Charlotte After Day 14, On Day 15, Do What you Fancy Friday

DAY 14 MELTDOWN

There is always a crisis point – a moment of breakdown
New approach is needed
People are confused and defensive – including myself
How to get unstuck?
Do people want leadership and not frameworks?
There is a shared need to pause. There are different tempos in the room.
Choreography as curation may not work.
Surprise yourself with your clarity
Begin again
They go to the pub. I go back to my notebook. This is a familiar dynamic. I feel alone for the first time in three weeks.
Is there is a thought that if you are responsible for bringing people together then you somehow must lead? Was it naïve to think that I could be part of a group that I got together?
Did someone else have to curate this for me to take part?
When given freedom we struggle to know what to do with it.
Limitations are useful.
If I act on impulse then am I interfering or filling the pause?
If I stay silent am I ‘making myself invisible’?
How to start at the beginning?
What was the premise of this R and D for me?
To watch other people work, observe other processes
To build new relationships with artists
To develop relationships with current collaborators
To be part of a group, rather than on the outside of it

Content – wherre is it?
Is the content conjoined to the form?
Is the concept the form or something else?
If it’s something else, what is it? I just don’t know t the moment.

If you try to do everything then you end up with everything.

We work at different paces. Different tempos.
Are we assuming that a quieter, pausing approach is always better?
I appreciate some pauses.. I understand the need to let things hang in the air. We process stuff at different rates. I am trying not to comment on the length of pauses that aren’t serving my needs or interests. Yet it feels to me that my directness, frustration and ‘coercion’ of space/ ideas is being commented on. I feel scrutinised in a way that we/I are not scrutinising other members of the group. Is this ok because its ’my’ project. Was it naïve of me to think I could somehow achieve parity once we set up some rules. I think Ruth’s structures tried to achieve holding the space in a way that allowed me to be part of the group – to interact as an equal. How can we simplify this?
How can we suspend our usual roles and statuses and find pleasure and interest in each others’ approaches?

Ok – what do I want now?
ALex's suggestion seems to be - Could everyone who feels able to just show a bit of what they usually do by leading a day’s workshop? This would enable me to observe, learn, enjoy people for who they are and what they already know. Lets not try to re-invent the wheel. I am genuinely interested in watching people other than me lead stuff.

I would like to genuinely feel like part of a group. Sharing information, approaches, ideas, content, past work experiences without the influence of financial, contractual, status constructs playing a part. Is this unachieveable? Accept differences.

Under normal 'making' conditions people would be swept along in my process. If I lead this time in my usual way I know I would feel as if I had missed an opportunity to learn from others.

Maybe we need the pressure of leading a whole day / half day so that we push things on a bit further than scratching the surface and then moving on to the next unrelated thing as this seems to be causing frustration.

We have tried Ruth’s way of holding a frame
We have stuck with Jem’s task of What Ifs and task building
We are now trying chaos and lucky coincidences

How do we start a process again ?
Questions for the new and current members
If I had to say what I want to do next week

1- What would it have something to do with?

2- What would it have nothing to do with ?

3- How would you start at the beginning?

4- How would you simplify that?

It would be something to do with exploring musicality, pauses, cadence
Something to do with dancing and moving at the same time
Something to do with presence and absence on stage
Something to do with how to form text and how it sits with movement
Something to do with writing a dance, starting at the beginning
Something about using the skills we have
Something to do with re-finding the humour in what we do
Something to do with active learning form each other
Something to do with performance
Nothing to do with roles in the room – lets negate that from the equation
Nothing to do with my status– lets negate that from the equation
Nothing to do with talking – lets negate that from the equation
Nothing to do with the new – lets work with what we already know?