{"id":9341,"date":"2021-06-24T14:16:18","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T21:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohoproductions.org\/old\/?p=9341"},"modified":"2021-06-25T14:36:35","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T21:36:35","slug":"autonomous-collaboration-an-icp-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohoproductions.org\/old\/onstage\/autonomous-collaboration-an-icp-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Autonomous Collaboration: An ICP Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Morgan Clark-Gaynor<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The question of our times, as it seems to me, is how do we simultaneously remain autonomous individuals while also working in constructive collaboration<\/em>?<\/strong> When I set out to ask Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble (PETE)<\/a> about their latest iteration of the Institute for Contemporary Performance (ICP)<\/a>, I didn\u2019t expect this question to be addressed. As an ICP alumni myself, I reconnected with PETE and some of their most recent ICP students to ask how their art has changed in the last year. I learned that PETE\u2019s ICP cohort used the past year\u2019s mandatory isolation to make intentional adaptations, namely in order to preserve their collaborative craft. Through practices in focused naming, experimentation, and snowballing, cohort members were able to locate themselves in relationship to each other and build performance out of their connections. From within the deeply challenging circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, ICP was able to model a laboratory for revolutionary creativity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My ICP cohort, that of 2019-2020, was disbanded on a heartbreaking note. Traditionally, ICP puts on a big festival at the end of their year-long intensive in devised theatre-making. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, my cohort was not able to produce work, and we were scattered away from each other. When PETE decided to formulate a new cohort for a 2020-2021 iteration of the program, they invited alumni to join. While I was excited by the opportunity to create, I simply did not have the resources to continue my training. While ICP faded from the foreground of my awareness, its new cohort was hard at work, creating new and exciting forms of theatrical methodology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rebecca Lingafelter and Cristi Miles<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This last week, I sat down with Rebecca Lingafelter and Cristi Miles, two members of PETE and instructors in the ICP program. After listening to their accounts of last year\u2019s ingenuity and creative adaptation, I swung over to the students to trade a penny for their thoughts. I spoke with Rachel Wells and Kelsea Vierra Ashenbrenner, two of my former cohort-mates that went on to continue their education into this year. I also spoke with Logan Ridenour-Starnes, who joined the program for the first time in 2020. I have woven these interviews together into a non-linear expression of their non-linear expression. Stick with me, I swear it\u2019ll make sense in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emergence<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEmergent strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for.\u201d (brown, 3)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her classic fashion, Rebecca just said it – \u201cThis idea of emergence<\/em> was really central as a pedagogical approach, and came out of work PETE was doing in the Spring in our Anti-Racist work and some re-naming of things.\u201d This year, the ensemble discovered adrienne maree brown<\/a>, a Black queer science fiction writer and social movement visionary. brown\u2019s book, Emergent Strategy, <\/em>and its concepts of emergence and adaptation served as a foundational tool in crafting this year\u2019s cohort. Rebecca went on, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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adrienne maree brown<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year we tried to center the ideas of emergence. And this really shifted how we made the festival. In the past, participants made a bunch of work and then proposed a new thing. This year, students came back from Winter Break with compositions based on all of the work they had made in the fall. They made a new piece based on that work, not just work they had made, but work everyone had made.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She was correct, of course. In my year at ICP, we went away for winter break and came back with proposals for entirely new work. This year, the students practiced noticing what was already emerging from amongst them in order to harness and embolden it. Rebecca called this pivot in approach \u201cseismic\u201d and ensured that the ensemble will use this strategy again in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was hearing that ICP was being intentionally adapted, just like adreinne maree brown would suggest, in order to fulfill the needs of the current moment. This got me thinking about how ICP is an evolving event and an example of both human agency and humility. In order to have a project that both persists and changes rigorously, those creating it must release control. Cristi affirmed this notion when she spoke to ICP\u2019s ongoing becoming<\/em>. \u201cWe dreamed it, if I can be so bold to say. We want to be in the room with emerging artists and really take these ideas we believe in of lateral\/horizontal structure and ensemble creation, poke at them, prod at them, and continue to iterate that idea.\u201d Out of this work, PETE has developed a style of collaborative creation and self-actualization. As Cristi put it, the instructors have developed a style of listening to their students in order to best facilitate the art that is authentically arising, while also ferrying them towards the ensemble\u2019s dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the flattening of power also comes the flattening of time. Rebecca said, \u201cBecause we do <\/em>value this thing of emergence and saying \u2018yes\u2019 to the thing that is arising, the program is different every year. It isn\u2019t a trajectory towards greatness or something\u2026 We aren\u2019t on an upward slope towards the pinnacle, but rather leaning into iteration.