Ireland 2012 » Joe Salvatore

Final Reflections on Ireland 2012

creativity, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Aug 162012

In the final days of the applied theatre course in Ireland, we conducted a series of debrief conversations with the students and facilitators as a way to find some closure on an experience that flew by.

The debrief following the original performance projects took place on Thursday morning, and included full group and smaller devising group discussions. We began with affirmations for the two developed pieces shared the evening before, and then Jenny and Declan met with each of their groups individually to talk through student observations about the processes. We then recombined to allow for students to share in pairs and trios about their actual creation processes. This interchange allowed the students to learn more about the work of their colleagues. Following this conversation, students continued to work in small groups to think through the immediate and long-term implications this experience might have on their individual practices. I encouraged the students to be specific in this conversation and make links directly to upcoming projects they would like to complete in the near future.

One interesting and important point that came up in the discussions with Jenny and Declan had to do with the composition of the audience for an applied theatre project. In reality, a large proportion of the audience will often be friends and family of the performers, and this can invariably affects the overall aesthetic of the performance, which in turn, in my opinion, could also affect the quality. I wonder if in an applied theatre context, practitioners might often sometimes make choices with the community’s audience in mind, thus creating an insider experience for audiences who know the performers and an outsider experience for those who do not. And if this occurs, whether on purpose or accidentally, how does that affect the perception of quality? This phenomenon is not limited to a devised piece within an applied theatre context, as I know that more traditional theatre productions in school settings and in community theatres in the US can also experience the same insider/outsider assessment paradigm. I want to think more about this potential dichotomy, as I’m not sure that one can or should apply one standard to all work. I firmly believe that applied theatre should always have a strong and consistent aesthetic, but the phenomenology of that aesthetic may take multiple forms as the audience-performer-character triad has much more fluidity in a community-engaged project.

Friday marked the conclusion of the course, and the teaching team worked together to take the group through some additional reflective activities. We began with an informal assessment activity. Each student received a large notecard, and s/he was asked to write on one side of the card up to three elements of the course that they would keep for future iterations and on the other side up to three elements that they would modify or discard. This exercise does not replace the more formal, school-imposed evaluation, but it does provide informal data for me and subsequent directors of the Ireland experience.

Joanna Parkes then led the group through a timeline exercise. Using a large sheet of butcher paper, Joanna marked the start of the course and the beginning of weeks two and three. She then charged the group with the task of placing key moments from the experience onto the timeline. Using markers, the group drew pictures and wrote sentences and phrases to describe their individual and collective experiences. As I looked at the group’s mural-like creation after the fact, I was struck by the evidence of learning and growth apparent. One student also noticed that the left side of the mural, or the beginning of the course, was largely populated by individual moments, and as the mural moved to the right, it reflected more experiences common to the community-at-large. A great example of what might happen to a community of people moving through an applied theatre process.

I followed the mural with an exercise that I typically facilitate at the end of any course. While I recognize that I assign marks to the students in the course based on their accumulation of points and mastery of tasks that I assign and that the teaching staff evaluates, I’ve also come to realize and believe that assigned marks do not always accurately reflect the depth of an individual’s learning. I am committed to providing students with a university-sanctioned mark for an experience, but I also think that true reflective practice demands that we investigate and acknowledge our own learning. This is learning that might not be measured by standard assessment techniques. To facilitate this investigation, I ask students to consider their learning through three lenses: awareness, connections, and ownership. I asked the Ireland study abroad students to consider these lenses and to write one sentence for each lens that illustrated their learning in the course. I used the following questions as prompts:

What are you more aware of as a result of your work in this course?

What connections have you made as a result of your work in this course? The connections could be to your own practice, to concepts within the course, to concepts in this course and another course, to your past experiences, or to your future goals.

What do you now feel that you have ownership over as a result of your work in this course?

Students had the opportunity to record these observations in their own journals, and then I noted that ultimately this is the learning that truly matters, as it will follow them into their practice, more closely than the final marks for the course will follow them. I was promptly corrected by two students who pointed out that the marks would matter for PhD and MFA applications, as their GPAs would reflect the marks. Fair enough, but I stand by my position. The learning articulated in this exercise has just as much or more value for the individual than the mark.

