In the above model I state the goal of my artistic product - a Participative Aesthetic Experience. Aims that would make this experience successful for me are creating a space of intersubjectivity, exchange, (shared) ownership, wonder and joy. I have elaborated on the meaning of these concepts here.
With the goal and aims in mind I create a dramaturgical structure that supports these objectives. Since I am creating a participatory experience and I am concerning myself with devising a process. That process consists out of dramaturgical pillars to create an experience that has a beginning and an end. The theme influences the dramaturgical pillars that make up the structure. Vanity as a theme helps choose what the dramaturgical pillars will be. At the same time there is space within the structure for things that arise out of participation. There is a balance between rigidity and flexibility.
The final form of the Artistic Product is predetermined and twofold. On the one hand, it will be a live performance event that is a participative aesthetic experience. On the other hand, within this participative aesthetic experience we (people in the space) will work towards creating a sculptural painting on the wall. This artwork will outlive the experience and be its physical manifestation. This is a next step and can clearly be related to my earlier work Wat NU? in which the audience participates to create a spoken word piece and a video as a potential artistic product.
How do I build a this process with participatory interventions a.k.a. dramaturgical pillars?
Work Process
Step 1 - thinking of the performance as an interactive process
Step 2 - adding a theme: vanity
Step 3 - translation of interactive interventions and theme into necessary props, costume and music
Step 4 - rehearsing and exploring possibilities
The above steps are my process for the creation of my final piece _i_C_O_N_i_C_. I started thinking about interaction and the arch that I wanted to achieve with my piece (Step 1). The clarification of my research question helps to inform possible interventions that dramaturgically structure the piece. The question being: How do I facilitate an interactive method of performance in which intersubjectivity, exchange, ownership, wonder and joy form key elements?
In order to investigate this question I needed a topic to work with. I have chosen the topic of Vanity (Step 2), because it intrigues me. It has a negative connotation where it is a basic feature in our human existence. Personally, I believe that things that are considered vain are actually an expression of the self and can mean more than meets the eye for LGBTQIA+ people, people of colour and other groups that fall outside the norm. The follow-up question to the main question being: How do I translate the theme (Vanity) into concrete movement material, scenes and experiences in support of intersubjectivity, exchange, ownership, wonder and joy?
Based on my research on both the theme and potential group interventions, I started visualising what my piece could look like (Step 3). I approached Ruben Monfrooy to design an outfit for the opening scene. I ordered a turning platter to stand on. I got a wooden pallet to function as the skeleton for a sculptural work of art that will be created with the audience. I am ordering oil pastel crayons or acrylic markers to be able to colour on my second white outfit. I ordered plastic A4 sheets for an overhead projector. I had planned to order a phone mount with a ring light, so I could film myself from above while laying on a table and livestream this. Throughout the creation process new information concerning the technical possibilities at the venue and practical considerations have influenced and continued to define the exact participatory interventions.
In my creation process props helped me structure the piece, because they are linked to interventions and scenes, and they also to a larger or smaller extent influence the actual physicality for the performance. I started out wanting to write and create my own song, but after talking to Ed Rosbergen who linked Vanity to clubbing, Perly van 't Kruys showing me a DJ mix and consulting Jochem Naafs have opted for a soundtrack that will play during the whole performance.
In the movement videos you see how the movement material relating to the theme Vanity is coming alive (Step 4). It is informed by my physicality, the turning platter and the costume. The progression being in the clarity of the movement and its interaction with different kinds of music and the costume.
Part of putting this research into practice is creating a new piece: _i_C_O_N_i_C_. At the moment of handing in my research this piece will still have to be performed. This means that a lot of my performance and practice based research will be based on earlier works and on rehearsals of the new piece. Interaction and participation have interested me for some time now. This can be seen in my earlier work Kunst, the sound installation FAG and perhaps most evidently in Wat NU?
Throughout the creation of my new piece _i_C_O_N_i_C_, I am inviting in Jochem Naafs, Bruno Listopad (my artistic coach), Ed Rosbergen (a friend) and my peers to respond to what I am creating. Which leads to the exchange of ideas, reactions, correlations, insights and advice, suggestions and proposals. I am thanking all the people involved in my project here.
