WEEK TWO
SELECTED ACTIVITIES
In week two, our days were centered on sharing personal dramatic and non-dramatic forms of art, introducing dramatic dialogue, and writing stories from visual art.
Showcase
All of our participants have varying degrees of experience with the theatre; some with full plays on their resume and others with only theatrical interest. On the first day of our second week, we held a public showcase for participants to share their creative work, dramatic and non. In reading and performing previously written work, our collective understanding of drama moved from what theatre “should” be to what it “could” be. We created a sign-up sheet like an Open Mic to facilitate the performance order. Two of the students, one of whom was new to the program, shared their poetry in both English an Albanian. Even without a translation, the emotions of the piece rang true. Another student spent the weekend translating a scene from his full-length play into English for us to read. This was our first encounter with other participants reading a writer’s words. While the actors read the piece, the writer plugged in Termokiss’ keyboard and performed an original melody written to underscore the monologues. By the end of the showcase, everyone in the room knew the creative pursuits of the other participants and, moving forward, the walls between artistic mediums and individuals came down.
Clips from the showcase are viewable here.
Mirrors
To help participants focus on dialogue and facilitate making new friendships, our group was partnered up randomly for this two-person activity. Partners were seated a few feet apart facing each other and were told they were looking into a mirror. As such, any movement your partner makes, you must follow without using words. Neither individual was told to lead the motions; instead, their motions blended together and everyone laughed. Some participants told a story with their motions (putting on makeup, drinking tea, etc.) while some went with abstract movements, arms flowing and moving freely. After a minute or two, one row moved over one seat and the activity repeated with new partners. Each new set of partners brought new movements and relationships. They reflected how each partnership was a new “dialogue.” Participants mentioned how difficult it was to concentrate without laughing at the closeness of the other person. In the end, Mirrors served as a successful bridge to discussing the role of dialogue in establishing the relationship between two characters and its non-verbal component displayed its ability to communicate cross-linguistically. View mirrors here.
Yarn Game
Gathering in a circle, a facilitator started with a ball of yarn in his hand. Holding onto the end of the string, the first participant told the group their name and a fact about them that they thought someone else in the circle shares. When their fact was shared, other members of the circle who identify with the fact raised their hand. The ball of yarn was passed but the end of the yarn was still with the first speaker. The new yarn holder grabbed a bit of string, repeated the name and fact sharing segments, and passed the yarn to another participant. This was done until everyone held the yarn. When we looked in the circle, we saw a physical line, or web, that connected all of us in one way or another. In addition to a way to learn everyone’s name, this activity showed commonalities between participants and suggested the same for individuals around the world. As humans, we are connected by many things that we share. The Yarn Games illustrates this concept in a physical space. View the activity clip here.
Trust Walks
With plenty of open floor space at Termokiss, partners were randomly chosen for a Trust Walk exercise. In Trust Walks, one participant closes their eyes completely and their partner has to guide them around the room without letting them hit anything. When someone is completely in charge of another person’s movements, sense of space and surroundings slowly melts away. At moments, students were convinced they were going to run into a wall when they were actually in the middle of the room. Some leaders chose to purposely disorient their partner, adding to the amount of trust necessary to navigate. After three minutes, the roles were reversed. In addition to our participants bonding over the activity, Trust Walk emphasizes how much we as individuals can rely on others to guide us through hazards.
Characterization
In the second week, we hosted a public event on writing the ten-minute play, emphasizing and practicing three main pillars: setting, character, and narrative arc. Our activity on characterization was particularly well-received. In this activity, students wrote down an occupation on a notecard, and passed it to their right. We all held the cards we received to our foreheads without seeing what they said, and took turns guessing “who” we were. This modification of the game “Headbands” was energizing and humorous. Following, we launched into a discussion of all the things we could see or guess about a character, and the many more things we could not know simply by knowing their profession. Students then wrote backstories for their characters, prompted by questions about their families, hobbies, fears, and more. After, we took turns giving feedback about the characters and practiced the way in which many perspectives alter the growth and depth of a character. As an example, a male participant created a story about a female astronaut. Women in the room contributed to what type of pressure that woman might face in her field, and what her emotional landscape may be. When people holding various identities enter a discussion together of a character and their motives, they begin to learn from the experiences and identities of others, enriching their empathy for both their fictional characters and one another.