Orla Hasson conducted a final set of exercises with the group, starting with an image theatre exercise where the students revisited images of Ireland from our very first session, and then transformed those images into current perceptions of Ireland as they finished the course. Orla followed this with an exercise of take aways and giving thanks. A ball of string became the literal representation of our community connections. Each student shared a take away from the experience and then thanked one individual from the course for something that they appreciated, then passed the ball of string to that person. When the group had created a complete web, Orla asked us to lean back slightly, allowing the weight of the collective to be supported by the web, thus illustrating the strength of our community. We then released the web as a group. A powerful way to end our experience together.

The students then presented the teaching staff with gifts, and the course concluded. We went our separate ways, having learned much about Ireland, applied theatre practices, community, insider/outsider experiences, and of course, each other. I’m grateful to my Irish colleagues for their commitment to the program, and I’m impressed by the work of the students on the course. Their final projects come to me on August 22, and I’m looking forward to seeing how their experiences translate into potential applied theatre projects.

Sharing the devising projects

art, creativity, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Aug 122012

One of the main assignments for the applied theatre course requires that two groups of students work with facilitators on a devising process that could be used to create a community-engaged theatre project. Our facilitators, Declan Gorman and Jenny Macdonald, each take a group and spend about five days modeling their individual devising processes in a concentrated experience. It’s important to note that these processes usually occur over weeks or months, but because of the short duration of the course, Declan and Jenny find ways to telescope their processes so that students achieve strong results in an extraordinarily short period of time. It helps that these students are talented and game to be working in this fashion, but it’s still a superhuman undertaking.

The final sharings of these projects occurred on Wednesday, August 8, in the Beckett Centre Theatre at Trinity College. We were happy that many of our facilitators from the Abbey Theatre, Upstate Theatre, and ANU Productions were able to attend the sharing. We were also joined by a group of young people from Tallaght, who are working with Jenny on another long term community project. This support from our friends and colleagues meant a lot to all of us, and we’re grateful for their attendance.

Sharing new work or work in development requires that the audience understands the context in which the work was created. In this case, we wanted to be clear that the students were learning a process rather than trying to create a finished product. After discussion with Jenny and Declan, we decided to frame the sharing as “evidence of a learning process.” Declan used this phrase to describe the potential of the experience, and I think it aptly represented the purpose and result of the devising process. Jenny’s work with the students focused on devising a performance piece beginning with their own personal stories, whereas Declan’s work focused on devising a fictional script that was then animated through a staged reading.

Each time I experience this devising process in Ireland, I’m appreciative of the opportunity to re-see the students as artists and to see many of them defy my expectations. From the very first day of our work together, I asked the students to experience the course work as artists and fully engage in all of the processes, rather than getting too engrossed in observing the processes from a meta perspective. This particular group really took my charge to heart, and I’m appreciative of their commitment to explore the art form through this creative devising process.

Applied theatre pedigree with Chrissie Poulter

art, creativity, culture, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Aug 112012

The final week of the Ireland applied theatre course began on Monday with some input from Chrissie Poulter. Chrissie has served as an academic tutor and a devising facilitator for the program in years past, and after a three-year career break, she is back as a faculty member at Trinity College. She offered to share some of her thoughts about the longer history of applied theatre and community arts in Ireland, and I thought that her experience and expertise could provide valuable insights for students as they began to consider their final project for the course: a prospectus for an applied theatre project partnering with an organization in the United States.

Chrissie met with the students on Monday morning, a bank holiday in Ireland, and I was most appreciative of her willingness to come in and speak with the students. Chrissie spent her time introducing some of her past projects as a way to illuminate the history of community arts and the development of applied theatre practice in Ireland on both sides of the border. She then transitioned into a discussion of how the prospectus for a new project needed to contain enough information and background for a potential partner without becoming too academic. This point really grounded the expectation for the prospectus assignment, as students will need to make sure that their projects are nested within the larger field of applied theatre without alienating the prospective partner by using too much “insider,” academic terminology. Chrissie summed it up by suggesting that students think about representing the body of applied theatre work in their own proposals and communicating their pedigree to the prospective partner. This language helps to clarify that the facilitator need not be a full-on expert in the given area that the prospectus suggests to address, but that s/he needs to understand the ancestry of the practice. By illustrating this understanding, even an early career applied theatre facilitator/practitioner can gain the confidence and support of a potential partner. Chrissie made the distinction between being an academic and a well-informed practitioner. The two do not necessarily need to be mutually exclusive, but it sometimes it can be useful to isolate the strengths and nuances of each identity, particularly when the practitioner is working in an academic environment.

