Week 1- Friday

I expected to be nervous going into MIND on Friday, not out of fear, but pressure to get it right. The want to create a relaxed, welcoming environment, in some ways made me less relaxed. However this feeling soon subsided when I met the people we would be working with. This week we had a small group: Sandra, Susan, Sinclair and Peter. Like on Tuesday, being introduced to the new personalities amongst my peers, going on that same discovery allowed me to be introduced to 4 people who had as much energy to contribute to the room as all of us.

Starting the session in the same way we started our own introduced a level playing field between us and them, allowing us to break down any initial barriers and remind us all that we are all just people in a room creating work. For us and them sharing something just a simple as a name creates a bond on a personal level and is the first step in creating a group of people that can happily and comfortably work alongside each other. They seemed very responsive to our games, but they also highlighted things that as a facilitator, I need to take into consideration. Firstly is memory; a lot of us have learnt to remember routines, lyrics and lines over a long period of time, so introducing such a task to people who may have no experience with the performing arts may prove difficult. Therefore over the next 6  weeks, we as a group need to devise methods to make this process more accessible to them.

We then did an exercise on memories, asking them to use their memories to create scenes. This is a really useful exercise because it allows them to feel in control. By asking for their input from day 1, hopefully by week 6 they will feel comfortable with contributing and performing their own ideas and emotions- by the end the piece needs to be for them, by them and with them. I was with Peter and something I learnt from this exercise is that getting people to open up about things that could potentially be painful, will take time as trust is built over the weeks. Being considerate and respectful of peoples boundaries is something we all need to keep at the forefront of our minds as we move forward in this process.

Today the activity I led was the warm down. I think that including an exercise like this at the end of each session will bring any emotions or energies that may have been heightened throughout the session, back down to a calm, collected state, perhaps helping them channel the positive energy from the two hours into the rest of their day. I asked them to tense and relax each part of their body one by one and also did some breathing exercises, allowing them to release any tensions or stresses that the sessions may have created. I plan to do this after every session so we create a routine that they feel comfortable with and can add to and expand.

My reflections from today are that the people we met have so much to bring to this process. Although it is my job to facilitate, they have the material and willingness to help us. They have already told us the ideas and input they want from the next few weeks and it has given us as a group an energy and positive mental attitude to kick start this process.