ARM- BG
Pilot Activity Report1 Association on Refugees & Migrants - Bulgaria Re: The “Artist Within”, Post - 1st Training “It’s never too late! Reviving the Hidden Artist! Integral expression and dance therapy training”, Cserkezőlő, Hungary
Pilot Activity When: Organized on May 31, 2015
Where: Pancho Vladigerov Museum House Art Studio & Garden, Sofia, Bulgaria: Excellent venue relevant for up to 15 participants;
Who: st
Organizers: 1 Project Training participants Emil Antonov, Nayden Yotov, Tania Marincheshka & Vanya Hristova; Trainers: Emil, Nayden & Tania; Participants: Invited participants were of following professional background: Refugees’ & Migrants’ social assistance & legal protection professionals; Elderly Home social workers; Volunteers in orphanage patronage care; Nutrition therapists; Music therapists; School teachers & University professors; Family child care consultants; Research & creative work hygiene consultants, etc.
Aims and goals 1. Testing & approbation of applicability and adaptability of learned artistic methodologies 2. Testing & approbation of stress and tension alleviating methodologies & exercises; 3. Testing & approbation of group building methodologies & exercises; 4. Testing & approbation of group trust building activities and methods; 5. Testing & approbation of network building activities & methods; 6. Testing & approbation of training team organizing & work capacity & resilience; 7. Testing & approbation of individual trainers’ capacities and communicative & conflict resolution skills;
1
The report is based on trainers’ and participants ‘feed-backs & drafted on June 7, 2015 by Tania Marincheshka
ASSOCIATION ON REFUGEES & MIGRANTS-BG АСОЦИАЦИЯ ЗА БЕЖАНЦИ И МИГРАНТИ-БГ (ARM-BG/ АБМ-БГ)
arm.bg.org@gmail.com http://arm-bg.blogspot.com + 359 884 34 9585
Description of the activity Our pilot one day workshop took place relatively late, due to the difficulty of recruiting relevant participants. Out of the invited over 30 people, initially only 15 confirmed and 13 attended the workshop. The chosen location was excellent as we could rent not only relevant hall, equipment & musical instruments, but also during the lunch break be introduced to the working atmosphere & creative process of the prominent Bulgarian composer and musician Pancho Vladigerov, through a vivid story & a film show. The relevance of this museum intermediary was in the lesson extracted from juxtaposition of routine daily banality, pre & post-WWII historic dynamics and risks, versus Vladigerov’s outstanding creative process quality in spite of all hazards. The morning session was started by Nayden “with participants’ introductions and light physical warm-up exercises for lifting-up the tone and exploring the space. Subsequent activities were inspired by the improvisational theater system of working with consciousness and the plasticity of mind. It was followed by group divided in pairs’ creation of stories, introduced by the conjunction "Yes and ...” breeding excitement and fun – as time advanced, participants became more and more creative in compiling stories”2. After each series of exercises participants’shared experiences and group dynamics were changing, in a way that was rather instructive and suggestive for the trainers’ team. “Like any group, this one formed its own pace and as each of the participants had brought their own tension, it had to be exhaled, spoken or played”3. Nayden literally & spontaneously “played” the piano, joined by another participant, introducing another change in the group’s disposition. The subsequent lunch break & museum tour, led by Svetlana Avdala, also contributed to the group integration - people were able to further get to know each other in informal conversation & discussion of the museum tour & film experiences. It also “produced a sudden paradigm change, which sometimes is the best inspiration tonus.”4 The afternoon session was led by Emil & finalized by Tania. Emil confidently started the session by the “group sculpture” exercises and everyone felt relaxed and showed increased interest in the workshop dynamics. The next exercise was dedicated to drawing representation of personal symbols, dispositions and feelings of the moment. Participants were immersed in the task. Sound paintings brought the end of the day with participants’ created music of the jungle, exotic markets’ and May Forest sounds, the stillness of a midnight German town, and a further relaxation & energizing combination exercise, led by Tania. The workshop ended with a discussion of the day results and a farewell.
