Ensemble/Community – Play
I just spent 4 days playing with an amazing group of middle-schoolers in Germany. Their task was to create theatre based around the theme of “Play”. When preparing for the workshop, I kept hitting a roadblock: “What’s the difference between Play and Art? Aren’t we always playing?”. So, that became the quest as my ensemble and I embarked on a journey of full out playing, while observing the components of it. Then came the challenge of bridging the gap between Playing and Performance without losing the spark and joy.
It was fascinating and great fun! We played all kinds of game: competitive, memory, pretend, tag, silent… we even made up a few. The one thing each game had in common was its core, the Ensemble.
I want to share some of our observations as a foundation to understanding the dynamics of a group’s creative process… here are a few:
- Avoidance for the sake of “Getting it Right”
- Almost in all instances of playing there was a period of questions about the rules, some arguing, some simple debate. Anything to avoid the possibility of failure.
- Followers and Leaders
- There was always a set of followers that hung back for guidance/direction and a set of leaders who told the others what to do. Sometimes the leaders even moved the followers around, like furniture, without even asking.
- Ownership equaled Fuller Commitment
- It seemed much easier for the group to believe their own game and its world. When playing a game that the entire group owned, they needed no prodding or reminders on my part about commitment, intention and sticking with it. The love of the game made it easy to believe it was real for the players.
SELF OBSERVATIONS
1. What do you love to play and how is that different from other things you do?
2. What do you consider a success for team/group playing?
3. What makes it difficult for you to play in a group?
Comments: 10
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Totally agree with you. Great blog!
This is a really good blog!
I’m curious: six months after this blog, what have you come to understand about motivating participants to creatively explore in a game world which you bring to the table? Or have you bought into the idea that each group creates its own game?
As one who has had similar experiences with reservedness in participants, I’m curious.
Motivating on the internet feels different than motivating in person. I think it’s difficult to step out into the unknown and voice an opinion… It took us a while to start up this style of blog for that same reason. We weren’t sure how effective it would be in a digital format. Slowly but surely though, people, like you, have started writing. We also have students talk to us about the blog in workshops, or teachers have said they’ve used some of our questions/games in class.
I’m a firm believer in putting yourself out there with the best intentions and the rest will take care of itself. Sometimes the students have to find the teachers, not the other way around.
What’s been your experience?
No experience with blogs per se. Perhaps I phrased my query improperly.
You write on how effective a game is when participants create the game’s parameters. I was curious about how you approach motivating game participants who seem hesitant or unwilling to, in fact, participate. I was wondering if, in the days since this particular blog entry on “Play,” you have come to more fully buy into what you describe as a participant-created game OR if you still rely heavily on a more prescribed style. AND how on earth do you come to motivate those who are unwilling to buy into, commit to, and play in the prescribed game?
I have worked with many groups of youth of varying ages, and I find that (generally speaking) after the age of five or six, there is a measurable increase in reservedness. Perhaps this is a result of increased social awareness, I don’t know, but it seems that it continues on indefinitely. I’m still in the process of figuring out what works best, what gets people to play!
However, the blog idea is kind of excellent. I can tell its been a real success for you guys. I know I have enjoyed going through your stuff. I was telling Jess when I saw/met you guys in March at the LATech SCW that ensemble work has always been right up my alley (at least in theory and concept).
1 – It’s interesting… because I believe the term “game” can be misleading in itself as everything has its purpose and nothing is simply for entertainment. Even when you play a game for fun your trying to fill time with something stimulating as opposed to sitting around doing nothing.
When a group of any aged individuals decide to do an activity together there is a shared agreement or understanding, if you will, on the purpose and in intention of the activity. Fun, education, inspiration are all reasons to play in my book.
The point that I’m trying to make is that when an individual/group is responsible for their own fun (has ownership of the creativity) then they will engage more heartily and with more care. I can’t say that it’s always for the good. I think if we’re not careful sometime the umph put into games can turn the game into something out of “Lord of the Flies”…so we need to keep an eye out for any behavior that leads to ostracizing, ridiculing and simply unfair play.
2 – I think, as teachers, our responsibility lies in having fun to and playing with our students to nip the whole too cool for school or reservedness in the bud. I think kids under the age of 18 have a tendency to do things like the adults around them and WE need to take responsibility for that… If we are judgmental, opinionated and small minded then our students will learn and respond in kind. I’m not suggesting that you are any of these things but there is an entire community of adults that are. This affects the student on so many levels that we must be aware of as many of them as possible. Adults forget this and forget that they are always an example to the student… even if they are a parent, sibling, teacher, boss or a friend. We need to always have high expectation of our students without forming them into mirror images of ourselves.
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