Practice of Play

19 Jun

In a cultural landscape that often rewards outcomes and certainty, there is something quietly radical about actively choosing to embrace confusion and uncertainty.

After leading my Practice of Play sessions on a Monday morning at South East Dance I feel elated, joyful and unexpectedly hopeful. Over the first three weeks of this 5 week programme I’ve witnessed a broad spectrum of practitioners come together in a space built on curiosity and an invitation to embrace challenge, confusion and uncertainty.

I wanted to articulate a little of why it gives me such pleasure and what goes on in the act of play.

I will never outgrow playing in a creative space myself. I reminded myself of this recently when attending various workshops through my DYCP. It’s like putting real butter on my toast- my practice just feels dry without it!

Allowing myself to be inside the play with other generous individuals is a real pleasure, and when you get to ‘perform’ that play in front of the group you can really test and stretch yourself. Then comes the management of adrenalin and a multitude of emotions that pop up and down when you are present, alive and immersed in the flow of playing.

Maybe, that isn’t the case for everyone, but as an introvert by nature it demands digging deep and pulling something out in public which feels at first quite unnatural. Then something happens, something a bit transcendent that involves quietening the intellectual part of the brain and firing up all the other parts including the senses, intuitive response mechanisms etc. Once inside this state it feels both thrilling and completely normal. The more I practice the more I am reminded that this is much of what performing is about- navigating and revealing aspects of who you are in front of other people.

Watching other people navigate play and find their own flow comes with a whole different set of satisfying emotions. As protagonist, facilitator and observer I can remain grounded in pleasure; the pleasure of experiencing people bring the games you have proposed to life in front of your eyes, watching the hunger for their own amusement and audience’s play out, channelling their imagination to continue feeding us with new stimuli, letting emotions be seen and read. It’s a beautiful thing to witness.

It's interesting because comedy can appear addictive and high octane, and people talk of how the ego gets inflated through making people laugh. But that’s not what I see in the people I’ve practiced with, and they are really funny! They are thoughtful, introspective and humble in their approach to humour. It can feel undeniably powerful to present yourself so openly and be received so generously, but performing is an intimate interaction between humans, a sensitive delivery of a gift.

These Practice of Play sessions were designed to encourage the absurd, mischievous and potentially rebellious side of creativity, to embrace the discomfort and joy that comes from exploring your ‘edges’ and relish in the humour that can be found by revealing human challenge.

In the sessions we use movement to arrive in the body, we play games and explore creative tasks taken from physical theatre and clown influences, we work in pairs and in groups as well as playing these in front of each other to explore communication with an ‘audience’.

“Play the games using the rules but unlike in sport I invite you to embrace and welcome failure, challenge, confusion and uncertainty...”

Afterwards we go upstairs for tea/coffee and I facilitate some informal conversation around the practice. These chats have been really fruitful and demonstrate an appetite to build a community, with a shared desire to play and expand personal practice.

During my experiences of attending or facilitating these creative spaces I notice how groups of strangers very quickly become temporary communities united by generosity and a shared desire to explore mischief and the craft of physical comedy. This might seem obvious to many people who regularly elect to attend workshops like these, but this feels new to me.

I can count on one hand the number of workshops I have attended before this year- and most of these I have been invited to or paid to attend through a bursary or some kind of ‘audition’ process. I realised that nearly all my learning has come from employment- through projects I produced for my company Probe or as a performer for other companies/directors. There will be a period of research where ideas are investigated and this might include workshops with guest artists. Then there would be a period of devising the work and this might involve improvisation and games to generate material. Inevitably, the drive is to find something to hold on to, an underlying need to discover some gold nuggets for the work or your employer. You are either the ringmaster or the commodity- either way the pressure is there.

This idea of electing to be at a workshop without the looming pressure of productivity feels refreshingly alien to me. And exactly what I have needed to find joy again.

Practice of Play is part of a longer programme that I have co-curated with South East Dance called Permission to Play. It includes masterclasses from leading artists working across clown, comedy and physical performance: Peta Lily, Bryony Kimmings and Liz Aggiss. These artists work in very different ways with how humour, disruption, vulnerability and physicality can open up new ways of making and being with an audience. I think these masterclasses are pretty much sold out now, which speaks to the calibre of the facilitators and demonstrates an appetite for this kind of work.

In the week commencing 29th June I will be supporting the residency of artist Janelle Hacault, a contemporary dance artist, choreographer, actor, and stand-up comedian based in Montréal.

‘Rough Cut’ sharing of Kapwa, 6.30pm Friday 3rd July, South East Dance. I will be facilitating a Q&A with her afterwards.

Register Now: https://southeastdance.org.uk/whats_on/rough-cuts-sharing-qa-with-janelle-hacault/

Practice of Play sessions are open to creative practitioners working across dance, theatre, live art, circus, performance, visual art etc.

The last 2 sessions are Monday 22nd & 29th June.

9.15 Space open for arriving in the body

9.30 Practice of Play

10.30 Tea/coffee/chat

Antonia Grove

Practice of Play

Established Artists Meet: Summary Report