Looking for Your Stories to Share at Art of Man

[Karen Dawson]

I've had a request from Colin Funk, the creativity director at The Banff Centre (and one of the hosts for the Art of Man Conference to which Maria has already referred in this discussion forum).

He'd like me to share, on behalf of all of you, what is happening around the world in your own practices as you apply theatre and improvisation to your work with organizations.

Colin is kicking off the conference with an Organizational Theatre Festival and our very own Paul Levy will be sharing one of his plays.

Colin is interjecting panel discussions throughout the day to encourage sharing and dialogue...and he's keen to have AIN members' experiences out front and centre. Because I work at Banff I'll sit on one of the panels and I'm eager to hear from you...so I can report out as accurately as possible about your work, your experiments, your accomplishments, your innovative approaches, your stories....to let the world know what we (AINers) are working on!

Share here so we can all learn from and with each other. Thanks in advance.

Karen

[Paul Levy]

We just premiered a new play called Recycled Dreams (http://www.recycleddreams.net) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival at the Roman Eagle Lodge Theatre for two nights. The play also premiered in the afternoon at the offices of Legal & General Insurance in front of an invited audience of staff. The play explores personal and organisational sustainability and is funded by L&G (the funding is not based on sponsorship or any influence on the script or production - it's pure, outright arts funding). We have used this opportunity to tour the show in September, both in public theatre venues AND on site at Legal & General's own office photocopiers, making use of their photocopy areas as performances spaces and using pre-collected paper as a prop in our performances.

Feedback from the premiere was mixed. The play ran for 40 minutes and we've sharpened it up to about 35. It succeeded in generating a lot of positive response and reflection, stimulating reflection in staff- both an employess and as "people" outside of work. The play isn't preachy in any way and uses sustaiability as a backdrop for a conversation between three very different people about their lives and the direction they are taking, with "global sustainability" as a metaphor for personal choices we make each day.

The tour begins in September, and we'll gather feedback as we go and finesse the show.

[William Hall]

I'll send you a one via email.

William

[Karen Dawson]

Ah yes - I read about your story collection efforts a while ago here on our site - and promptly forgot. I'll go looking.

And if anything surfaces here that you haven't seen yet, dip away.

Thanks for checking in and responding. You have a knack for that and it's got me feeling noticed and connected. Big thanks Paul. Cheers from Vancouver Island.

Karen

[Paul Z Jackson]

Hi Karen
Sounds like fun. We're also collecting stories (as you may know) for this website and as a possible book. So help yourself to anything that appears there, and perhaps we can dip in to anything that arrives for your panel project.
Love, Paul Z