\u201d ICP is never in its perfect form, it is always in process. In other words, the natural state of PETE\u2019s work and the ICP program is change. There will never come a day when it is done or complete, it will simply always continue. \u201cIt\u2019s an understanding of the artistic process as a laboratory, as a science experiment. You\u2019re constantly asking questions and those questions lead to more questions, and those questions lead to more questions. It\u2019s always gonna look different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Original image: https:\/\/www.petensemble.org\/training<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Falling Away<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdaptation reduces exhaustion. No one bears the burden alone of figuring out the next move and muscling towards it. There is an efficiency at play\u2013is something not working? Stop. Change. If something is working, keep doing it\u2013learning and innovating as you go.\u201d (brown, 71)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel confirmed Rebecca and Cristi\u2019s assessment of the ICP experiment. She recounted how she and her cohort-mates had once asked Rebecca why she wasn\u2019t critiquing them more harshly. Rebecca told them that while they were generating, there was no use for value determination – they needed to simply make. As Rachel put it, \u201cA lot of stuff just happened. It was really natural like, \u2018let\u2019s just make a bitch ton of stuff and see what happens.\u2019 It was cool because there wasn\u2019t any pressure on the stuff we made. We just started making.\u201d From this point of free fall, the group agreed to let what existed between them naturally emerge. Kelsea told me that there were many more pieces that were meant to make it into the final festival, but they fell away. This was understood as a natural evolution of the festival\u2019s manifestation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ICP Member Rachel Wells<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was my identity before?\u201d -Rachel<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Just as the festivals\u2019 form came from a storm of open-ended creation, so did the cohort\u2019s aesthetics as individual artists. Logan recounted that \u201cComing into the program I didn’t think of myself as a performer at all. Since I\u2019ve come back to theatre, I\u2019ve been doing dramaturgy and directing, and getting interested in some design stuff and playwriting.\u201d From within ICP, Logan\u2019s identity as a performer took form. Along with this identity also came her fascination with archetypes. \u201cI have been learning about archetypes, so I think that that kind of emerged and was super helpful in terms of making art in the ways I want to make art. In terms of how are we, as aspects of the universe manifesting opportunities to empathize with other aspects of the universe?\u201d They noted that the program helped narrow down their interests from a bubbling chaos of possibility; they were able to let excess fall away until they had a more specific mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Original image: https:\/\/www.petensemble.org\/community-classes<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Intentional Adaptation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am talking about the combination of adaptation with extension, wherein the orientation and movement towards life, towards longing, is made graceful in the act of adaptation. This is the process of changing while staying in touch with our deeper purpose and longing\u201d (brown, 70)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emergence, as adrienne maree brown posits, is an essential part of intentional adaptation. She asks her readers to combine desire with change in order to manifest better futures. This, incidentally, was something that ICP is structured to do. Every year, old cohorts leave. Every year, new cohorts emerge. From this constant, intentional cycling, the program evolves with enormous amounts of awareness and observation. \u201cIt wakes us back up,\u201d Cristi said. \u201cIt makes me look at my ensemble members anew. It just wakes me back up to the work, to each other, to the questions.\u201d Rebecca agreed, saying that having new, young artists cycling through the ensemble\u2019s process keeps their work sustainable. She said, \u201cIt\u2019s so important for any ecosystem to have new things enter it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though this approach already existed in PETE\u2019s structure, this year\u2019s ICP cohort invigorated it. Rebecca told me that one of their intentions for this year was to practice the skill of adaptation in earnest. \u201cThere are many ways to practice it that aren\u2019t just like a deer in the headlights response to COVID, but actually inside of the work there can be an adaptability and resilience. That is something that we value and can be applied to what’s happening in the world.\u201d She said that PETE brought in Nate Cohen to do a workshop around performance and protest, which really rose out of what was happening in Portland on the streets. \u201cIf you\u2019re performing on the streets, you have to think about protest. And I think that\u2019s gonna continue to be a part of the program. It\u2019s all chorus, iterative, responsive – those are the goals.\u201d In response to COVID and the explosion of Portland\u2019s protest scene this year, PETE embraced necessary change and carefully crafted their evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distancing and Merging<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to hear what y\u2019all think, and what you\u2019re practicing in the spirit of transformative justice. Towards wholeness and evolution, loves.\u201d (brown, 150)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ICP Member Logan Ridenour-Starnes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho is the piece for?\u201d -Logan<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Performers\u2019 relationship to their audience was a primary issue that needed attention. Cristi told me how considering this problem was a cyclical process of assessing and re-assessing the intersection of safety and creativity. \u201cThe audience became a character for us in our work. They\u2019re always a character, but we focused on truly caring for them and really making sure that they were feeling safe. I know one of the early shows even incorporated handwashing before you entered the space.