Day 7: Setting suns over Buckingham Palace and DGHS London 2016

Sunday marked the final full day of the Deans Global Honors Seminar London 2016 experience. On Monday the students fly back to New York or move on to other study away destinations, and I fly over to Dublin to open a show on Thursday.  Stay tuned for more on that

I met with the students in small groups today to discuss their final projects. Each student presented a brief two-minute overview of their project, and the other students in the group were able to ask questions and make comments with the intention of helping to clarify the project and strengthen it for the final submission. I thoroughly enjoyed the two hours of hearing about these projects, and I'm actually looking forward to experiencing them on January 22. We will then meet as a class again on January 29 to debrief our trip to London and have a final session together to close out the seminar.

After those meetings, I traveled to St. James' Park where I met Orla Hasson and her two sons, Luke and Isaac. We had a lovely walk around the park, past Buckingham Palace, and then stopped in for some tea and hot chocolate. After that lovely time together, as we walked back to the tube stop, the setting sun made some beautiful colors in the sky, particularly just above and beyond Buckingham Palace. Orla and I both commented about the winter light that afternoon, so I snapped a picture. Later I realized that the setting sun behind Buckingham Palace served as an excellent metaphor for the final evening of this London adventure. I started the week not terribly thrilled about being in London, as it's not my favorite city. But as I end my experience this week, I'm grateful for the friends and colleagues I've been able to re-connect with, the art and facilitation I've been able to witness, and the students I've been able to interact with each day over the past week. I finally felt comfortable in London these past few days, and of course, now it's time to move on to the next project and then back home for the next semester.

The setting winter sun behind Buckingham Palace.

We had our final group dinner in London at Wagamama, and it was great to see how far we've come as a community of artists and thinkers. The food was nice, the conversation was flowing, and the picture below sums up what a strong group these students have become. I'm also grateful to my NYU Washington Square colleagues Jeanne Bannon and Rachel Whorton for their incredible support this week. I've had a great time traveling, talking, and witnessing with them, and I hope we can do it again in the future!

DGHS London 2016 at Wagamama for our final group dinner!

Day 6: Trusting others with a story

On Saturday, our sixth day in London, we worked with Corinne Micallef, a facilitator with Phakama, an arts organization based in London. Phakama means "rise up," and it's a fitting name for an organization that works to unite communities across difference and diversity. The company's way of working, called Give and Gain, models theatre for change at its best, and the students had a chance to move through sections of the company's unique devising process to create a piece of art. Corinne truncated the process for our two-hour workshop slot, but highlights included creating a Give and Gain Wheel, using name stories as the starting point for a larger narrative, trusting building through story sharing and development, and ultimately a site-specific performance presentation in various rooms on the lower level of the NYU London facility.

The Give and Gain part of the process asks each participant to state what they have to give to the process and what they hope to gain from the process. These elements are placed on a wheel that lives in the workshop space throughout the creation process. I hope to modify and use the Give and Gain premise in my own future work, as I love the idea that participants also have valuable knowledge and expertise to share. I'm also thinking about ways to use it in a classroom setting. More on that in a future post.

The Give and Gain Wheel

Corinne Micallef and the completed Give and Gain Wheel for our community on this devising process.

Corinne's devising process asked groups of students to respond to each other's name stories, sculpt images of the stories, and unite those stories into still images. Then these images were passed from one group to the next in a carousel format, and with each pass, Corinne instructed the groups to add another layer: movement, sound or text, etc. After the fifth rotation, Corinne crafted an order for the presentations., and then each group chose a location for their presentation. We moved from room to room, and viewed the fruits of two hours of labor. It was inspiring to see how much the students invested in the process, and their trust in one another shown through in their willingness to pass on their stories and in the presentations themselves.

Later that day after the workshop with Corinne, I was able to reconnect with Jonathan Harden over drinks at Skylon on London's South Bank. We talked more about the growing success of his podcast, and what might happen next. I've known Jonathan for almost ten years now, and he's always thinking and reflecting, coming up with the next idea or direction to pursue. There's an itch there, one I understand and appreciate, as I often feel it as well. It's not always clear what to do with that itch, but as long as it's there, I know that I still have work to do.

In the evening, we attended our final performance of the trip, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I had seen this West End production in March 2013 and then the Broadway production in October 2014. The performance on Saturday evening was disappointing. Overacting, lack of sensitivity, unearned discoveries, and playing for laughs when laughs aren't the intention. As a result, there was a lot of coughing throughout the performance coming from the audience, always a sure sign that there's a problem. I had curated the performances in a specific order, as I thought this production would be an amazing finale to a great week. Unfortunately, this performance was not as good as I had hoped. Still a great play, but this particular cast is currently missing the mark. Speaks to that idea of trust: sometimes it's hard to trust others with a story if they aren't being careful with it or respectful of it. Lessons from the morning session play out in an evening performance.

Day 5: Exploring a place from the street view

Our fifth day featured a workshop with Jonathan Harden, a native of Belfast now living and working in London as an actor. I've known Jonathan for nine years now, as he's a frequent contributor to NYU Steinhardt's Ireland Study Away program in the summer. I asked him to do a version of a site-specific theatre workshop here in Bedford Square that he usually facilitates in Belfast. It's a way of discovering more about a place than simply what's presented as part of the "package." So often on these kinds of experiences, we can just get the tourist version of a city, whereas Jonathan believes (and I've seen that it's rightly so) that when we start to ask others about their experiences in a place, particularly if they live or work there, that we begin to see the place beyond what we get through a tourist's lens.