As I’ve said on this blog before, Chrissie Poulter is one of the strongest and most nuanced facilitators that I’ve seen at work. I’m grateful for her time and presence on the course, and I know the students felt the same. I look forward to seeing how her input influences the final prospectus assignments that I receive on August 22.

Back to devising in an urban context: on the ground in Belfast

art, creativity, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Aug 072012

Our third and final day in Northern Ireland featured a fair amount of rain. No downpours per se, but quite a bit of misting and drizzle.

We started with a trip to Victoria Square, a new, ultra modern, high-end shopping mall in Belfast. At the top of the mall stands a large, plexiglass dome offering a 360 view of the city. We took the lift to the top, had some input from our tour guide Jerry, and then Jonathan set the group to work on another collection of tasks. He asked the students to work in groups of four and to consider the following questions:

How do we come to know a place? How do we penetrate its histories?
How do we account for a place or help other to access it?
How can a creative process and/or performance help us claim/reclaim a space?
What/who qualifies insider/outsider?

These questions have been at the heart of our inquiry throughout the course, but I think the rich history of Belfast actually helped to clarify the importance of these questions in an applied theatre context.

With these questions in mind, Jonathan then asked the group to engage in what termed a cultural treasure hunt. He sent the students out into the area surrounding Victoria Square and asked them to gather information from people they met on the street. Here’s the list that he provided for students to consider:

PLACES REMEMBERED:
i.e. a place…
- where you bumped into a friend
- that reminds you of someone else
- that you know a story about
- where you used to go
- that you visited only once
- where you have never been
- that reminds you of somewhere else

PLACES LIVED:
i.e. a place…
- that I last visited
- where I meet people
- that I’m on my way to now
- where I always go
- that’s hard to find
- where I always meant to go

… and a PLACE NOT YET COMPLETED.

Jonathan asked students to collect the person’s name, the place, and the significance of that place. He also emphasized that these did not need to be extraordinary or historically significant places. This exercise was about mapping the experience of the everyday life of a place.

After 45 minutes, the students returned, and Jonathan gave them the following set of instructions and parameters for their compositions:

- In sight of/reference your PLACE NOT YET COMPLETED
- Re-imagine this space as one of the significant places captured in the first exercise that has been destroyed/demolished and is now being rebuilt with a new purpose
- Include two ‘characters’ you encountered in Part 1, one of which must be identifiably outside of the narrative (looking on)

- No spoken words
- 1 still image
- 1 slow motion section
- Clear beginning, middle, and end
- Be respectful/mindful of the life of the space
- Ensure you select a safe place to perform/spectate.

Twenty minutes later, traipsing through a light rain, we witnessed four original pieces on the streets of Belfast. A few people stopped to see what was happening, but most people just kept walking, more interested in staying dry than what some street performance. After the showings, I was struck by how much closer I felt to Belfast. I’ve been to the city five times now, but this fifth time was really “on the ground” in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. “Knowing” a place really demands a deeper level of interaction with that place and more importantly the people in that place. It’s a lesson learned, one that can carry into locations that I “think” I already know.

Following a lunch break, the group moved into the afternoon session with Jonathan at The MAC, a brand new arts venue in Belfast. We received a tour of the space, which features state-of-the-art theatres, galleries, and rehearsal spaces. It opened in May and is a beautiful example of how alive the arts appear to be in Belfast. Jonathan broke the group down into smaller working groups, and then each group was asked to create a verbal pitch for an applied theatre project that would pull from the work completed in the morning and be appropriate for the MAC spaces. I also asked the groups to consider articulating a question that they might be trying to answer through the creation of this new piece, while also making some kind of offering to the community that they might work with. Again, this focuses on the idea that we can’t just swoop in and take stories. What are we offering in return?

