Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Feeding back

So, last I posted, Stolen Chair and I were struggling to figure out to go beyond "managing" the constructive criticism of our Community Supported Theatre (CST) members and actually try to figure out a way to create a culture where the work can be discussed and interpreted. I think we may have discovered a tool to make this possible. As I mentioned in earlier posts, quite a few of us Chairfolk are educators, and so it's probably no surprise that we again pulled lessons in from our teaching experience.

The solution to the feedback question: B-I-N-G-O

Our most recent member meetup was rather like most of our meetups: we presented about an hour worth of theatrical material, drinks, and themed gourmet munchies (since it was an open rehearsal [more on that later], we served open faced mini sandwiches like lobster & avocado and nutella & banana). During earlier such meetups, we followed up the presentation with discussion questions for our members, many of which had a habit of veering into somewhat uncomfortable terrain. While there is certainly a time and place to hear difficult artistic criticism, the CST (as I wrote in my last post) is probably not it).

With one tiny tweak, however, all of my wildest CST dreams seemed to come true. Before we offered the material, I presented (to both the cast and the CST members) a list of 10 scientific concepts that our show explores and 10 theatrical devices we exploit repeatedly throughout. I described each item in detail and then let members ask questions about them. They were given a handout with each term defined and a space to keep notes. We then presented our material, after which actors were paired with members. Their task was to complete a B-I-N-G-O card (custom designed here) filled with the terms they were watching out for. After they got B-I-N-G-O, each pair talked us through the moments of the play which they felt fulfilled the terms. I was surprised and delighted by the thoughtful processing of the work; this silly little B-I-N-G-O game, which was a blast to play, actually helped us look at our work with fresh interpretive eyes. And it had theatre-goers and -makers (who had just been on stage acting) teaming up to do so! Doesn't get much better than that...

...except for the fact that it kinda does. I, as a director, had a break-through moment during the presentation when we offered one of the scenes up as a fully open rehearsal (instead of the pre-rehearsed scenes we usually present). The actors and I worked through the material together for the first time (from reading to staging) all before the CST members' eyes. It was simply exhilarating. In many ways, it was an entirely different sort of feedback, more akin to a biofeedback machine which attunes you to your brain's natural waves. After only a few minutes of directing the scene, I could feel the audience as a single organism, responding (through breath, sighs, laughter, yawns, fidgeting, etc) to each change we made in the piece. My ideas have never flowed so freely, nor have I communicated them to my collaborators so clearly. While I don't think it's necessarily the best idea to open up all rehearsal to audiences, I think that it certainly well-complemented the other types of feedback we were pursuing that evening.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

OurGoods talks the talk

ERPA team OurGoods is out there in the big, wide world talking their talk and walking their walk. Although OurGoods is primarily an online tool, these big-hearted folks know that you gotta break bread to truly move any needles. So after their hugely successful Trade School in January (help them out on Kickstarter to get another Trade School to pop up!) this ambitious team is putting their feet on the ground at The Feast Salon. It's sold out but get on the waiting list just in case...Monday, June 7th.

"The Feast is a cross-disciplinary series of programs addressing social innovation and new ways to make the world a better place. Our secret sauce lies in a healthy combination of passion, creativity, and entrepreneurship to shift the way things are done – thereby changing individuals, industries, and ultimately the world."

Let's see what they have to offer.....and I'll stop mixing metaphors.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Stolen Chair: Be careful what you wish for?

I clearly remember standing in a muddy field with a farmer who shall remain nameless as he vented about the CSA members who abuse his “Suggestions” box. Grow more of this. Grow less of that. Why didn't you publish my recipe in the newsletter? “The feedback will drive you insane if you take it to heart,” he told me.

When I asked him why he didn't just ditch the box, he made it clear that, without the box, his members just seized him at each pick-up date. The box allowed him to manage his members' constructive impulses without putting the pressure to placate directly on him.

As performing artists, we are probably even more vulnerable to such pressure. We must please our audience (or please through selective displeasure, depending on aesthetic and mission), please our funders, please our critics, and more. From which of these sources do we actually want feedback? Do we care about the audience's feedback if they continue to fill our houses? The reviewer's feedback if she continues to drive our work to new audiences? The funder's feedback if those checks keep getting written? Is feedback itself an intrinsic good?

Throughout the process of this CST experiment, from our earliest research stages up until our most recent members' meetup, this question of feedback has pushed itself into our collective headspace time and time again. Though most people feel quite at ease in the critic's chair when out dining, far fewer feel comfortable extemporizing about the relative virtues and vices of produce in the raw. Our first year's experiment with the CST reveals that there may not yet exist such a distinction between the nature of feedback audiences might give to a finished work and that which they'd offer a work-in-progress. Before each invitation to discuss our very raw work-in-progress, our company has discussed what type of feedback was most helpful for us to hear from our CST members and how best to solicit it. Invariably, however, we'd botch our communication of conversational constraints. Without clear "rules of engagement," we'd find ourselves defending artistic choices...and, worse, acting defensively towards our most committed supporters! We could tighten the conversational reigns so much that no ambiguity remains, narrowing the slot on our metaphorical feedback box, but that seems unlikely to lead to the type of discourse we want.

How might we siphon the brilliance of our members' perspectives without placing ourselves in an adversarial critic-artist dialectic? The noun "feedback" has a very specific meaning in the worlds of electronics: "the process of returning part of the output of a circuit, system, or device to the input, either to oppose the input or to aid the input." Our concern with the CST isn't that our members' comments "oppose the input," but rather that we have not yet found a technique whereby they can return "part of the output."

When one encounters a work of art hanging in a museum, the impulse (for me at least) has always been to interpret the work's meaning and the artist's choices given what ever frame of reference the curator provides. I certainly don't evaluate the work's quality; whether I am familiar with the artist or not, I assume its worth is a given. (Yes, sometimes we look at the work and say "My three year-old can paint that!" But, generally, we are encouraged by the curation to interpret and respond instead of just sharing our likes and dislikes a la a Facebook post or Yelp review) If the artist herself could hear the excited interpretations her work summons from me, that would be feedback in the truest (electronic) sense of the word. I would take her input into my imagination and return it to her, offering a deeply personal perspective that might help her view her work differently. Feedback is not evaluative; it's not constructive criticism, and by linking the words as freely as we do, we risk the means of artist-audience engagement that so many of us covet.

We only have three member meetups left of our pilot season, but I am certain that in those remaining encounters, we'll be working to ensure our audience has opportunities to feed us back the imaginative reverberation that works of art can inspire.

Monday, May 10, 2010

it takes a village: Help NYSCA today.

Even if you don't get direct funding from the New York State Council on the Arts someone you love does, someone you admire does, some dance company or theater space or music festival does.

40% of NYSCA's budget is being cut! This is the biggest cut of any State
Agency.

With the state budget STILL HANGING IN THE BALANCE your voice still counts. Easy breezy just go here and sign your name and tell Albany how important the arts are to you.

Show your love.

It does matter. Really.

Thanks.