AbunDance : care to dance?
Open only to female students, Abundance was a project collectively curated by my friend Ms. Silvana Rigobon and me as an Interim Project at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology in November 2015. This project itself was the result of a candid conversation over breakfast in the picturesque locales of Colli Del Tronto, Italy, where a bunch of us were working on 'theatre of the oppressed', using theatre as a means to mobilize the women in that neighbourhood, who we figured were dealing with gender inequalities. From that to a collaboration of this kind is a dream come true!
Abundance was aimed at weaving a creative project with one or more groups of students using the powerful tools of Movement Medicine, Menstruality and Weaving.
Movement Medicine is a method of body awareness that combines movement and coaching. Its aim is to connect body, heart, and mind, to allow a deeper sense of presence. It can be used in developing creative processes for individuals, groups, and communities, in ways that respect ethical values and that open to new, sustainable, alternative ways of problem-solving, especially in challenging contexts.
The Menstruality Method, developed by Alexandra Pope, propagates the idea that if one imagined the menstrual cycle as the wheel of the four seasons, wherein each season corresponds to a menstrual phase and a woman accesses her different powers and different talents in them.
Additionally, developing a creative project can be compared to weaving on a loom. The balls of wool and other material available are representational of the students involved in the project- their talents, dreams, visions, research and thinking. The red thread to be used (lefil rouge) would be their personal connection to the wisdom that comes from the body, the innate wisdom of the womb, that is, their connection to the menstrual cycle.
WHAT WE DID
We worked with the students attending to each of these elements and designing projects around those ideas. My role was to design the exercises that could manifest as evidence of immersion and learning in the concepts that Silvana was trying to introduce in every phase. To me strangely, Alexandra Pope's Menstrual chart bears an uncanny resemblance to a conventional design process, but more on that in some other post!
Led by Silvana, each day would have a long session on freeing the body and mind, being aware of them and using movements to communicate not just with oneself but with other bodies around, all of this to start taking ownership of one's own being.
This is what would eventually help them be comfortable with each other as a small community and then spread the same comfort to the outside world. It helped them communicate better with words, share their thoughts and eventually their creative interpretations.
From sharing personal stories, to meeting up with NGOs that work with health, hygiene and women empowerment, from mapping popular beliefs across the world, to being guided to understand the 'science' behind these beliefs and their relevance all the way to how they needed to be adapted to the evolving world, where women's role have undergone a sea change, we covered all this and more!
The most interesting thing was how each day there would be some 'bleeding woman', who would proudly declare her state and the entire class would eventually get used to the idea of taking care of the person. The empathy, in this case, was seated in the fact that every woman knows what it is like to be a woman, so no tutoring was needed to extend that empathy into an act of care!
It stopped looking like a 'class' and more like a 'workshop' where people would join, not because they ought to but because they loved to.
The month long project culminated into a festival we called the ‘HeARTh festival’, aimed at showcasing the work done by the students in that time and creating an awareness around the otherwise taboo topic of menstruation, gender biases and the beliefs associated with them.
Through performing arts, various woven installations and interactive activities, we mobilized the visitors into being active participants in the change we want to see in addressing these social issues openly, yet sensitively. From school children to young mothers, old women and men participated in ways that told us that the message had reached. They crocheted, stitched on large sanitary pads, spoke to the girls, danced with us and enquired about the project, all of this happened organically and voluntarily.
ABUNDANCE & CARE IN PRACTICE
Sighting the above initiative as an example of ‘care in practice’ hardly seems improbable.
However, to illustrate the congruence of the aspects of care embedded in this project, I have made an infograph that examines the relationship of the various actors (although I prefer calling them catalysts) involved. It explains how abundance as a project, working at the cusp of the self and the world/society is used to move from a space of conflict to resolution, in a way that requires several catalysts to work in tandem, operating at every step with sensitivity and yet managing to provoke, probe and prod, as a means to transform beliefs for a physically and mentally healthy society. This is the key motivation for this project.