Jonathan began the workshop with a mapping exercise at an outdoor workshop space at the corner of Bedford Square, exploring birthplace, place of heartbreak, place never to return to, dream place to visit, etc. Students then created still images of Heathrow airport, their accommodations at NYU, and a moving machine image of Heathrow.

Jonathan Harden (right, red scarf) setting the group onto a task to create a map of their world.

These activities led into an exploration of the people and spaces around Bedford Square, the location of the NYU London facilities. We'd obviously been moving in, out, and around these facilities all week, but Jonathan described this exploration as getting down to "street level" on Google Maps. How can we really understand a space or location beyond simply moving through it? He set the group out into the surrounding streets to interact with people, both outdoors and in shops, asking them for their name if they would share it and their relationship to the area. Jonathan also asked the students to identify spaces or locations in the area that were incomplete or unfinished, and these became the sites for short performances about the people they encountered and questioned in and around Bedford Square.

An example of a performance outside an incomplete site just off of Bedford Square.

Following these outdoor performances, Jonathan wrapped up his workshop, and we discussed how these activities and new understandings of this particular location might influence or affect some of the final projects for the course. We moved into a lunch break, only to return an hour later to enter the British Museum. The excellent exhibitions from all over the world tied nicely into the Global Honors Seminar, and students had the chance to move through the museum at their own pace.

The Great Court at the British Museum.

As for me, I had a lovely visit over tea and cakes with Steinhardt alum Peter Lockyer and his wife Melanie, and then headed out to Brixton for a home-cooked meal with Orla Hasson and her husband Paco. Excellent ways to finish out the day: with great people, great conversation, and great food.

Day 4: Visual food for thought

On our fourth day in London, we spent some time in the morning reflecting on impressions of our time in London so far. We discussed unexpected discoveries about London that had occurred in the first three days, as well as how we now defined the word "international." Some of the expected discoveries included observations about food, different ways of saying things, and the friendliness of Londoners.

In the afternoon we traveled to the Tate Modern, and students had the opportunity to view various exhibits, including the museum's collection of Mark Rothko paintings, a special exhibit on pop art, and an exhibit examining the relationship between visual and community engagement. The Tate Modern is an impressive building with some amazing art work. Certainly a must-see on any trip to London.

In the evening we saw a production of You for Me for You by Mia Chung at the Royal Court. Chung is a playwright from the US and a current fellow at New Dramatists. The Royal Court focuses on developing and staging new plays by writers from all over the world, so many playwrights working in the US have had a UK or world premiere at the Royal Court.

A marquee outside the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square.

Chung's play is about two sisters living in North Korea. The younger sister wants to escape from North Korea while the older sister is reluctant to leave because of her past history and her illness. The play uses abstraction and non-realism to explore what it's like to emigrate to the US, and this particular production was bolstered by outstanding direction and an incredible design. The six actors also performed the play with a lot of integrity and attention to detail. It was also fun for us to hear references to NYU, Washington Square, and New York City throughout the play. Afterwards, I learned a lot about society and culture in South Korea from some of my students, and I really appreciated that opportunity. The authenticity of the play had an impact for them, which I think it important.

These two experiences had strong visual components. The museum for obvious reason, but the play on the page does not necessarily indicate a such a realized visual world. It's exciting to see what a director and designers can achieve when they are working together with the playwright's intentions and the actors in service of the play.

The program and script for You for Me for You by Mia Chung.

Day 3: Shakespeare!

Our third day in London was basically all Shakespeare all of the time. The last time I brought students to London in March 2103, we had a tour of Shakespeare's Globe, but we couldn't see anything because the season hadn't started yet. Since then, the company has opened the Wanamaker Theatre, which emulates the indoor experience at Blackfriars. All performances in the winter months now happen in a smaller, indoor theatre lit by candlelight.

We started the day with a tour and workshop, where we had a chance to actually get on stage, speak text, look at into the audience, and experience what it's like to be an actor on stage at The Globe. Then we moved into a workshop space, and our facilitator Mary took the group through a series of exercises that examined the plot and characters of Cymbeline, the play we saw later that afternoon. The exercises focused primarily on understanding what makes up a romance, the genre of the play Cymbeline. It focused on Shakespeare's technique as a storyteller with this particular genre rather than simply on the text of the play, and that choice made a significant difference in our experience of the play in performance.  When we got to the outlandish circumstances of Act V, when all of the coincidences and twists of fate need to be explained and revealed to Cymbeline, I felt more apt to accept them, rather than scoff at them and think of the play as problematic. It was a great lesson for me as a teacher of Shakespeare.

I personally had an amazing time watching the performance of the play, and the space is intimate enough that I could see my students enjoying the play as well. It was a great experience, one that I won't forget, and I hope to return there in the future to see more productions by candlelight.

The students of DGHS London Theatre as Art Form inside Shakespeare's Globe.

Colin, one of the students, getting costumed as Ophelia from Hamlet.

Colin fully costumed as Ophelia, minus his blue Converse.

Members of the class on stage at The Globe, right after making a grand entrance through the upstage double doors, from the tiring room.

Standing onstage at The Globe with our workshop facilitator, Mary (green skirt).

The ceiling over top of the thrust stage at The Globe.