Filling in the gaps

For example:

Some of you will know that I recently started a PhD, and that prior to that I was directing a large project called Glorious. On a CV, it looks seamless. But the reality is very different. There was (and still is in many ways) a long process of acknowledging an ending and inviting an unknown future, plenty of doubt and frustration and sadness, uncertainty and certainty vying with each other, a long process of letting go and listening carefully, of getting off the train but trying to stay on the horse, if you know what I mean. And there's something about the place where I've arrived that means I want to preserve the gaps in activity - I want to tell the actual story of how that looks and not gloss over it. Maybe because I've spent most of my life so far telling the story of what I've done - in funding applications, on CVs, through my website - in response to the heavy demand on artists (and everyone?) to document even better than we've lived. In many ways it's easy to make it all look smooth, filled-in, glossed-over, and sometimes that's a very fun exercise. And it's not that I've not enjoyed those things, I love telling the story of it all, it's a form of fiction. But something has shifted for me.

I've always valued transition moments. Moments of breakdown and questioning, even if they're hard, are the most significant and exciting moments in life. But I think what I'm trying to say is that now I want to be more public about those parts. That's some of what this blog is for me, recognising the value in being open about the transition moments. That's where change lies, in the potential to share those moments.


For example:

I've been leading a workshop in Brussels for the past week, six full days and evenings of intensely being with people, discovering, nurturing, listening, asking, being open open open to what might happen next, making a plan and letting it go. And now, in a short day, I turn around and go on holiday. And I can't think of anything more luxurious. I'm very lucky to be in this position. But this moment, this exit from the workshop, entry into the holiday, is so much more complex than it should be! I'm exhausted and emotional, and I don't know what to do with those things. The concept of holiday is actually quite complex - how do you let go of everything, just for a short amount of time, temporarily transition your whole life into something that doesn't resemble it at all, and then just at the moment you're getting used to that other thing, transition it back? It's a weird idea. I like it too - and I think it's very healthy to stop working for a while. But let's not pretend this thing is easy, just because it's nice.


For example:

I'm writing a PhD. It's part practice-based, which means that in theory I get to use my artistic practice as part of my thinking during this PhD. And I love doing it. I love the study, I love the learning, and the discussion, and the writing, and the reading. But the idea of validation is so closely related to an idea of knowing. And my expertise lies in not-knowing. So I walk around these days feeling inspired and excited and at the same time angry. Not angry specifically, like something made me angry, but carrying a kind of passionate rage under the surface. I think it's a good thing. I think it's an anger that's related to the gaps, an anger towards dominant structures, towards a general inability to recognise a different kind of literacy. It's existing in a space that's filled with the possibility of change, even if I've no idea yet exactly how or what that change might be.


For example:

During the workshop, we spent one full day in silence. We went to a museum in silence, walked back to La Bellone in silence, ate lunch in silence, and then entered our workshop space in silence and were in the space together in silence. The lunch especially was awkward, difficult for some, strange. But in that strangeness we found so much communication. Emotions were expressed that could never have been expressed in a normal speaking day, they arrived and they passed without being held up by the worry of words. A great frustration was encountered by everyone, but instead of getting stuck inside it, we had to find ways to be with it, and eventually, recognise it, let it move on, or let it be. A shift happened within the group that would otherwise not have been possible. At the end of the afternoon, on a piece of paper, one of the workshop participants wrote, "La parole est peut-être ce qui nous sépare des autres." Maybe words are what keep us apart.

The big fat finger of disappointment

"Disappointment is a good sign of basic intelligence. It cannot be compared to anything else: it is so sharp, precise, obvious and direct." - Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism


Last night, I was at part of a conversational event with the director Phelim McDermott and the poet John Hall. I don't know if the whole series is like this, but this one was electric - in a humble, open, generous kind of way - it was electric and fertile and wonderful. So much so that at the end of the evening we all left feeling we still had things to say, to discuss, to place in the world, to explore together and with others. So I'm fired up and determined to post this today! And in the spirit of conversation, this blog post will just be a beginning. And I'm slowly getting used to that being okay.

This blog doesn't have to say *everything*.

Instead, here's some of everything:


Disappointment and care
As many of you will know, I've been working for what seems like forever but is actually just over three years on a large project called Glorious. Some of you may also know that whilst many good things have come of this project, there have also been a few incredibly hostile reviews and audience reactions.

I've spent a good year dealing with what these reviews and responses have provoked emotionally for me. It has felt like they have destroyed me. And not in the normal way that negative reviews might destroy a person. They've left me wanting to give up on theatre for good - to walk away and declare defeat.

But it turns out that this disappointment had little to do with those reviews. Yes of course, they were upsetting, and normally I would have felt sad - because we all want to be loved and to be successful at some level. But my response wasn't as simple as that. I used those reviews as a reason to retreat from a world I have known and owned, as a reason to say goodbye to something. And I've finally found a way to listen to that.