Dinner Party
To begin Dinner Party, students took five minutes to journal about their most memorable meal. Who was there? What was eaten? Why was it special? After sharing these stories, everyone sat in a circle and passed around sheets of drawing paper, each person contributing one component to each page. Four characters, the food on the dinner table, and a conflict were written by different people in the circle. Then all received their “dinner party,” for which they had to write dialogue between the four people who, throughout their specific meal, resolved the conflict. This activity allowed everyone to contribute one component to each other’s stories. Students conceptualized getting people seated in the same room, and at the same table, for a conversation. What could be accomplished if we sat down at the same table? Who would we want at a table to make change or resolve a conflict? Secondly, it helped students recognize that stories, and stories for the theatre, abound in our everyday lives. At the end, students shared their work and “cast” their peers to read each part. This was one of the first experiences reading one another’s dialogue. This allows students to start telling the stories of others and others’ characters, thus beginning the process of understanding different stories and perspectives in a scene. (And, too, in life.)
Color
Every student drew a strip of colorful paper that attracted them, and wrote on it the emotions and images it connoted for them. They then taped them to the wall, forming a colorful palette. Everyone shared their color cards, and from them we discussed how a simple color can bring in a realm of emotions as well as memories. Students recalled “green” nights at nature camps, and “blue” days of cold winter. They also embraced the complicated nature of paradox — tying the color red to words like “love” and “war,” and yellow to both “care” and “selfishness.” Other compared colors to particular identities they hold, and still others described a sensory relationship to a single color for each of the five senses. The activity situated our students in a shared discussion of affect and prompted creative observations.
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National Gallery of Art, Kosovo
We shared a special day attending the National Gallery of Art Kosovo. Led by the artistic director of the museum, our students strolled the galleries and informally talked about which works stood out to them and why. Over the weekend, students prepared a story based on a museum image, and the gallery provided ample opportunity for discussing both the country’s history and its contemporary situation.
REFLECTIONS
Cultural Learning
The cultural exchange between American facilitators and students continued in the second week, as students proudly demonstrated a knowledge and affinity for their heritages. During the showcase, students shared works in multiple languages and on particular themes to their personal histories. During a snack break one day, the owner of our new space brought us traditional fried dough and participants happily provided plenty of suggestions on what to pair it with. At the week’s end, we took a group trip to the National Gallery of Art Kosovo where, along the walk, students narrated the landmarks, their relevance, and special memories from various places in the city centre. Their eagerness to share the country’s culture was infectious.
Multiplying our Media
This week brought many more artistic mediums into the art of theatre. With the showcase including poetry and musical performances and more visual arts activities like Dinner Party, Color, and the trip to the museum, workshops have broadened our conception of theatre as a venue of expression. While a play typically relies on the power of words to communicate meaning, so many realms of art play a role in productions and ignoring them would limit our imaginations and expressive capabilities. By implementing more activities that use other mediums beyond drama, we hope to attract a diversity of pieces for our final revue and publication.
Space Change
Halfway through the week, we bid farewell to Termokiss and moved to Foundacion 17, an intimate public space on the north side of Prishtina. The move was energizing for our program, given our public event that attracted new participants on our first day, and the productive feedback sessions on writing assignments and activities. With plenty of tables for group and partner work, everyone felt closer in both proximity and relationships, which strengthens group feedback. Typically, program leaders are expected to break the ice and start providing first impressions after someone reads their work. At Foundacion 17, this is not the case, with all participants feeling equal in participating and providing constructive criticism.
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Growing Partnerships
The week was special as our program grew dramatically, more than doubling in size from the introductory week. We also made strides in local and civil society partnerships, where our outreach to local NGOs and advocacy groups were met with an adamant interest in hosting us as volunteers for the summer. Our partnership with Changing the Story grew closer as we worked out plans for program continuity, and began to use their outreach channels to inform other Applied Theatre practitioners of our progress in Kosovo.