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Let's look at a self-made (imperfectly perfect) model:
Script _i_C_O_N_i_C_
These are two screenshots of the first two iterations of the script for _i_C_O_N_i_C_. The first script was written in Dutch and the second in English. Every time I spent time in the studio the script evolved. After starting on the script I started ordering the props needed for the interventions, I got the costumes together, I chose the music and talked to production to see what is possible at the venue. These elements influenced the development of the participatory interventions. As did the theme vanity. I internalised the script and never wrote a final version. I did take notes on the way in which to introduce the interventions and how to tie them together. At the final stage of developing the interventions I invited people to a try out. Their experience of the piece and the feedback they provided helped finesse the interventions and the overall piece. A description of the most current version of the participatory interventions and the thoughts behind them can be found here.
If _i_C_O_N_i_C_ were to travel to other venues then some of the interventions will develop slightly because the venue will offer other possibilities and I like to integrate the possibilities that a venue provides to benefit the piece.
A Whole System clearly explains how we are part of systems and that as individuals we play a role within these systems. If we want to bring about change, we need to consider the whole system.
The dramaturgical structure I am working on could also be seen as a system. Within a relatively controlled environment, such as a theatre or any performance space, it should be possible to introduce a new or alternative system. A system geared towards intersubjectivity, exchange, (shared) ownership, wonder and joy. What is fundamental is that the space feels relaxed. That people feel invited to participate and not forced. That they feel welcome. This is an important part of the facilitator's role, setting the tone, intervening, creating the right conditions or influencing the conditions to optimise them for an open and paticipatory vibe.
My practice focuses on the system. What is the system? How can I introduce a system or part of a system? The participatory interventions a.k.a. dramaturgical pilars influence if not build this system.
As a facilitating performer I have to be sensitive of the system and how people deal with that system.
A lot has been written on group dynamics. I was introduced to the topic through leadership and team management theories and in practice as a facilitator for learning and development programmes for the municipality of Rotterdam. Other experience working with group dynamics includes, but is not limited to, my work as a museum guide at Nieuwe Instituut and de Kunsthal and moderator at events. I am interested in bringing people together and having a valuable exchange. This translates into creating and facilitating workshops, training, education, events and programmes. I believe all these experiences inform my artistic practice and vice versa. They also train me in being sensitive to group dynamics.
In Group Dynamics (2009) Donelson R. Forsyth dedicates a whole chapter to leadership and establishes a clear link between the two. Forsyth approaches Group Dynamics from a scientific, psychological and sociological perspective. Group Dynamics is described as 'the actions, processes, and changes that occur within groups and between groups' (Forsyth, 2009). There are different reasons to form a group. In the case of _i_C_O_N_i_C_ the group is formed out of the people coming to the last evening of the #3 COMMA Festival and the performer of the piece. Some of the people attending will be coming specifically for _i_C_O_N_i_C_, other for one of the other pieces and some perhaps for the whole evening. Since it is the last night of a free festival that consists of master students showing their work, the audience will most likely be quite supportive. I assume for it to be a mix of friends, family, assessors, teachers, students, mentors and perhaps some programmers and people from the Dutch dance scene with a curiosity for new work.
After the opening scene I start talking and create a common goal. We (audience and me) have roughly 30 minutes to create an iconic artwork together. Thereby, making it a shared responsibility. By the way in which I deliver this news I try and get people to adapt this goal as their own. This introduction also highlights our interdependence. It is no longer just my performance, I need the audience, they need me, we need each other. The outcome and experience of the performance is shared and influenced to a larger or lesser degree by each individual in the space and their interactions. Forsyth (p.8, 2009) describes interdependance as 'the state of being dependent to some degree on other people, as when one’s outcomes, actions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences are deter- mined in whole or in part by others.'
Groups have different kinds of structures and these structures are defined by the roles people have or take, specific norms and the relational proximity between its members (Forsyth, 2009). As the facilitating performer I have predetermined many of the roles that people can take within the group in order to achieve our common goal. These roles range from model posing on a plateau to speech writer or person who is good with a hammer and nails. I would argue that the norms are partly informed by the space. Since we are in a gallery people have certain expectations of how one should behave. Another factor that influences the norms is that people are aware they are coming to experience a performance. Then there are norms that will be influenced by the way in which I facilitate the group. By stating that we will do what I common in a gallery setting, namely a speech, a reveal and a toast, I am referencing to norms people are familiar with and making explicit what can be expected. Some other norms will take form in the moment, for instance, when the audience is invited to feed me grapes it is the audience that have control over setting the norm on how to do so. Will anyone stand up to feed me grapes? Will they do so forcefully or kindly? Will they give me one per person or a handful at a time?
