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Nobuyuki: |
Now, I'd like to ask the Guest Commentators for their reflections on Playshop. |
Milton: |
I was interested in the reactions of children. Children very quickly got involved and led adults into activities. I learned a lot about structuring groups. It was the first time for me to see children engaged with adults who were not their parents. Interaction with other adults sometimes occurs in kindergarten, but not thereafter. I drop my daughter off at school, but that is the extent of my involvement with her school. It is necessary to bring adults into the classroom so the teacher is not the only adult. In the school-to-career model, adults share their professional expertise and experience in class. There was still not enough playfulness and emphases on the performing arts in the U.S. curriculum. Curriculum is usually narrowly defined as math and science, reading and writing. Creative expression and dance are often left out because people do not see the interconnection between these fields. There should be more of a relationship between these fields. As one example, the visual effects of George Lucas rely on both technology and art and requires knowledge of math and science. A digital artist using motion capture, for instance, must know the physics of motion and draw on art, technology, math and science. I would like to see schools preparing children for these new jobs that did not exist five years ago. |
Jogi: |
At first I was worried that Playshop might be too directed because I see play taking place in between the programmed spaces. Children usually play between programs, in so-called "in-between spaces." But, since the programming of Playshop was minimal, this was not a problem. I felt that 160 people were large. Children and adults participated together in groups and the boundary was the other group. Working in groups was good because people did not feel naked or isolated, but this may require some cultural preparation. The facilitator acted as a trickster to link the audience and play in a precise manner. If this had been a teacher, the role might not have been so successful. I felt that more time was necessary to give people time to cross a threshold. It is possible for participants to extend the threshold when they have been prepared. Participants can cross and then look back to reflect. This is why I favor three days, with each day marked by a certain type of activity depending on what happens to the body. As Sakura mentioned earlier, each child has a nature of his or her own and it is necessary to find the actual elements to which they respond. Day #1 can be used to find these elements and tune them in. There should be a choice. For example, one particular child might not like the male voice. Participants should be given choices so they can explore the methods to which their body awakens. The Playshop designer is a trickster and the trickster is a designer.
I like the word "playful," but "Playshop" would not be a good word in India because it suggests market principles. It would be criticized for reducing intention into a commodity. In India, it would be better to call it "Playspace," that is, an autonomous space that is dictated by its own internal rules. As for evaluations, I favor formative evaluation.
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Ruth: |
Playshop was an affective or emotional experience. My interest is how to awaken the heart and how to create a joyful experience. It seemed that working with hands in some ways opened up the heart. The experience was similar to Village Theater in its ritualized practice. Taking off the shoes was a rite of passage, the crossing of a threshold that signaled to people that something was going to happen. It created intimacy, but also disconcerted some people. Making costumes was also similar to Village Theater. Dividing into small groups put facilitators or guides in the center of each tribe. This quickly decentralized structure. Transformation from nervous to joyful was most important for me. The game, "what are you doing?" was especially effective in opening up the men, in particular. This created a more kinetic, affective reality. I had never experienced an event of this scale, range and gender participation before.
I think Benesse probably has enough data because Playshop was so well recorded. I was surprised the cameras were not upsetting to the participants. There was a seamless quality between media and the self. The participants did not seem self-conscious and the media did not interrupt them. This would not have been the case in the United States where it is necessary to get written and oral permission from each person who is being filmed. People did not mind and it did not interrupt the flow.
We should look at the performance itself. It was a performance, a village theater performance, and a flower that bloomed one day and it cannot be cloned. Playshop itself also seemed to be a rite of passage. Rites of passage are divided into three phases of descent (guided moment), sacrifice (autonomy), and return (normal consciousness). I witnessed this movement in Playshop. It was an escape from consciousness, a large virtual experience, and an experience of common humanity in which all cultural and gender stereotypes fell away. |
Edith: |
We should look into the idea of play and learning when asking ourselves why playfulness and Playshops are necessary. I am interested in the link between play and learning. The importance of play in learning is that play offers transitional spaces, elaboration spaces, spaces between hallucination and reality, oneself and the world. It is a space that allows people to stretch their boundaries. To do this, people need safe places such as a theater. Such a place is a make-believe terrain, a playpen or playscape that signals rites of passage and that the terrain is different from the real world. In virtual spaces, one is supposedly allowed to be vulnerable, but nothing tells one that it is a safe space. I like to think of learning in terms of design, rather than as a hands-on endeavor. Children are designers of their cognitive tools. They build their own tools and props. They are designers of their world. They stage the world around them. The concept of "what if?" is central to design and theater. It is also the seed of logical inquiry. Even when scientists use hypothetical or deductive reasoning, they are really playing a game of "what if?" The concepts of "what is" and "what could be" are always at play in science. What are ingredients of reverie? Scaling down and scaling up, role playing, looking at the world in different perspectives are allowed in the imagination. They are the ingredients of poetic expression, but they are not given enough understanding in complex phenomena. However, the role of reverie should be an object of inquiry so we can rethink how it can be useful in scientific inquiry. Professor Yutaka Saeki (The University of Tokyo) has written a paper entitled "Towards an Anthropological Epistemology." When we try to understand complex phenomena, we use something that he calls kobito (small people) that we project into the world as avatars or prostheses of ourselves. To me, it is not by chance that this idea that comes from Japan. He has taken the idea of personification seriously as a model for more than just an early stage of development. |
This concluded the post-breakfast meeting and the Post-Playshop meeting, and the participants adjourned for lunch. Lunch was rather rushed as some of us needed to catch planes back to our countries that day. The rushed spirit, however, seemed to make our farewells a bit easier and we were able to say our good-byes and "see you soons" in a very playful spirit. This was not the end, but merely a beginning of our Dancing Dialogue! |
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