After the pitches, we made our way to a boat cruise on the Lagan River, offering another view of Belfast from yet another perspective. This cruise was followed by a short reception on the Belfast Barge, a floating restaurant-performance space-museum. Jonathan arranged for a community artist to join us, Conor Shields, the director for Community Arts Partnership. Conor spoke with our group about his experiences running this large community arts organization. He talked about obtaining funding from large government agencies, working with artists in communities, and making sure that the art-making is of the highest level. Here are some key points that Conor made in his comments to us:

- Conor spoke a bit about the history of the term “community arts,” and how it is having a resurgence. “Community arts” is an ancestor of the terms “applied theatre” and “community-engaged theatre.”

- the idea that in Northern Ireland, he was looking at “non-confrontational ways to support contention.” I love this idea that contention is allowed to exist, and that it can be supported rather than smothered.

- “Quality processes with well-compensated and supported artists will yield strong products.” Slightly paraphrased, but Amen!

- He talked about how community arts can offer people a way to represent themselves in alternative ways.

- Conor also made a clear delineation between the artist working in a community vs community arts. The way I interpreted his comments, I came to understand the artist working in the community as someone enters and uses the stories of a community in some way, but might not be interested in or concerned with the community being fully involved in the art-making process. Community arts would actually be focused on how the art-making is embedded with the people of that particular community and how they are involved in the process and product. These terms are still coming into focus for me, and I need more time to sit with the differences. I’m grateful to Conor for making the distinction between the two approaches, as it’s been weaving in and out of our discussions throughout the course.

After that lovely time on the Belfast Barge, we boarded our bus back to Dublin. We may have experienced Belfast and Northern Ireland through a bit of a whirlwind tour, but ultimately, I think I came out with a stronger connection to an amazing city that’s growing and changing quite quickly.

Please see below for some images from our final day in Belfast.

Devising in a natural context: the Giant’s Causeway

art, creativity, culture, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Aug 052012

The second day in and around Belfast featured a trip to the Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage site composed of 40,000 interlocking basalt columns that have been formed over 60 million years of volcanic and geological activity. It’s a scenic ride up the coast from Belfast to the causeway, and after the work that we’ve been doing in urban landscapes, it was fantastic to spend the day in a natural setting. We worried about the weather, but Mother Nature was kind to us with lots of sunshine.

As stated above there are clear scientific explanations for the development of the causeway, but there are also myths and legends that explain the formations as well. Irish giant Finn McCool and Scottish giant Benandonner apparently had some disagreements. Finn tricked Benandonner into believing he was bigger than he actually was, and Benandonner fled back to Scotland, tearing up the causeway as he ran away. This is one version of the story.

Working on an applied theatre project in a new location requires that we get to know the culture of that place. When I talked with Jonathan about the Belfast leg of this course, I knew that I wanted the students to have the opportunity to work on some site-specific work outside of an urban environment. Given the richness of the stories of the causeway, I thought this would be the ideal opportunity to engage in some original creation.

Students were given about 90 minutes to walk around the causeway, and then the group reconvened. I then broke them into four groups of four and gave them devising parameters to create a short, site-specific piece somewhere on the causeway. The piece had to be presented in a way that established an intimacy for our group, so as not to infringe on the experiences of others at the causeway. However, that did not mean that other people might not begin to watch and take in what the performers were doing. The devising parameters were as follows:

1. Choose a specific location on or around the causeway for the performance of the piece. Allow that location to inspire the creation of the piece as well.

2. The piece must have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

3. Use the number 12, 6, or 4 in the piece in some way.

4. Include a moment of discovery.

5. Conjure something from the myth/legend of the causeway.

6. Use the following text from Othello, Act II, scene i:

The great contention of the sea and skies parted our fellowship.