The response we got to the festival at a public park meant the event was a success and that the society does indeed consume what is given, but the consumption can be made active provided what is given is stimulating enough in being participative and introspective. It is then bound to become the launch-pad for action that creates a positive transformation in the society, forming the very basis for socio-moral citizenship.
OF STORIES TOLD & DEMONSTRATED
Below are some examples of the textile translations done by the students on female lineage, menstrual beliefs/practices in their homes, flags that display the taboos across the world, a map that plots the location of the first period and a lot of yarn bombing as a way to communicate these stories through the naturally/man-made built elements available to us at the park.
These became the visual anchors for people to gaze at, get bewildered, participate or not and then take something back with them to think about and share with others!
INSIGHTS
It is with this project that I came across a successful way of engaging in a dialogue, which entailed careful immersion in the listening-responding transmission and creating a healthy interaction, instead of a weighted equation. The interactions with organizations and drawing from other people's experiences/stories allowed for the expansion of each one's knowledge bank, thereby elevating the competence levels of both, the facilitators and participants, something that Nel Noddings talks about in depth in the article on Care In Education.
What made this relationship extra special was the fact that this dialogue would now take place between the participants and anybody in the world that they would come in contact with, making this truly into a continuous process of learning, unlearning (in case of taboos or inequalities) and being a catalyst for change in the real sense of the word. And not all of this would be easy, as Annmarie has stated, it will be intensive and painstaking, but may eventually be rewarding.
As in the practice of care in the health sector, there is no guarantee of social reformations happening in quite the same way as envisioned by the catalysts, but a collection of small ripples is better than and enough to set the eco-system into motion.
Initiatives like this have been designed to operate within a variety of contexts by Silvana before, such as during a theatre for the oppressed initiative, that I was a part of or with men only groups in different cities, but it was the first time that it was operating within a pedagogical framework and had to be designed to suit the needs of both social and academic requirements. This is where Silvana and I made a very good team of two very different minds, one that operates with complete fluidity and the other with a restrained pragmatism, so the participants got a mix of both these minds, thereby killing the monotony.
Eventually, we both came out with immense learnings from the other and that osmosis is what care in practice must ensure.
Abundance was aimed at weaving a creative project with one or more groups of students using the powerful tools of Movement Medicine, Menstruality and Weaving.
Movement Medicine is a method of body awareness that combines movement and coaching. Its aim is to connect body, heart, and mind, to allow a deeper sense of presence. It can be used in developing creative processes for individuals, groups, and communities, in ways that respect ethical values and that open to new, sustainable, alternative ways of problem-solving, especially in challenging contexts.
The Menstruality Method, developed by Alexandra Pope, propagates the idea that if one imagined the menstrual cycle as the wheel of the four seasons, wherein each season corresponds to a menstrual phase and a woman accesses her different powers and different talents in them.
Additionally, developing a creative project can be compared to weaving on a loom. The balls of wool and other material available are representational of the students involved in the project- their talents, dreams, visions, research and thinking. The red thread to be used (lefil rouge) would be their personal connection to the wisdom that comes from the body, the innate wisdom of the womb, that is, their connection to the menstrual cycle.
WHAT WE DID
We worked with the students attending to each of these elements and designing projects around those ideas. My role was to design the exercises that could manifest as evidence of immersion and learning in the concepts that Silvana was trying to introduce in every phase. To me strangely, Alexandra Pope's Menstrual chart bears an uncanny resemblance to a conventional design process, but more on that in some other post!
Led by Silvana, each day would have a long session on freeing the body and mind, being aware of them and using movements to communicate not just with oneself but with other bodies around, all of this to start taking ownership of one's own being.
This is what would eventually help them be comfortable with each other as a small community and then spread the same comfort to the outside world. It helped them communicate better with words, share their thoughts and eventually their creative interpretations.
