Ron & Sam--
Great exchange (last couple of posts). Knee-jerk response: seems like to pressure to jump right in with a hierarchical (whoa, my spelling!) approach is fear of messiness. "Get er done" in Sam-speak. Time's a wastin. For instance, my tendency to engage in long, rambling conversations when I know I should be creating an agenda and sticking to it. Limited amount of time (in a meeting, in a rehearsal) to Get Things Done. That's a fact, right?
So I guess I'm wondering, what does the "middle spreading outwards" idea look like in action. I can really see what you mean in a rehearsal setting more than in, say, a discussion of what FAH should be or do.
But a mess is usually what we need. Maybe what's missing is the confidence that out of the mess something will cohere without it being forced. It's pretty scary, whether you're facing an opening night or an institutional problem, to trust that structure will emerge out of chaos, signal out of noise.
Ron, seems to me that Adrianne Mnouchkine and her Theatre de Soleil work in the way you're describing--know about her process?
Gotta run,
Graham
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But a mess is what we need,
ReplyDeleteyou say (wondering about the
always expanding middle with
no center image),and a shared
sense that out of mess and
muddle: tidy, out of noise: news.
This is FRAME DISCOURSE, and
refers to shared attitude and
context--not necessarily to
specifics: a rehearsal, an assessment
of FAH.
The environment for "collaborative genius" among other things seems
to value failure and confusion:
as generative. As opposed to the
environment for individual genius.
(according to Keith Sawyer; I quoted a review of this book
last summer and got a response
from Sandy that he was -- I think--
sending a copy of the review to his
advisory council. I quoted it several times throughout the year:
"an environment that encourages
failure; one that recognizes the
liabilities of clarity." So antithetical to our industrialized
institutional values, don't you
agree?
Sound like fine-art values
to me--turned up high.
The expanding middle with no
center (as opposed to the top
down, bottom up power agon)
exists in the degree to which
we as faculty might be engaged
with each other--beyond house
keeping concerns: our ideas
and analogies across the curriculum.
Don't know how it happens, though.
Need a few more fools to rush
in.
Best, Sam