7. Make an offering of some kind to the place.

The groups worked for 45 minutes, and then we promenaded to each location to view the short performances. I felt a great sense of pride watching the work that the students created in this devising exercise, as they truly found ways to engage with the site as an artistic home, albeit for a short time, while using their own creativity to re-tell the story of the causeway, often with some very different twists from the “accepted” myths and legends. This raised some questions about other audience members potentially overhearing these stories and thinking they were “true.” However, myths and legends, in their re-telling, shift and change from one teller to the next. And the students’ creations really drove that point home.

Reminder: We have to think carefully about authenticity and responsibility to the place that we are working in. It’s why one of the devising parameters involved making an offering to the causeway itself. We can’t take the stories of a place or a community only for our own benefit or purpose. Hopefully, the work that we create can also give something back to that location or group of people that we’ve worked with as an artist in that community. Again, the notion of insider/outsider came to the forefront of the work, and students continued to make those connections for the remainder of the day.

Giant’s Causeway should be on any trip to Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland. It’s not necessarily as majestic as the Cliffs of Moher or some other sites, but there’s something quite magical about it. It inspired some memorable performances for me, and I feel that I know the location better than I did after my first time, because the students immersed me in the world through their creative engagement with place.

Below you can see some pictures of Giant’s Causeway and the students’ devised work, and click here for an almost 360 view from out on the causeway itself.

Arriving to Belfast

art, creativity, culture, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Aug 042012

I had to suspend my blogging over the past few days, as we were on the road in and around Belfast, and our accommodations did not have wireless internet access. My iPad does not plug into ethernet connections, so I had to go silent for a time.

On Tuesday evening Jonathan Harden joined the team in Dublin to provide an orientation to Northern Ireland and Belfast. Jonathan has taught on the applied theatre course since 2008, and this year he once again curated our experience in Northern Ireland. In his session Jonathan asked students to share what they felt they knew about Belfast and Northern Ireland and what questions they had. He shared some of his own thoughts, perceptions and experiences, but emphasized that this was only one story. I had asked Jonathan to focus the work in Belfast on the notion of being an insider or an outsider to a particular community and how that might affect the way an individual becomes familiar with a new place that s/he might be hired to work in. Even though Jonathan was born and raised in Belfast and spent much of his adult life there, his recent relocation to London has changed his own experiences of the place that he called home for many years.

We made the two-hour bus journey to Belfast on Wednesday morning, and Jonathan met us at Queen’s University. After a lunch break, we got back on the bus, and Jonathan conducted a tour of the city, pointing out various sites and locations, including the shipyards where the Titanic was built, and eventually taking us to the end of his street in West Belfast. This would have been a largely Catholic, republican neighborhood, meaning that the residents would have wanted independence from the United Kingdom. East Belfast would be largely, Protestant, unionists, people who were happy remaining under British rule. Throughout his tour Jonathan emphasized that these terms are only so useful in the contemporary discussion of Belfast, yet it was compelling to see the reminder of the divide in the various flags, banners, and murals on display in each of these neighborhoods. Jonathan also took us to a peace wall that had been erected to cut down on violence at the height of the Troubles. Throughout our tour I was reminded of the moments in my childhood when Peter Jennings of ABC News would report on IRA bombings in London and the hunger striking of Bobby Sands. Re-visiting this history just reminded me how important the visit to Belfast is for this course, as it allows us to gain a deeper understand of the entire Island of Ireland. The tour concluded with a visit to Ulster Museum and an exhibition on The Troubles that was informative and seemingly quite fair in its depictions of both sides of the conflict.

Following the tour and a quick check in to our rooms at Queen’s, students and staff had a chance to experience the excellent restaurants of Belfast, as Jonathan had booked a number of fantastic options. After dinner, Jonathan conducted an unofficial tour of some of Belfast’s best pubs, and the walking from place to place immediately allowed us to gain a better understanding of being “on the ground” in this compelling city. Pubs included the The Crown Liquor Salon (1826), Kelly’s Cellars (1720), and The Duke of York (1710).

See images below from our first day in Belfast, and click here to see a video of our stop at the peace wall separating East and West Belfast.

