Invitation to create conversation exercises and movement conversation exercises
Dear all,
I would like to ask your help for my presentation on Friday.
For this I will need to ask you to meet for dinner on Tuesday evening at my place.
The only thing you need to prepare is just to let me know what you personally need in order to warm up for a discussion and/ or a movement conversation.
I could bring things for you and you can bring also with you (eg music, books) anything that you think it will prepare you for a conversation. Non tangibles as well, like ideas, words that will prepare us to have a conversation and/ or a movement conversation.
For the presentation on Friday we will focus on : a. Warm up exercises. Simple exercises that help one start slowly to warm up in order to get into a conversation and/or a movement conversation
and 1 & 2 I mention in my text
1. People meet around a table (space has to be considered) or in space to start a movement conversation.
2. People share one after the other knowledge and/or experience on a pre-agreed notion, question (topic of conversation and ways to approach the subject)
For a, 1, & 2 I would like you to prepare the following (to send me prior to our meeting by email and/or to bring on the day we meet):
Start considering of spacial issues regarding a conversation and/or a movement conversation.
In which space would you personally see a conversation happening. If we change the table that I write what would work for you? Is the space to make a conversation determined by other parameters apart from the people included? In other words what do you need me to bring in that space to prepare it for you to have a conversation? or what do you want to bring in order to start with a warm up exercise on making a conversation? (e.g books, music, food, wine, but also please consider non tangible things that are important for warming you up for a conversation, and please let me know)
Please start thinking if there are topics you would like to discuss during these conversation and let's start a discussion here in order to agree on a question , a notion , or a larger subject that interests us all to discuss .
I really hope we will be able to get together and give it a try, and I thank you in advance whether you would like to participate in it or not.
With warm regards,
Eleni
And a few thoughts about the project:
Difference and similarities between a game and an exercise
Game: is recreational activity involving one or more players, defined by a goal that the player try to reach, and some set of rules to play it.
Exercise: is a planned, structured, repetitive, and intentional activity intended to improve or maintain a purpose. (to make you "fit" for something).
So, we are looking into ways that will make as "fit" , that will train us in doing a conversation. Is intimacy important in order to start a conversation? Yes, intimacy understood in the sense that it acknowledges and accepts the diversity within the people who take part in this conversation. So, maybe finding the right distance for the participants both literally but also not in a literal way in order for a conversation to start and/or to continue.
Structure
I am very familiar with the exercises' structure that body based techniques share (ballet, contemporary dance but also relaxation techniques, yoga etc), so I choose to include it here in order to experiment with it as a structure for the conversation exercises. For this example I use the metaphor of a ballet class structure
So as a basic structure a conversation practice should include exercises that have the following characteristics :
a. Warm up exercises. Simple exercises that help one start slowly to warm up in order to get into a conversation.
b. Core conversation exercises. Exercises that help the participants to gain a basic vocabulary about making a conversation. This includes a set of more difficult exercises, by repeating maybe exercises from the warm up and learn ways of thought that develop into dynamic combinations. In other words one applies what she has learned in the warm up exercises.
c. Relaxation exercises. After the dynamic part, one finds his way in the conversation to relax, and take time to herself to reflect.
What I have created in my previous work as a sample conversation exercise is:
1. People meet around a table (space has to be considered)
2. People share one after the other knowledge and/or experience on a pre-agreed notion, question (topic of conversation and ways to approach the subject)
3. They then look at it from different angles : psychoanalytically, in an imaginative way, culturally.(the participants search for diverse ways of approaching the subject, different from their initial angle or approaching from the same angle but differently )
4. Doers and observers alternate and give feedback (all participants have the chance to see the conversation from the outside and from the inside, they give feedback from both positions)
5. after the end of each conversation they take the time to think, to reflect and to write (maybe use post-its writing what it was about or creating new rules for the exercise)
They repeat the exercise with the new rules that have been created