Deanna is a very inspiring and successful poet, she is an artist and she has a lot of experience in running workshops, so we were graced with her expertise today. She taught us how to run a workshop and key facts that we should know in order to not undermine those who may be running certain parts of the workshop, she employed us with so much amazing advice and really boosted our confidence as facilitators of the arts to teach others what we know.
Deanna wasted no time and started from the beginning and what we should do as soon as they enter the door, which was to just be ourselves and don’t wear a mask, if we show anything that doesn’t seem true to our character they will not want to invest or listen to anything we have to offer. We then spoke about getting everyone into a circle, and Beth proposed that we could make a game out of it. I suggested that we grab their attention by making everyone stand in height order and giving it a time limit, it would mean we are all interactive, getting comfortable with the spacing and leaving no time for anyone to not want to join in. It also meant that people had to notice and look at each other, you were having to square up to people you didn’t even know and suddenly you’re not worrying about anything else except working together and winning the challenge.
From the height order, we needed to get ourselves into a circle so that everyone could be equal and we could start discussing and moving on as a group. An idea of holding hands and forming a circle emerged and that led us onto physical contact, it is inevitable in most group activities but we must understand a sense of personal space especially with people we are not familiar with, if we become too close it could cause conflict between two people and start something unnecessary. We spoke about our own dislikes about too much physical contact and realised that we ourselves don’t enjoy it so we shouldn’t impose it on others.
The reason why a circle was necessary was because we then wanted to know everyone’s name, but being The BRIT School of Performing Arts, we didn’t want everyone to just say their names, we wanted to add a new level into it, so we then brainstormed ideas of name games.
Nekkita’s Name Game: We start with one person, the first person gives us the first initial of their name and then we go around the circle and we each have three guesses at what their name could be.
Adaptation: We thought everyone getting three goes may take too long and therefore loose the interest of some people, so it then turned into one go for each person.
Playing it: Once we put the game into practice, we saw that it was quite slow for some reason, we also found that guessing someone’s name could be offensive to another person if their name is guessed incorrectly, for example if a girl is called a boy’s name.
Jessie’s Name Game: You say your name and then an action that begins with the same letter as your name, for example; Jumping Jess.
There was no adaptation to this, we thought some people may be reluctant to do a movement and it would then put a downer on the whole game.
Tuwaine’s Name Game: Each person could state their name and then music they like or an artist.
We found that the problem with this could be that people may get nervous under pressure and begin thinking too much, plus your taste in music is personal therefore if you said a name no one else knew you could begin to feel isolated.
Although some of the things we discussed seemed very farfetched and over thought, Deanna said it was necessary to over think the little details so that we were prepared for anything that may befall us.
We then decided as a group to give everyone stickers including the BRIT students, our game would be to get into alphabetic order of your names; it would still involve looking at each other and noticing people.
Our next part of the session was developing ground rules so that everyone understood what was expected of them and what they could and could not do, we were going to inform them of things such as
- Respect
- Confidentiality
- Listening to people
It was essential to develop a set of “rules” that everyone could understand so that we are all on the same level and understanding one another. Rosie taught us all about the Golden Rule which is, no one knows what you’re feeling inside, so don’t be afraid to say what is on your mind, your self consciousness is all in your head, so if you provide your answers with confidence, people will respect it.
We then moved onto “Dispelling Tension” which was about how we could deal with conflict if it occurred in the group, there were many suggestions, such as a box. This box would be home to the feelings of others, if you were unhappy with the treatment you received by another individual or just wanted to let something be known, you could write it down on a piece of paper and then put it in the box where it would be opened in the next session. We then thought that it would be harder for boys to write down their feelings and there was even less of a chance that they would so it openly. Another suggestion was that there be one person who was considered the Team Leader and if a problem occurred we could speak to that person, but we quickly disposed of that idea as it seemed too patronising as we are all the same age and experiencing things ourselves. We then got people to role play how a situation of conflict may occur and we realised afterwards that little things can produce big problems, so we decided that a time out can be taken by anyone at any point if they need it to be.
Deanna also spoke about starting each session with a theme so that if you do forget what it is you’re supposed to be saying or you trail off of topic, you can always relate back to the theme and wing it in an educated manor.
Here are some of the games we thought up:
- Anyone who (sunshine game)
- The space game
- Height order/Age order
- Hot or Cold
- The number game
- The bomb and shield
- Columbian Hypnosis
We thought of these games to help the workshop move along and keep everyone engaged, they’re games that keep energy high and everyone moving, there is no time to stand still and be bored.
We then got onto the topic of free writing, free writing is not having a topic in mind and talking about it, it’s more to do with just writing words and they don’t have to make sense because it’s what is going on in your mind and no one can tell you what is right or wrong for you. The free writing was about giving them space to reflect on the day’s events, reflecting on their weeks event, letting their brains just wander and it being a catharsis for them.
Deanna’s session was so insightful and a confidence booster. It really just let me feel as though I had nothing to worry about on Friday morning and as if I had been teaching workshops for years. Her depth into the little things prepared me for anything that could happen and I left that class feeling excited for the challenge myself and my co-workers were about to embark upon.
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