weaving Voices 01.04.2025 issuu - Flipbook - Page 81
A consideration of moving away from a place or idea or practice
rather than towards an outcome or final resting place, can give a
sense of lineage – of the work coming from somewhere, of there
being a history/herstory, a moment in time and place. When Samuel
Beckett said “…Try again, fail again, fail better”120 he is reminding us of
the cyclical nature of creativity – that beginnings can happen many
times. When working on complex projects the idea of beginning
again or having multiple beginnings can serve to remind us that
we can stop or pause – and make new decisions – and this points
to the need to be flexible. One of the key components of our work
as practitioners in all creative projects but especially those which
engage with communities is the need to balance stability with
flexibility. (TB)
When considering the question of when or where to begin, perhaps
you already have begun? The Weaving Voices mission statement
stated: “We believe that when people connect through the different practices
of voice; weaving; movement; writing and environmental work; people can
meet, see, and hear each other in new and extraordinary ways. When safer
and braver spaces are created, trust can be built beyond languages.”121 (HB)
E On Ears and Earworms
Ears are the mechanism through which we listen. Listening involves
complex affective, cognitive, and behavioural processes. How
we listen depends upon our ability to tune in. If we are in a noisy
environment, with many voices and opinions, we have to make
choices about the kind of listening we wish to do. There are many
different kinds of listening. There is a listening that includes nonverbal cues; a listening without judgement or jumping to conclusions;
a listening that stays focussed upon the speaker rather than planning
what to say next. One of the key practitioners who has influenced our
thinking over the last decade is Nancy Klein. Author of several books
and trainings promoting the importance of taking time to think, she
promotes the idea of a listening space which takes the practice of
not interrupting as critical to developing a thinking environment.122
(TB) Also, the term ‘Earworm’ denotes a melody or lyric (or both)
that gets ‘stuck in your head’. I think every language has a version
of this term: πιασάρικο (Greek meaning ‘catching song’), ohrwurm
(German, the origin for the English term), fülbemászó (Hungarian
for earwig but also relates to the simplicity of the melody which
becomes repetitive in the mind) …Within the context of working
in multiple languages, the earworm can be a welcome friend for
developing a shared vocabulary and sometimes even act as a guide
for transcending language barriers. (HB)
a Attention
Attention to asking the right kind of questions. What does this
mean? Aren’t all questions valid if they come from a place of enquiry
and curiosity? Well maybe not! Let us consider the body of work
known as Clean Language.123 Clean Language is a questioning and
discussion technique used especially for discovering, exploring,
and working with people’s own personal metaphors. It is a system
of communication that calls for the questioner to keep their own
thoughts, assumptions, and metaphors out of the conversation as
much as possible. During the Weaving Voices project Hannah and
I conducted a series of interviews with the participants in order
to capture their individual experiences of having taken part in the
project. We used clean questions to stimulate the participants to
tune into their own personal responses and used a voice recorder
to capture the responses. Later in the project participants were
invited to look at the transcripts of these interviews and create
i-poems based on what they had said during the clean language
in our on
conversations. There are examples of these poems further
digital
library
in
this book.
120 Full quotation: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”, from Beckett, S.
(1984) Worstward Ho - Beckett Shorts Vol 4. London: Calder Publications.
122 For more information on this practice see:
Hartley, T. (2020) The Listening Space: A New Path to Personal Discovery. UK: The Listening Space.
Pole, N. (2017) Words That Touch: How to Ask Questions Your Body Can Answer - 12 Essential ‘Clean Questions’
for Mind/Body Therapists. London: Singing Dragon.
Klein, N. (2015) More Time to Think: The power of independent thinking. London: Cassell.
Klein, N. (2020) The Promise That Changes Everything: I Won’t Interrupt You. New York: Penguin Life.
121 Weaving Voices as Threads of Communities- About the project (2022) Weaving Voices. Available at:
https://www.sinumtheatre.eu/weaving-voices/ [Accessed 21 Sept. 2024].
123 For a more detailed understanding of the work see: Introducing Clean Language (2023) Clean Language.
Available at: https://cleanlanguage.com/introducing-clean-language/ [Accessed 21 Sept. 2024].
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