Usually, a theatre audience could be considered a bunch of couples mixed with individuals, but not necessarily a group. What factors help us determine whether a group is actually a group. Forsyth refers to Donald Campbell who introduces three parameters that influence this groupness. Common fate, similarity and proximity. Common fate refers to the extent to which objectives are shared amongst members or the level of interdependancy in realising objectives. In _i_C_O_N_i_C_ there is a common objective, as I have just described. Similarity refers to the way in which people act and look alike. By inviting people to participate in different interventions they will act similarly. At some point everyone will be drawing and towards the end of the piece everyone will be holding a drink in their hand. Similarity is created within the piece. The third and final parameter proximity relates to the physical closeness between people and how they move together. Proximity can be influenced by the way in which the seating is arranged and by inviting people to interact in close proximity.
Using Forsyth's categorisation of different kinds of groups. Audiences traditionally fall within the group labelled collectives (Forsyth, 2009). A collective exists for a brief period of time, emerges spontaneously and its organisational structure, roles and norms are not set in stone (Forsyth, 2009). Social groups are defined as smaller in size, regularly goal-oriented over a prolonged period of time and those part of the group interact socially up to mid-level intensity over this same period of time (Forsyth, 2009). Based on these two categories I would say that the audience attending _i_C_O_N_i_C_ falls within the definition of a collective. However, I would argue that the experience of _i_C_O_N_i_C_ extends of that of a regular spectator, crowd, queue of people. There is a goal and even though the group is only a group for a brief period of time, there is a more than mid-level intensity of social interaction between its members. They are invited to share more of their person than would be asked form them in a collective.
Perhaps a link can be made to relational aesthetics. When applying the idea of relational aesthetics to a group of people sharing the space at the same time, forging potential relations through and with art, the group moves from being a collective towards a social group. Or perhaps, I am grasping here. It does however make sense that a group of people being facilitated in social interaction through art grows closer, even if only briefly.
It is also at this stage of being in between a collective and a social group that we can surprise ourselves by the experience of creating together. My hope is that the group is given enough of an objective and sense of urgency to want to make the participatory performance work. On the other hand, because this group is only temporary in nature it might also allow for people to be more playful and explore sides of themselves they would not usually allow to surface within their actual social groups. Perhaps a performance such as _i_C_O_N_i_C_ creates a vacuum for safe and playful self-discovery. I believe that the facilitating performer influences this vacuum by inviting rather than forcing people to participate. Moreover, this vacuum and the potential freedom that comes with safe and playful self-discovery also contributes to experiencing wonder and joy as defined here.
Since _i_C_O_N_i_C_ does not go beyond and does not pertain to be creating a strong social group, diving into a greater and deeper understanding of group dynamics from a theoretical perspective seems futile. It is through practice that any facilitating performer will have to learn how to create this vacuum of safe and playful self-discovery. Why do I find this vacuum particularly important? Because I believe that we as people have the capacity to continue to evolve and grow. This of course says something about what I consider to be important in life: self-realisation. Self-realisation as an individual in relation to others. To me self-realisation requires the other. It is not an individual act, but an act through our social relations and boosted by experiencing creativity. Since experiencing creativity has the potential to take us beyond that which is already known to us about ourselves, others and the world around us.
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Show me the script for _i_C_O_N_i_C_!
FAG video installation (2020)
This interactive sound installation was created for the Pictura Pojectweeks in 2020. The idea behind it is simple: people are invited to touch the work and form sentences. I get called a faggot every now and again when walking through town. In this installation I play with the word, make it harmless to me and have people who interact with the work experience being called a fag, and beautiful and genuine at the same time.