From sharing personal stories, to meeting up with NGOs that work with health, hygiene and women empowerment, from mapping popular beliefs across the world, to being guided to understand the 'science' behind these beliefs and their relevance all the way to how they needed to be adapted to the evolving world, where women's role have undergone a sea change, we covered all this and more!
The most interesting thing was how each day there would be some 'bleeding woman', who would proudly declare her state and the entire class would eventually get used to the idea of taking care of the person. The empathy, in this case, was seated in the fact that every woman knows what it is like to be a woman, so no tutoring was needed to extend that empathy into an act of care!
It stopped looking like a 'class' and more like a 'workshop' where people would join, not because they ought to but because they loved to.
The month long project culminated into a festival we called the ‘HeARTh festival’, aimed at showcasing the work done by the students in that time and creating an awareness around the otherwise taboo topic of menstruation, gender biases and the beliefs associated with them.
Through performing arts, various woven installations and interactive activities, we mobilized the visitors into being active participants in the change we want to see in addressing these social issues openly, yet sensitively. From school children to young mothers, old women and men participated in ways that told us that the message had reached. They crocheted, stitched on large sanitary pads, spoke to the girls, danced with us and enquired about the project, all of this happened organically and voluntarily.
ABUNDANCE & CARE IN PRACTICE
Sighting the above initiative as an example of ‘care in practice’ hardly seems improbable.
However, to illustrate the congruence of the aspects of care embedded in this project, I have made an infograph that examines the relationship of the various actors (although I prefer calling them catalysts) involved. It explains how abundance as a project, working at the cusp of the self and the world/society is used to move from a space of conflict to resolution, in a way that requires several catalysts to work in tandem, operating at every step with sensitivity and yet managing to provoke, probe and prod, as a means to transform beliefs for a physically and mentally healthy society. This is the key motivation for this project.
The response we got to the festival at a public park meant the event was a success and that the society does indeed consume what is given, but the consumption can be made active provided what is given is stimulating enough in being participative and introspective. It is then bound to become the launch-pad for action that creates a positive transformation in the society, forming the very basis for socio-moral citizenship.
OF STORIES TOLD & DEMONSTRATED
Below are some examples of the textile translations done by the students on female lineage, menstrual beliefs/practices in their homes, flags that display the taboos across the world, a map that plots the location of the first period and a lot of yarn bombing as a way to communicate these stories through the naturally/man-made built elements available to us at the park.
These became the visual anchors for people to gaze at, get bewildered, participate or not and then take something back with them to think about and share with others!
INSIGHTS
It is with this project that I came across a successful way of engaging in a dialogue, which entailed careful immersion in the listening-responding transmission and creating a healthy interaction, instead of a weighted equation. The interactions with organizations and drawing from other people's experiences/stories allowed for the expansion of each one's knowledge bank, thereby elevating the competence levels of both, the facilitators and participants, something that Nel Noddings talks about in depth in the article on Care In Education.
What made this relationship extra special was the fact that this dialogue would now take place between the participants and anybody in the world that they would come in contact with, making this truly into a continuous process of learning, unlearning (in case of taboos or inequalities) and being a catalyst for change in the real sense of the word. And not all of this would be easy, as Annmarie has stated, it will be intensive and painstaking, but may eventually be rewarding.
As in the practice of care in the health sector, there is no guarantee of social reformations happening in quite the same way as envisioned by the catalysts, but a collection of small ripples is better than and enough to set the eco-system into motion.
Initiatives like this have been designed to operate within a variety of contexts by Silvana before, such as during a theatre for the oppressed initiative, that I was a part of or with men only groups in different cities, but it was the first time that it was operating within a pedagogical framework and had to be designed to suit the needs of both social and academic requirements. This is where Silvana and I made a very good team of two very different minds, one that operates with complete fluidity and the other with a restrained pragmatism, so the participants got a mix of both these minds, thereby killing the monotony.
Eventually, we both came out with immense learnings from the other and that osmosis is what care in practice must ensure.
Comments
Post a Comment