Reconnecting with Irish history through two different theatre experiences: Dalkey Castle and Sean O’Casey

art, creativity, culture, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Jul 312012

Monday marked the beginning of academic week #2 on the applied theatre course. Students and staff had a chance to rest on Sunday, and students submitted their first academic journals to their tutors on Monday morning.

We made our fourth site visit of the course to Dalkey Castle and Heritage Centre. We’ve included this site on the course since 2004, and we’re always greeted with hospitality and enthusiasm by Margaret Dunne, the manager of the centre. Dalkey has a reputation as being a very wealthy suburb of Dublin. It’s been described to me as the equivalent of Beverly Hills. Several Irish artists of international fame make their homes there including Maeve Binchy, Bono, the Edge, Van Morrison, Enya, and Neil Jordan. Dalkey also has a great literary tradition, including serving as the location for chapter two of Joyce’s Ulysses.

Dalkey Castle is largely intact, and when Margaret took over as the manager of the heritage centre attached to the castle, she recognized the rich history of the castle and the town itself. Margaret talked with the group about identifying what already exists in a place where one is working. What are the raw materials? What can the artist-manager build from? In Margaret’s case, her background in theatre played a major role in how she moved forward with the centre. She successfully created the Deilg Inis Living History Theatre Company, a professional company of actors charged with animating the historical sites at the centre, which include the castle and a church to St. Begnet, the patron saint of Dalkey. We had a great experience with the actors on our tour of the sites, and it was exciting to see how theatre could be used to truly engaging an audience in the detailed history of a location. The actors engaged with us at a very high level, and I appreciated their ability to pitch their performances and their improvised interactions to a group of adults. We then had a tour of the town of Dalkey, including some of the beautiful homes and views of Dalkey Island. Once again, Margaret Dunne and Dalkey did not disappoint, as I heard several positive comments from students about how inspiring it was to meet Margaret and engage with all of the great programming she has created at the heritage site.

Students then spent their first session in the devising process with Jenny Macdonald and Declan Gorman. Over the course of six working sessions, students will now create two original works with Jenny and Declan, as a way to explore methodologies that can be used in community-engaged theatre creation processes. More details will emerge over the coming days, and I’m hoping to sneak in and see what’s happening in each of these rehearsals.

We ended the day with a performance of O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars presented by the Abbey Theatre in a production directed by Wayne Jordan. This production is a remount from two summers ago that will eventually go on tour, so I had seen it back when I was here in 2010. It is an Irish classic, exploring the experiences of men and women living in a Dublin tenement leading up to and during the Easter Rising of April 1916. At three hours, the play is long, but the work of the actors and the production team kept me fully engaged from start to finish. I had mentally prepared myself for a bit of a struggle, as I thought that my focus might wander a bit since I had seen it before. Not the case, as I found myself fully immersed in the world of the play via the excellent acting, the innovative staging, and the design elements. We saw the show in previews, so I sensed a few tempo issues that are still coming into alignment. However, those moments didn’t detract from my overall experience of the story. O’Casey’s play has an epic feel, and his characters are quite Shakespearean in their plights and their verbal expression of their feelings. The production locates the comedy interspersed with all of the pathos of a play about suffering during a revolution, and I was appreciative of this reality that Wayne Jordan achieves through his direction of the play. It’s a beautiful and painful production that left me with questions about history, choice, love, dedication, devotion. What’s the difference between dedication and devotion? Seems like Jack and Nora wrestle with that question whenever they’re on stage together. And their wrestling, particularly in the first act, is quite memorable.

Both of the above experiences allow audiences to invest in the details of specific human experiences at important historical moments in the history of Ireland. Margaret Dunne expressed an importance in staying as true to possible to the facts of a given situation, whereas O’Casey clearly created a fictional group of people living in a fictional tenement at the time of an actual event in an actual city. While somewhat different in their approaches, both experiences are unified in their unique way of exploring history through theatre.

See below for images from the trip to Dalkey.

An Irish Day of Rest . . . and Hill Climbing

art, culture, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Jul 292012

Today I had lunch with my friend Andrea Ainsworth. I’ve known Andrea since 2004 when she first taught on the Ireland study abroad course. We have continued to stay in touch over the years, and we meet for lunch or dinner each time I come to Dublin. Andrea works as the Voice Director for the Abbey Theatre, so we’ll get to see her work on Monday evening via the Abbey’s production of The Plough and the Stars.