This work is inviting to touch. I consider it part of my research as it is interactive and has an element of playfulness. Before touching the word there is an element of the unknown. Once you hear the sounds, options arise and you are invited to explore. I would relate this to wonder, as defined in relation to my research question. It evokes exciting amazement for the unknown and new. As it is a form of discovery through interaction.
Show me Kunst!
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Kunst (2019)
Kunst was created for PiPe (Pictura Performance Art Festival) at Pictura in Dordrecht. The text was written based on interactions with visitors and the space. The movement material is based on the movements required to prep the space. Think of nailing cotton paper to the wall and spray painting water guns black. The audience was given waterguns filled with textile dye. They could choose where they would take aim and shoot. A harmless game, but interesting nevertheless. Some people wanted to shoot us, some the walls, some a specific spot in the space so they could recognise their own contribution. The piece was performed twice on the same day. Once with turquoise dye and once with purple dye.
Kunst, retrospectively, was already dealing with some of the key concepts related to my current research. It involves exchange. There was a durational exchange that took place before the actual performance of Kunst. By having conversations with people who were in the space. During the performance there was an exchange of energy. People were eager to join in and start shooting dye. Without this exchange Kunst would not have worked.
Concerning ownership the question can be raised wether the resulting artistic left-overs are mine? Without participation the left-overs would have remained blanc. At this stage I did not yet consider the option of co-signing the work. Therefore, Kunst is attributed to me as an individual. Looking back, I could have given the participating audience the option to co-sign the work. They did have shared ownership over the atmosphere in the room. All of us were responsible for the atmosphere. Of course, giving them certain obvious options by placing the water guns on a table and having created a white space that looks shoot-able, the costumes, the sound, the setting all influenced this atmosphere. The way in which people decided to deal with these elements, however, was a shared and social process.
Show me Wat NU?
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In practice I apply a lot of energy, enthusiasm and positivity in my role as a facilitator to influence the mood and invite people to go along. Bruno Listopad, my artistic coach, raised an interesting question on the kind of body in the space after having been at the final try out for _i_C_O_N_i_C_ on Saturday may 13th. He questioned if the body facilitating should be tranquil or high in energy. This question made me realise that I naturally gravitate towards a more energetic form a facilitation. A great example of this energetic mode of facilitation can be seen in Wat NU?. A potential side effect of this high energy mode of facilitation is that it could push people and consequentially make them feel to have to go along. In some instances, when guiding smaller groups, I do have a calmer and less energetic approach. For _i_C_O_N_i_C_ I am interested in finding the right balance between facilitating with energy to get people to feel less inhibited quickly while also wanting to create space for whatever they bring into the space. It is a fine line between imposing feelings or ideas and generating a willingness to go along with what is happening in the space. This is also influenced by a set time frame. As soon as time becomes less relevant, and by time I mean the promised length of a piece, there is more room for following the flow of the audience rather than the predetermined flow of the piece or the facilitator.
The tranquil and open mode of facilitation is one that I would like to explore more in the future. It has potential for future artistic work.
Another espact of being a facilitating performer is to be clear in the instructions. What you ask from anyone participating needs to be concise, clear and focussed. It has to be concise so the person can remember. It has to be clear so it becomes easy to understand. This means avoiding complicated language and speaking in active verbs and actions when possible. It has to be focussed so that there is one clear action that the person has to focus on. It is good to define the most important part of the interaction in such a way that as long as that part is understood and executed the intervention works. Details are less relevant and tend to generate complexity. This also means that as a facilitator you focus on the action and its frame. What kind of action is it that you want someone to participate in? As an example, in _i_C_O_N_i_C_ I want people to draw on the white clothes I am wearing. What they draw and how they draw (fast, slow, long strokes, short strokes, etc.) is up to them. These people are not selected by me, but are invited to commit themselves to this action. They have the freedom to opt-in and to determine how they execute the action, often in relation to other people executing the same action at the same time.
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Wat NU? (2022)
This is a registration of the premiere of Wat NU? performed at Islemunda in IJsselmonde. The recording was made by filmmaker Festus Toll on March 19th 2022.
Wat NU? means What NOW? and in this performance I play with freedom and sharing. When we go to the theatre we hardly ever talk to the people sitting besides us. I wanted to create a performance in which the audience and I create together. They provide input, have specific roles and help build the performance. The performance is a creative journey that celebrates openness, working together and showing vulnerability.