What I realise now is that they acted as a catalyst into a place I've needed to be emotionally. When I allowed myself to follow that instinct, to be with that disappointment, I realised that what I was experiencing was the sense of an ending and the painful process of changing values. And I really needed to experience those things in order to move into a new place in my life. Because whilst to outsiders Glorious is just the next show in my artistic career, I have experienced it as a life-changing project. It has raised the stakes considerably for me. And the act of returning to the way I used to work no longer feels like an option.

This made me think about disappointment, and about endings, and about hard places that we move through in life. Places that we're afraid of, places we distance ourselves from. And I'm wondering what happens if we can be less afraid of them. If a true friend could be someone who allows you to enter that place and find a way through it rather than around it. I wonder what decisions we might make if we were less afraid of letting go of what we knew. In this instance, what happens if I let go of the idea of being an artist in the ways it has previously manifested itself? What new spaces might arise if I can acknowledge the ending of something, and allow the next phase to emerge?

Disappointment is like a big fat finger that points unavoidably at the thing we're most trying to avoid. When it occurs in my life, I try to shield myself from it by trying to justify and understand the thing that has left me with a void. But I've learnt this year that feeling disappointed can be a rich (if difficult) place to be for a while - and that in the end, disappointment really does point quite bluntly towards the things we care about.


Problems that won't go away
The other side of this (and part of the reason it's taken so long to write this, because there are a number of tangled issues) is that I now realise that there was a value in those negative reviews. Because they highlight something important about Glorious. Namely, that it isn't an easy, feel-good, community show. It's more than that. And I don't mean better. I certainly wouldn't want to imply that there's something superior in the difficulties of this project. But I think it's important to acknowledge that Glorious is trying to do something other than that. And a part of that attempt is about making manifest 'problems' that refuse to hide.

I'm the kind of artist who is easily swayed by opinion. I value what other people think. So if an audience member has a certain reaction to the work, I do take that seriously. And I've spent so much time thinking through what the negative reactions were about. But every time I've been through this process (and believe me, I've been there a lot) I've resisted the idea of changing something in the show to make it more palatable.

And I've found myself in a place where I know there is some value to the problems, the contradictions, of a work like Glorious that doesn't fit into the classifications of 'musical' or 'live art' or 'community theatre'. Even though this means that some people will find it harder to 'like'.

I don't want to spend too much time on this right now - partly because there are many enourmous questions that get unearthed as I try to articulate what the problems are that are raised by the show, and how they fit or don't fit with current expectations around engaged or experimental practices; and partly because I'm in the process of organising a symposium around all of this for the last weekend in May 2013 and it would be far more interesting if you could come along and we could have a conversation. But maybe I'll just finish up this section by acknowledging that some of the following are present for me as I continue and move towards reflecting on what Glorious has been able to do.

The problem of authorship and the notion of author or director in community work

The problem of what we choose to make visible and what we choose to make invisible in theatre

Whether we have a responsibility to make work that looks the way it is expected to look

Whether a duty of care can or should extend to a duty of representation

What we are asking of an audience when we invite them to sit in a theatre

Whether we can make work that is both difficult and kind


The host in hostile
There was a wonderful moment last night when I felt like John Hall was pulling a gentle thread of language from inside of me. It was during this moment that he referred to the relationship between 'host' and 'guest' and 'hostile' - all sharing close etymological ground. He talked about the idea that the true definition of a guest is a stranger, and the true definition of a stranger is a person who might be your enemy.

And it made me think about:

A few weeks ago, I took part in a talk at The Baltic in Gateshead. While preparing for this talk, I had a moment of brightness when I realised that instead of talking about everything that had been brilliant and successful in the process of Glorious, I could use this as an opportunity to explore the problems of the process and the resistances we had met. I could talk about all that had seemed hard and unresolved in the project, and where this had led me in my thinking. I could take a look at why some people felt so angry, while others felt so warm. Those reactions, the angry disappointed ones, they were able to offer me so much if I could invite them into the dialogue.

And so when John pointed out that there was host in hostility, it felt like he was describing my recent epiphany. Of course! - the most interesting dialogues with the most potential for change and movement and wonder come from those moments when we embrace the thing that we feel is set against us, when we pay attention to the language of that resistance. Any response to something I've made is, after all, an offering, whether it's the kind of offering I choose to accept or not.

I often declare that I want dialogue to be wide - that I want to embrace strangers - but when it comes down to it my instincts still tell me to stick with the familiar. In beginning to embrace opposition, in embracing the failures of Glorious, I have been able to find more value in the project and more value in the dialogue. And this opens up a whole new space of possibility.