\u201d She and the rest of PETE and ICP had to consider how to balance the generosity of art and the generosity of safety. As they explored this balance, new artforms arose out of a continued practice in community care and dedication to craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo credit: Owen Carey<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Audience relationality was among a myriad of other intentional adaptations. PETE merged ICP members into their company productions, Weatherroom <\/em>and Fronteriza, <\/em>something that had not been done before. This was done out of necessity and lack of resources, but ended up being extremely powerful. As Rachel put it, \u201cThat was wild, being welcomed into their process for their projects. That was amazing. Weatherroom was pivotal for me, it changed the way I view performance. I finally figured out presence and what presence feels like.\u201d Kelsea affirmed that this integration was the best part of her experience in the program, and gave her previously inaccessible opportunities for growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Revolution<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy dream is a movement with such deep trust that we move as a murmuration, the way groups of starlings billow, dive, spin, dance collectively through the air \u2013 to avoid predators, and, it also seems, to pass time in the most beautiful way possible…Imagine our movements cultivating this type of trust and depth with each other, having strategic flocking in our playbooks.\u201d (brown, 71)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I asked Cristi and Rebecca how they would describe ICP\u2019s evolution with sensory language, Rebecca chose \u201cdandelion.\u201d She said, \u201cThere\u2019s a little dandelion to it, because of the way we\u2019re hoping to seed the revolution.\u201d When I asked for more information, she said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Original Image: Flickr<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an investment in the tradition of collective art making. There\u2019s this long history of people making theatre in collective ways, it\u2019s only in the last 70-75 years that we\u2019ve started to do this top-down, hierarchical, individual artist auteur vision of making performance. If you look at theatre history, it\u2019s not the way we\u2019ve done it for millennia. One thing that is distinctive about [PETE\u2019s] art form is that it is collective. So we should embrace that as opposed to trying to cram it into these corporate models.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Cristi went on to describe how PETE\u2019s form of theatre-making was a means of practicing her desired method for living in the real world. When I asked how theatre brings about collectivization, Cristi responded – \u201cIt\u2019s about presence. There\u2019s this way of creating that requires everything in me, of me…I practice the way that I wanna be in the world in laboratory with my fellow creators that then makes me braver to be that way out in the real world.\u201d With this in mind, PETE is fashioning a space where people can come, evolve, and bring their new capacity for collaboration into everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PETE\u2019s awareness of the theatre-life relationship was reiterated in Logan\u2019s testimony of her experience. Logan told me that one of the reasons why they chose ICP was because the program made them feel valued as a human, not a producer of goods. She said, \u201cThat\u2019s something I really appreciate and not something I\u2019ve felt at other places I\u2019ve tried to do theatre in.\u201d Along these lines, they noticed that they felt free to talk about anti-imperialism and decolonization in the institute, that there was a preexisting understanding of the complicated social and political scape within which we perform. She went on, \u201cThere\u2019s an understanding that we can do our part to dismantle those systems internally and around us, but there\u2019s not that pressure that \u2018you as a group have to dismantle the entire thing\u2019, which is something I sometimes feel at other places.\u201d Through their focus on radical change in theatre, PETE and ICP are humanizing the interpersonal dynamics within their community, and learning how to participate in larger systemic shifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ICP Member Kelsea Vierra Ashenbrenner and CoHo’s Morgan Clark-Gaynor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good kindling.\u201d -Kelsea<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Rachel noted how the social and virtual constraints of this year uplifted cohort members\u2019 senses of autonomy and connection. \u201cWe spent so much time working apart, but we worked together better. The ensemble felt really strong despite not training together or being in the room most of the time.\u201d Continuing along this narrative, Kelsea expressed how ICP gave her a much-needed outlet for collaboration. Because cohort-mates were isolated away from each other, they got to know each other very intimately. \u201cWe were doing things solo, so it was really personal. When you\u2019re watching one person doing something, you can\u2019t take your eyes off of them. You can\u2019t get distracted.\u201d Through this distant intimacy, individuals were able to intentionally determine what they wanted to learn from each other, and what others had that they lacked. In their autonomy, they were able to serve each other fully as collaborators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I noted how notable this note was. How incredible that these people were able to find sustainable, rigorous, trusting connections with each other via their rigid boundaries that kept them apart. I told Kelsea this, I said \u201cThat sounds really empowering and autonomous and simultaneously collective – which is kind of the question of our generation: how do people be free and individual while also…\u201d She finished my sentence with, \u201cHaving to work together to sustain the human race.\u201d Yes. Right. How do we simultaneously remain autonomous individuals while also working in constructive collaboration?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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