While creating Wat NU? I was very focussed on participation. It is with my reflection on the research and performances of this piece that I came to realise that my role as a performer/maker is that of a facilitating performer. Performing Wat NU? also taught me how process interventions that are sometimes used within corporate brainstorms or to facilitate corporate innovation sessions can be used as dramatic tools. These interactive steps can be dramatised and serve a theatrical purpose.
In 2018 I went to DYING TOGETHER / Humans by Lotte van den Berg. More info on DYING TOGETHER can be found on this external website. In short, performers and the audience were standing in a big empty space. A case would be introduced that involved a human catastrophe, such as Germanwings Flight 9525, performers would represent some of the real people from this case and invite some audience members to do the same. Meaning, you could be invited to represent the pilot who crashed the plane. This way of working is systemic and also known as setting up constellations. This is more commonly used in therapy and also increasingly applied in corporate setting where employees want to lay bare the systemics of a case they are grappling with professionally. I have not spoken to Lotte van den Berg, but I have taken part in quite a few of these systemic constellations when working for the City of Rotterdam. From my experience I recognise the method. Why I am bringing it up here is because it is a great example of how a method of facilitation, usually applied in a different field, is transferred into a theatrical setting and moulded to become a theatrical experience. At the same time, I assume, that the purpose of DYING TOGETHER is to find a deeper human connection to others and spark a conversation. I believe it fits Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics.
One of the interventions I chose to work with is that of a free-write. For a free-write the facilitator provides the participants with the start of a sentence. Then the facilitator sets a timer and asks the participants to continue writing until the time is up. The participants are told to write in full sentences, that interpunction and spelling are not relevant, to go with where their thoughts take them, to write I don't know when they do not know and pick it back up again when they do. this way you get into a writing flow that allows all your thoughts and associations (starting from the given sentence) to be transferred onto the paper.
I was introduced to this method by Babs Gons in 2016 when I was part of the Poetry Circle 010 in Amsterdam. We would gather weekly and write. Babs Gons is a writer, poet and spoken word artist. We would use the free-write to start writing. After having finished the free-write we would go over our texts and select the passages that stood out and start writing our spoken word pieces or poems with that material. I am highlighting this writing method, because it is a great example of how I took something that I had been taught and placed it into a theatrical context.
Performing the piece taught me what worked and what did not work and how long the sections with their interventions would have to be. It also taught me how much energy was released when we had managed to create a video and a spoken word piece within the set timeframe. This release was celebrated by inviting everybody out on the stage and dance with me. It worked to skip the bow and keep the flow of energy going. It also worked to invite people to take a specific role, rather than pointing them out. I asked who loves language and would come back to them later in the performance to ask them to edit the text that came out of the free-write. It worked that people kind of had a hinyt of what was expected of them, but there was also a bit of mystery. The person who said they were good with text knew they would probably be doing something with text, but they did not know what exactly. This balance seemed to work.
Wat NU? also informed my research question in that the elements that I enjoyed about the performance make up parts of my current research question. There was exchange, ownership, intersubjectivity, wonder and joy.
Show me FAG!
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my experience, imagination and experimentation shaped the participatory interventions applied in _i_C_O_N_i_C_. These interventions are inspired by vanity and informed by the the possibilities of the needed props, the venue, and the likely ways in which people would behave when invited to participate. Practicing the facilitation of these interventions helps to learn how to best introduce them and with what kind of energy.
For _i_C_O_N_i_C_ I started from knowing I wanted to create an artwork together while also turning the entire space and people in it into an art installation. Ending up with a reveal of an art work with the people standing in the space celebrating. With this clear objective I was able to devise participatory interventions supporting this objective.
As became clear from the feedback after the try out on may 13th, there was wonder in the sense of the unknown and being surprised by creativity in the room and in themselves. Joy seemed to be apparent too and an exchange between people participating in the different interventions and with others in the space. It seems as though the interventions do support the experience of intersubjectivity, exchange, ownership, wonder and joy. Does this mean that the performance based and practical part of my research can help answer the main research question? Jump to my main conclusion here. If you want to explore more first, feel free to do so by using the contents or navigation buttons at the lefthand side top corner of your page.