a yoga pose." Finally, David said, "You're all wrong. I'm at a pub, looking at a dart board, and I've just thrown a dart." His point, of course, is not that we were all wrong. His point was that the point of image theatre is not to convey or insist upon a single interpretation: also, that the actor's interpretation is only one among many - not a privileged interpretation.

Making Images. Think of a relatively recent struggle, one that still lives within you. Where do you feel it in your body? Express that feeling by moving your body into an image. Use your whole body. 

When someone resonates with the first image, for whatever reason, they are invited to form their own image, and to connect with the first one in some way.

A third person is invited to do the same, and to join the first two.

Communal Storytelling. What ideas and stories are evoked by the image? The observers are invited to name it. 

During this process, David noted the importance of keeping Objective Commentary and Subjective Commentary separate. The first involves standing apart and commenting on or questioning the process from the viewpoint of a critical observer. The second requires staying within the game or exercise, and experiencing it and commenting on it from within.

Sculpting. This exercise, along with most exercises in TfL, is about "working with the consciousness in the room." David demonstrated the rudiments of sculpting, by physically manipulating an actor, and/or demonstrating the form that the sculptor wishes the actor to take. It is important to do this in silence: "Don't explain - only sculpt." To get the actor's attention and direct the direction of their gaze, a click of the fingers is useful.

This work is about "rehumanizing the connections between people."

"If you play Hitler as the bad guy, it will not work."

"The transformation of the community does not come from calling people assholes." (I am reminding of Marshall Rosenberg's (author of Nonviolent Communication) observation that we so often make the tragic mistake of trying to meet our needs by labeling, evaluating, judging, analyzing, diagnosing, and attempting to control others. This leads only to defensiveness, separation, and destructive conflict.)

Groups of Six (general rule: no fewer than three, no more than seven per group): In each group, each person took a turn sculpting fellow group members into an image representing their personal struggle working for social justice. At least two people would be in the image, and possibly all group members. The point is not to mechanically follow instructions, but to do whatever is necessary to serve the image.

Once the images were formed, each group stepped forward to present all 6 of their images to the larger group. After seeing all of them, everyone (including the presenters themselves) voted for the two images that most strongly resonated with their own experience. It was OK to give one of your votes to your own image. 

The top vote-getter became the scene that we addressed through dialogue, and animation.

Animation. Before animating the image, David asked the group, "What's going on here?" He encouraged multiple and diverse interpretations. 

If someone in the larger group sensed that something/someone needed to be added to the image, they were invited to come up and add themselves.

Then:

Everyone in the image spoke their thoughts out loud, simultaneously, in monologues.

They then returned to silence. When David touched an individual, they were to speak aloud, completing this statement: "I want..."

Stepping Into the Future. Actors were instructed to move toward getting what they wanted, step by step. Each time David clapped, actors were to make one move forward, and freeze again. David recommends at least 6 hand claps/moves.

Keep in mind:

* Everyone is going for what they want.

* It is OK to touch.

*Don't plan your next move - respond to what others do.

*It is OK for each actor to be in their own story.

*Don't explain what you are doing.

*Don't serve as the organizer of the image - this is for us all.

Your Secret Thought. Each actor is invited to express a secret thought. The audience can also be invited to express secret thoughts that might be held by the actors.

The artistry of Theatre for Living is in combining these techniques, and moving among them, in ways that best serve the emerging conversation.

The Consciousness in the Room. If an audience member sensed a resonance with an image, they were invited to step up and stand behind or next to the image, adopting the same form. Then these mirror images were invited to speak their internal monologues (out loud), then to voice a sound expressing their want, then to give words to their want.

The original actors were then invited to give their final thoughts about what they had experienced (subjective, not objective commentary).

Reminders:

* It's just about opening things up.

* You're not obliged to speak.

*"We need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable."

GROUP DISCUSSION / REFLECTIONS

What/when/where/how is the consciousness in the room?

Here my notes read "Mirror, then monologue, then sound, then want." I can interpret that in a variety of ways. The original meaning/context is lost!

CLOSING CIRCLE

David put a talking piece in the middle of the full group circle. It was a piece of the Berlin Wall. He spoke of its significance to him and to our work. (In future sessions, other members of the ensemble were invited to share their own talking pieces.)

As the talking piece was passed from hand to hand, we were invited to share our final thoughts for the day.

CLOSING RITUAL

We all joined hands, and then brought them all the way up above our heads, linked together as we moved in toward the center - and screamed!