Standing on the edge
I guess that where this leaves me is in a place of great re-evaluation. I’m standing at the tip of my life, looking at all the things one might call Success, and slowly starting to see them for what they really are. And I’m asking myself what really matters in a life. Because when it comes down to it, surely life is just a series of encounters with people - it’s a series of how people treat you and how you treat them.

Before I read

Today before I read my emails, or check twitter, or gloriouspeople.ning.com, or spin any other of the daily plates...

I'm just back from  three-day Vipassana meditation retreat. It was short - compared to the more usual ten-day courses, where one undergoes quite a transformation from everyday life. However, it was long enough for me to witness once again how distinct and beautiful it is to be with other people who are not speaking or making eye contact.

I realise that might sound a bit absurd.
Like - "it's okay to be around people as long as you don't have anything to do with them".

And maybe that's a part of it - that our lives weren't there to get in the way. We had no pens or pencils or phones or books or maps or letters or make up or fancy clothes or music or dancing or internet. Instead, just our bodies, in a space, practising meditation, eating simply, sometimes walking, and sometimes resting. Making no sound, and making no eye contact with each other.

And you might imagine that because we weren't talking or making eye contact, that we weren't really present with each other. But on the contrary, we were all holding a space together - and much more aware, in a compassionate way, of the other people in the space.

I think what it comes down to is this:

No-one bumped into each other.

Not with words or bodies.

Because there was space to be both in our own bodies and with others.
And this is a rare combination out here in our lives.


At the moment when we knew we were about to start speaking again, to make eye contact, to be with each other - there was a sense of anticipation. An excitement. But there was also a re-learning. A quick refresher - so quick it was barely perceptible - on how to mask truth with language, how to cover shame and embarrassment, how to be a girl or a boy or another kind of container.

This moment of reprogramming was barely perceptible. But the shift back into our everyday lives was immense. And within minutes, we were all navigating our worlds again, getting ready to head homewards, making friends, passing judgements, asking how the experience had been, asking how to get to the train station. Separated by communication.

So this post is a reminder - to me, mostly - to taste words more carefully. To remember that underneath all the layers of pens and pencils and phones and books and maps and letters and make up and fancy clothes and music and dancing and internet - there is always just a person, walking into the world.

Holding a door open

So finally a few thoughts.

Occupy
I went to a talk last night and amongst (many) other things the speaker proposed the idea that the Occupy movement might be holding a space open in which society can reconfigure itself. And something really resonated about that. I like this image, of holding something, not declaring something, not prescribing something, but holding a door open to see who might choose to pass through. Allowing the possibility for change rather than simply imposing change. Allowing the possibility, also, for new conversations to emerge, without prescribing necessarily what those conversations will be. I like the image, but I also like the problems it presents. What happens when you allow a reflective space? How does that shape the type of change that can occur and the speed of change that can occur? Might it in fact be a space that creates 'shifts' rather than 'changes'? How can the rest of the world read this new space, that does not fit into existing definitions, that comes without a map? How long can this opening last before something has to land and settle, before an opinion needs to be set?

How we make theatre

And I've been thinking a lot about how different people make theatre. I guess mainly because I've been feeling a lot of pressure to be articulate about Glorious and feeling unable to adequately do this. For me, this relates back to the idea of holding the door open. Because I think that some artists do a bunch of research, and through that research find a process that leads to a performance - and the moment when they start performing is when the door closes, because the work has been created and is ready to tour. In many ways, this is a beautiful model. It is neat, and allows for the audience to experience a finished product. It also allows the artist to talk about the work and explain what it's trying to do - and then an audience can hear this articulation alongside the work. Somedays I wish I worked this way.

But the way I (and many others) work is a lot more messy than this. Messy and unclear. Or open and filled with possibility. Depending on how you choose to frame it.

My approach is something like this. I find an area that is interesting - for example, the idea of 'not knowing' and how it relates to our notions of place and hope - and then along with collaborators we read and draw and make, and slowly find our way towards something, which usually ends up being some kind of show. But the process of touring the work is much more like a conversation than an exhibition. Through journeying with those beginning thoughts and ideas, we start to learn what it is that we have made. We shift constantly in how we feel about the work and where we stand in relation to it. And we make physical changes based on that shifting, drawing closer to the work but also gaining more perspective from the reactions of diverse audiences and from the going away and coming back that is inevitable in a year of touring.The whole thing is like a big conversation between peoples and costumes and objects and memories and places. And then at the end of the tour - some months or even a year later - I will begin the process of reflection. And I start to know what that thing was. I can articulate its ideas and theorise about it. I can see how it lived in relation to the moment when it existed.


So now I'm thinking about a tour as a holding open of an idea for a time - a holding open of a particular space, through which various audience and participants will pass in so many ways. And it will eventually close, and make way for a space of reflection. But maybe it's okay that while it's travelling and shifting and in dialogue, it is a space that holds many voices.