Results -
The training team learned a lot from the pilot activity’s process, gained confidence and enjoyed the taste of working together; It also had a perfect chance to test a combination of methodologies learnt in Hungary and ad hoc creative contributions by the trainers;
2
From pilot trainer Nayden Yotov’s feed-back report; translated from Bulgarian by TRM; Ibid. 4 Ibid. 3
2
-
Below see a couple of participants’ feed-back impressions:
“My strongest impressions are related to what I can least of all do – painting. Daughter of an artist, I was told that I can’t paint and that it’s not worth wasting my time in trying to do so - a prerequisite of an inferiority complex that I faced now again with the crayons and the white sheet in front of me. Scared, I decided "to make it off." How? I remembered Exupery. Somewhere in the periphery of my brain apparently had nested the memory of the request: "Draw me a sheep" and of the box in which the sheep was hidden. Tricky ... Now that memory "signaled", but at first I couldn’t think of such a clever move. Only the naive drawings in my favorite book of Exupery emerged in my mind. But they were not easy… I started to paint the round Earth. With pastels I couldn’t make amendments. And thanks God otherwise it would have been a range of fixing. Any mistake had to become a part of the whole. I scrabbled, scrabbled and forgot about Exupery’s drawings. Scribbling, I began to discover that I was much more interested in adorning, in juxtaposing different forms, colors and geometric shapes, rather than in painting figures, objects or persons ... It was a nice and relaxing experience & a new finding for me. I recollected this experience only in the next morning and then a box with a hidden sheep inside stood out clearly in my mind… It was also interesting to add touches to the invented story plot prolonged continuously with the conjunction "Yes, and…" I discovered that this conjunction is not my favorite one. I tend to always connect with others and their stories, provoking them with "but", “what if”, and "I wonder if” in listening to their narrative … However, "and" is a useful exercise for collective art practices, where in the majority of cases you just have to "add" yourself to the group ... The “collective sculpturing of human figures” was another noteworthy experience. At first the assignment was not very clear to me, but it was a prerequisite to my silent communication with the others in the group, with no words, in finding the meaning ... And it became an interesting plastic figure - a sort of "dance in a slow motion." We felt the attention of others around us - we have apparently created interest. It was like a "breath of the audience" what is known to be always stimulating …”5 “I loved the workshop part with relaxation exercises, which gave me a wonderful opportunity to relax, daydream, and awake my creative impulses. I liked the interaction with other participants, the confidence that we built between us, as well as the team spirit in group activities... It was also very interesting to learn more about the eminent Bulgarian composer & musician Pancho Vladigerov during the museum tour and the film screening. Impressions, feelings and insights that this training has given me will help me in the future to use the "artist within" in my practice as a consultant and therapist… I thank the organizers for the idea and logistics - the venue was beautiful and very conductive for the purpose of training and the food was excellent!”6 “The workshop was a relaxing end-of-the-week experience which I enjoyed greatly and look forward to this team’s next similar activities…”7
5
Svetlana Avdala, a music therapist, museum curator & ethnic music history researcher; translation, TRM Sophia Stepanova, a nutrition consultant &therapist; translation, TRM 7 Violet Galabova, a BG Red Cross refugees & migrants social assistance practitioner ; translation, TRM 6
3
Pros and contras concerning the used methodology Most of the methodology, emotional memory and embodied practice, gained by us during the Cserkezőlő training were extremely useful throughout our pilot workshop experiment. For the training team’s performance especially helpful were the flexibility skills and the small trust groups’ processing, learnt in Hungary – they helped us in swiftly tailoring the initially imagined program to the real participants’ group and individual needs and in coping with any emergent signs of personal or group stress and tension.
Recommendations on the methodology Please, find below some of the trainers’ post-pilot-workshop self-reflections and methodology recommendations: “When a "southern" and temperamental culture (to which I think we belong) needs things to flow and fall into their places, you don’t need to apply barracks’ discipline – it’s much better to address the task with a "heart"! Thus, the understanding of the “Other” will be in place and Welcoming will replace strict rules and restrictions... For me, the dominant atmosphere of such trainings should be playful, relaxing, it’s better to avoid heavy explanations, disputes and ‘deep conversations’, they are a waste of time...a good lesson for us as trainers is that we shouldn’t take ourselves in this role too seriously – it’s a playful environment and the easiest way out of any confusion should be by teasing and joke… But for [trainers’] ambition, I think it’s essential to stay in good mood and be opened – everything flowed perfectly well, when they were in place :) … For me, it’s extremely valuable that we, those who organized the event and acted as trainers, we are very different – I felt it strongly as a complementarity difference during the pilot activity, and appreciate it rather as an advantage.“8 “To me, methodologically the most valuable contribution of this pilot activity was the achieved ‘secure experimental space’ approach that our team learned in Hungary by watching & reflecting on the Hungarian team’s work and flexible training approaches, which were pragmatically operational, but based on previously accumulated sustainable & well tested combination of diverse methodological know-how’s, creativity plus inter-personal complementarity, trust and flexibility of trainers.”9
Further personal and professional reflections: How did the training in Hungary support/ challenged/ altered ours and participants’ professional approach? The training in Hungary altered the ARM-BG team interaction towards more clarity, selfreflexivity, understanding and effectiveness. It helped us improve the working atmosphere, based on more trust, as well as self & others’ understanding. Reportedly, the one day workshop durability of the pilot workshop was not enough to achieve similar improvements with participants’ professional approach. But we hope to contribute to that too, at some point, as the Hungarian training also inspired us to experiment in applying various methodological approaches – the ones learned in Cserkezőlő & those, suggested by contextual specificities. 8 9
From pilot trainer Emil Antonov’s feed-back; translation, TRM From pilot trainer Tania Reytan’s feed-back
4
What did we get from the training that we can use in our work based on the pilot activity? The post-pilot activity of participants’ and trainers’ feed-back reassured us that we are on the right track in terms of further pilot trainings, project team-building and coping with project development challenges; Personally we all had upon the pilot activity important insights and have learned valuable lessons and skills, including stress, tension, burnout and bad moods alleviation and management. It will be easier to teach others to these skills after this activity’s embodied experiences. What is not fitting our work from the training based on the pilot activity? For the activity attending helping and training professionals it turned out that a couple of training approaches based on the pilot activity have to go through specific adaptation and processing in diverse contexts like formal university training, consultancy practices, music therapy, refugee & migrants’ assistance & mentally disabled care givers. All these are genuine challenges to our creativity and likewise personal & team integrity.
5