Joanna Parkes then picked me up, and we drove to a destination that has become a ritual for both of us each time I’m in Ireland for the summer. In 2006, I taught two weeks of the summer abroad course, while my then partner, the late Craig Hamrick, was back in NYC. Craig was too ill to come to Ireland that summer, and it was difficult to be away from him. Toward the end of the program, just as I was about to head back home to re-enter the care-taking role for Craig, Joanna and our friend and colleague Sharon Murphy brought me to the top of a hill in just outside of Dublin. It was a lovely hike through the woods, and at the top of the hill, I could see out into the Irish Sea and all around the city. When Craig passed away in September of that year, Joanna, Sharon, and Declan Gorman returned to the hill and made a short film and sent it to me for Craig’s memorial. Ever since 2006, whenever I return to Ireland in the summer, Joanna and I make this trek, along with other important people in my life who may be visiting. Anyone who has come there remarks how special it is. It has a name, which always escapes me, but Joanna and I like to call it “Our Mountain.” We had hoped to bring her son Dualta this time, but he elected to stay in town and rest after his long night in Bray with the fish and chips.

After our trek up, we had some tea and sweets in the little town of Enniskerry, another part of the ritual. It was a great afternoon, in spite of the weather, as we managed to dodge the rain, wind, and hail. Yes, hail. That was a first for me in Ireland.

Below you’ll find some images from the day. Click here for a 360 view from the top of the hill. The body of water is the Irish Sea, and I’m looking towards Wales. “Our Mountain” is one of my favorite places in the world. Thanks to Joanna for always being a willing and able participant!

First Irish applied theatre week in the can. Two more to go.

art, creativity, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Jul 282012

Today the NYU students presented their Educational Resource Packet projects (ERPs). We worked with two plays by Enda Walsh: Chatroom and New Electric Ballroom.

In the debrief following the projects, the teaching staff agreed that these were very strong presentations, and that they included some of the most theatrical moments via dramatic activities that we’ve seen in our many years of teaching this course. Beyond the creativity on display, we also noticed an exceptional level of collaboration and cohesiveness amongst the group members in each presentation. We’ve come to believe that this is a very strong group of students, but I also think that Joanna Parkes did an excellent job of unrolling the ERP model and the assignment. The clarity around expectations helped the students to achieve very strong and well-structured plans for their pre- and post-performance workshop schemes.

Additionally, Joanna and Jenny Macdonald feel that the accountability to group work has increased because of the introduction this year of the Evidence of Collaboration Assessment Sheet. Each member of a working group uses this assessment sheet to evaluate the work of every other member in the group. Students know what the expectations are in advance, and it seems to help manage the creation process. These sheets will be collected on Monday morning, and each person will receive a mark that is an average of the other group members’ assessment of her/his work. This final score on the ERP project contributes to the Preparation, Participation, Collaboration mark in the course, which is worth 20% of the overall grade. I’ve been using variations on these sheets for a number of semesters now, and I think they have consistently helped me to maintain some order in the often chaotic and frustrating world of group project work.

Following the presentations, Joanna staged a bit of a celebratory hooley with the students, as a way to honor the work that they’ve completed at the conclusion of this very intense first week. The students then went off to enjoy their free Saturday evening and Sunday, and the teaching staff traveled off to Bray for a walk along the Irish Sea and some fish and chips.

We’ve had an excellent first week on the course. Thought-provoking, cage-rattling (in a good way), and inspiring on many levels. I look forward to the coming week when we’ll travel to Dalkey Castle and Belfast for more inputs, and the students will begin their own devising work with Jenny Macdonald and Declan Gorman. One of these days I’m actually going to find a way to pull on the Irish literary tradition and write one of my plays. They’re just not coming right now. But lots of other ideas are, hence these blog posts. Maybe I should just be happy to be writing.

See below some images from the student work today and the trip out to Bray.

