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What does mean to be helpful?

Kathy Casey
ART TEST en Dramaturgy Education Process of making Space & Context

How to be helpful? 

Conference in Prague/ Resiedencies with Coaching 

 

Areas of focus

  • What are different ways we can talk together.
  • Creation teams and their dynamics.
  • How can we take on creation problems: blockages, uncertainties dislikes, too many choices, stress, etc.

Guiding principles as a dramaturge

  • Build trust
  • Don’t assuming knowledge
  • Have faith in process
  • Believe in group (people)
  • choices are the nature of the work – be careful

 

Research during a creation

  • What is the language of this project
  • What is known about this project
  • What is the practice of this project

 

Current questions:

  • What is the invitation
  • What is missing
  • What is too much
  • What is not enough
  • What knows itself too much
  • What doesn’t know itself enough

 

All of these are ways of asking:  What are ways to be helpful?

Talk about dramaturgy roles (these frequently come up when people talk about what a dramaturge does) which are various ways to be helpful – there are many others…

Sounding board

Reference giver

Thinker

Supporter

Provoker

Writer/namer

First Audience

Advice giver

Critic

 

I’d like to share some thinking models outside the art field that have been useful for me.

6 thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

Black hat – what is not good about an idea, usefulness of banning it

White hat – what do we know

Green hat – finding ideas

Red hat – how do we feel about it

Yellow hat – what is good about an idea

Blue hat – meta, how are we going to think about something – structure of thinking

Green hat – opening out or going in

So questioning can become a tool for reframing or unframing what we know or ways we are comfortable with seeing work, ideas, possibilities etc.  So that there are cracks for different ideas or approaches to emerge.  To do this, we have to unhook from our knowing as well and stab into the dark.

 

Lateral vs critical thinking – movement in ideas rather than finding solutions

Provocations:

Oblique Strategies by Brian Eno, Cunningham IChing, words in dictionary, – the more unrelated or random they are to what’s happening, the more they can get thoughts in motion. Playful but using them takes faith that it’s worth it and not a waste of time.  You don’t try to aim at a solution.

Reframing:  Shifting how you are thinking about something and then yellow hat

  • Put in question a basic assumptions:  Taking away sound in Instant Community when everything had been based on talking to create community – believing in work
  • Getting rid of things: everything but what you love  OR  getting rid of what you like the most.   Always in my mind : (when) will we get rid of the first thing we really like
  • Byron Katie – Turn arounds    Shoulds and find what’s good in it (my kids should be more respectful to me – my kids shouldn’t …, I should be more respectful to my kids)

FLOW

Flow theory as a way to look at creation problems – Look at chart

 

Components

Jeanne Nakamura and Csíkszentmihályi that you need all of the following to be in flow

  • Extremely focused in the present moment
  • Merging of knowledge and intuition
  • Loose your sense of self
  • Loose track of time, time bubble
  • Its rewarding, even ecstatic

 

Schaffer proposed 7 flow conditions:

  • Knowing what to do.
  • Knowing how to do it.
  • Knowing how well you are doing.
  • Knowing where to go (if navigation is involved).
  • High perceived challenges.
  • High perceived skills.
  • Freedom from distractions.

 

Could be two states of flow: low challenge situations which were surpassed by skill were associated with enjoyment, relaxation, and happiness,

I’m less interested in flow but rather what tools it can suggest for when we are not in flow.

Flow theory postulates three conditions that have to be met to achieve a flow state:

  • One must be involved in an activity with a clear set of goals and progress. This adds direction and structure to the task.[15]
  • The task at hand must have clear and immediate feedback. This helps the person negotiate any changing demands and allows them to adjust their performance to maintain the flow state.[15]
  • One must have a good balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and their own perceived skills. One must have confidence in one\\\’s ability to complete the task at hand.[15]

Flow theory as a way to look at creation problems and explain raising sense of challenges and sense of abilities

 

Kathy Casey

began her dance career in 1979 with the Chicago Moving Company. Settled in New York in 1980, she danced for many choreographers before joining the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1984. In 1989, she became a member of Susan Marshall & Company, with whom she had collaborated since 1981. From 1985-1989, she also assisted Mr. Lubovitch and Ms. Marshall in creation. Kathy Casey has danced in Europe, Asia, and North America and continues to give numerous workshops across Canada and the United States. Welcomed by Montréal Danse in 1991, she was appointed Artistic Director of the company in March 1996. A major portion of her work now is collaborating with choreographers on the dramaturgy of the works created for the company. In addition to her work with Montréal Danse, she also works as an artistic advisor with independent choreographers in the city.