Sixteen – Making the Invisible, Visible

Making the Invisible Visible

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying: Make me feel important. Never forget this message when working with people.  Mary Kay Ash.

On the morning I ran the workshop course to start the Moveable Feast Workshop Company I got into the space early. I had bought small coloured LED lights. I darkened the space, put out mats and cushions and placed the small lights so that there was a dim, atmospheric flickering of colour but near blackout. I had a story in mind. It was readied but I was nervous.

Exposing my inventions and imaginings to a group never ceases to wrack my nerves. It’s opening night every time. I deal with this, probably too much, by touching base, phoning home. This can sometimes be a little irritating for my wife, Claire.  I don’t know if she’ll ever know how much it helps me to calm the fear of purveying my absurd wares in the world and sometimes provides the missing key to open the door into the cave of a workshop.

I rang her on that morning and she told me that she had just been reading about the flood in New Orleans, which had just happened. She finished by saying “now the invisible will be visible”. She meant all the ignored people in New Orleans.  Sadly, this was not to become more than slightly true but her words struck a deep chord in me. Somehow, the spark was there for me on that morning. I had a key for that workshop. I could see the framework of what I was about to do in that last phrase she’d left me with.

There were 15 artists gathered outside the studio where we were going to work. I had set up a space for each them in the dark space so that they would comfortably lie on a mat with cushions that they could arrange. What they couldn’t see was the collective shape they made.  I had recently had a dream. The dream urged me to tell the tale of the Rainbow Serpent. I decided that was a good starting point for the course. The Rainbow Serpent is an Australian Aborigine creation myth or tale of emergence. There was a moment in a workshop, years before this gathering, when a young girl made crystal clear to me the heart of that story.

That girl was ten years old and had a speech impediment. She had self-selected to be one of the narrators in a telling of the Rainbow Serpent tale made in a week by a whole school. All the narrators had self-selected. The whole school were congregated. I asked who would like to narrate and that girl was one of the children who put up her hand. The headteacher vigorously nodded “no” in my direction. I pretended that I couldn’t see the nodding and picked the girl. When they dispersed the headteacher told me that she thought I shouldn’t pick that girl as she had a speech impediment. I reassured the head that I would look after the girl and make sure that she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do or that made her uncomfortable. There were six narrators and as usual I got each to read me a line from an old script. I did this to hear how able their reading was but more, to hear the quality of each of their voices.  When the girl in question read, there was a quality that was different to the other five.

There was part of the narration when the voice of that narrator is speaking as if they are the Rainbow Serpent, which would be represented by a 4-metre-long, giant puppet. I decided to ask the girl how she felt about taking on that part. My hunch was that this girl would be the best of the six for that part. I talked to her and explained that there was part of the story when the narrator would be speaking the voice of a very large puppet that was like a god. I thought that she might be good at doing that bit but asked her what did she thought. We agreed that she would look at that bit of narration and write it in her own words and then see how she felt. She came back and said that she had written her part and was fine to do it. Come the performance she spoke these words:

The Rainbow Serpent said: “Remember the laws.  Try to break them and they will break you.  Follow them and you will live happily and peacefully on Earth.  These are the laws.  Dream and Respect.  Your dreams are what made you so follow them and listen to them.  Your dreams made the world, so respect the world because the world is made out of your dreams.”

This would have been special anyway. What happened though was when she got to Dream and Respect, she stopped, paused and repeated it again, Dream and Respect. She did this like a consummate professional. It wasn’t written down , she just had become the part and had utter conviction in what she was speaking.  The dramatic effect was stunning. 

The Rainbow Serpent for some reason just keeps coming back to me in all sorts of guises and she had come to me in a dream. So, when all the 15 artists were lying on the floor and relaxed into soft music and soft cushions, I told them the story of the Rainbow Serpent. The aim of that workshop course was to create a common ethos based on the idea that the unifying principle of our different arts practices was that we were all purveyors of workshops. And that those workshops had some common objectives and qualities. Namely, to draw out unexpressed, invisible qualities of the participants through the visible  creation of art. Whether the form was theatre, puppetry, dance, visual art, photography, music or poetry; our aims were the same. We all were motivated to empower people to tell their story and learn new skills, on their own terms, in a creative environment in which their story and what they were making were not two distinct processes but entwined in a single process. My challenge though was where to begin from. I had the physical pieces in mind but couldn’t quite find the unifying idea until I spoke to Claire that morning. That’s what we all did as workshops artists: made the invisible visible. Each of us in our own way but with a common idea in mind to allow imaginations to body forth through art.

How do you begin that process of uncertainty each time you run a workshop? In 2000 I got a grant to interview different artists and practitioners about workshop. It was a very rich experience. One person I interviewed said that risk was a leader’s word and safety was a participant’s word.  Another interviewee said that the leader was like capital in the bank so that the group could get on with its group creating business. Maybe that’s what is so nerve wracking for me, the knowledge that the outcome and the way there are never certain but it’s me that knows what we are aiming for. It comes down to– motivation. Why run a workshop? Why participate in a workshop? At the beginning the person running the workshop can be that capital that allows the group to feel safe enough to take the risk if they can get those two motivations to meet. The meeting point is the content of the workshop.

When we started the Moveable Feast Workshop Company, there was a group of artists with different practices who wanted to employ their practice to empower others and who, like all freelance artists, needed work. The moment that came to mind for me was the young girl who exceeded her school’s expectations and donned a different mantle when she became a god for a moment in front of a packed audience. So, as they lay on the floor with their heads meeting in the dark, I told the group the story of my dream, the girl and the Rainbow Serpent.  The lights went up on the artist group and they saw where they were situated in the space.  They were lying in a circle, making a star shape with their heads in the centre of the star.

This is what I try to make present as I begin the workshop: myself as the story guide and the capital in the bank, the content of what we were going to engage with, the group with each other and the group in the space. This made a different sort of sense to me when Claire said those words, making the invisible visible. Like the invisible girl who made herself visible and like the group when the lights went on and like the frame for the course when Claire told me about New Orleans.  And these words started our company:

These are the laws.  Dream and Respect.  Your dreams are what made you so follow them and listen to them.  Your dreams made the world, so respect the world because the world is made out of your dreams.”

And we worked with all sorts of groups. And we dreamt up all sorts of workshops. And we collaborated and we inspired and we survived many challenges. Our dreams made worlds of respect.