Lessons in minding with Louise Lowe

art, creativity, Ireland 2012 No Responses »

Jul 272012

Today’s input on the applied theatre course came via a very exciting Irish artist named Louise Lowe, who was joined throughout the day by members of her company, ANU Productions. I met Louise last Saturday, and we’ve heard her mentioned by other practitioners in almost every session that we’ve experienced this week. I joked this afternoon that it was like the first act of Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, where we hear about Big Daddy for an entire act before he finally enters in Act Two. After experiencing Louise’s work with the students today, Act Two was well worth the wait. Louise is making work in a variety of different settings and in a number of styles. She manages to get actors and non-actors to sign on for some intense durational and environmental performance experiences, and she’s working in Dublin, Belfast, and other communities in between. Suffice it to say, there’s absolutely no grass growing under Louise Lowe’s feet.

Louise’s input followed the general outline of most of the experiences we’ve had thus far. She spent the morning discussing past works she’s created with her company, ANU Productions, and then in the afternoon session, she guided the students through ensemble-building work, and then set them to the task of creating original works inspired by the neighborhood and circumstances of her latest work, The Boys of Foley Street, which will premiere at the Dublin Theatre Festival this fall. Sandwiched between the morning and the afternoon, we received an abridged tour of the neighborhood from local historian and folklorist, Terry Fagan, and through his storytelling, we gained genuine insight into how this one city block has provided Louise with inspiration for an entire cycle of performances that she is creating with her company.

I took a lot away from observing Louise’s work with the students. Rather than do a blow by blow of all that happened in detail, I’ll list a few quotations, paraphrases, and moments, and try to illuminate from there.

1. Louise asked the students to think about three questions: where do you stand? How do you begin? What are you most afraid of? Straight out of the chute, these questions were on the table. A great way to immediately take the temperature of a potential group of collaborators. Students interviewed each other and re-presented each others’ answers. They were then asked to spend the day thinking about how they might present their partner’s answers in a performance piece. Louise completed the day’s work with a re-visit to those potential ideas.

2. Cubist dramaturgy: exposing multiple surfaces. An area that I want to research a bit more.

3. Louise paraphrased: Don’t pay attention to yourself onstage, but pay attention to everyone else around you. Really pay attention.
May sound obvious, but my own experiences tell me that it bears repeating. Constantly.

4. “Too often we get stuck having love ins as artists.”
I may get this made into a t-shirt. This notion of the love in is really dangerous. It’s linked to Bogart’s assertion that resistance is a necessary element of any creative process. I just appreciate Louise’s way of conveying it.

5. Louise paraphrased: Stop acting and look after the others. Be mindful of the others. Mind the others.
Phrases like this came up repeatedly throughout the day. I liked the sound of the philosophy, but then it kicked in when some students presented a piece outdoors and began to draw more attention to themselves than was anticipated. I witnessed Louise and four company members fan out around our group like Obama’s Secret Service corps, and embody what it means to “mind others.” Their presence immediately helped to diffuse the situation at hand, without interrupting the work of the performers or creating conflict within the community. They have embedded themselves in a studio space within the community where their current work resides, and as a result, they’ve gained some deeper connection to the location and its people. It makes me think about the notion of insider/outsider, and how Louise and her colleagues have struck a delicate balance of trust and understanding with the community, but that the delicate balance requires constant sensitivity and re-negotiation. There is no resting on the laurels of past interactions. To me this speaks volumes about how community-engaged artists need to be thinking and intentional when they enter and/or create within a community.

6. “When you mind other people, you cease to become indulgent.”
This takes practice and a lot of self-reflection. But the benefits are immense.

Spending the day with Louise and her colleagues, hearing about their work in more detail, and witnessing my students create reminded me that we all need to have our houses in order if we’re going to make work like this. I was struck that the company itself seemed to be in order as well. People commit to making the work, and the company as an entity commits to them. There’s something synergistic about how it works for these artists that’s inexplicable after just one day of being with them, but my gut tells me that it has a lot to do with the minding. Hence, the title of the blog post. How would art making change profoundly if all artists took the time to mind their collaborators? Not smother or coddle them or always agree with them, but mind them. This is something I’d like to know.

Below are some images from the day’s work.

Older Entries