|
THE ANIMATED
COLLAGE
A Creative Application of Voice Dialogue
for Therapy
and the Theater of Self Discovery
By
Marcia Singer
I have been passionate about Voice Dialogue since discovering it
in 1989, and about Viola Spolin’s Improvisational Theater
Games since 1979. The two have conspired to bring to life, to “animate”
my Self discovery works, personally and professionally, causing
me endless delight and edification. As a contemporary, hands on
shamanic healing artist, and body-centered hypnotherapist (who used
to be an international performing artist,) I have amalgamated our
wonderfully adaptable V.D. into several tools that propel spiritual
and practical explorations into Psyche and the nature of Consciousness.
One of my favorites is a theater game /therapeutic tool I call the
“animated collage,” (inspired in part by the “fluid
sculpture” game taught in international Playback Theater.”)
Animated Collage is best served by having a minimum of four players,
(although a creative journaling version can permit one or two persons
to draw and dialogue, rather than stage a living piece of theater.)
The primary concept is this: Someone presents a topic, issue or
personal scenario to explore, and the others enact salient features
of it, those features becoming “selves” or parts of
the psyche or whole. Examples of subject matter are dream snippets,
an episode at work, a relationship frustration, a physical health
condition or political matter
Whomever is directing or facilitating instructs the players to
listen carefully to the story or scenario. After the telling, each
is asked to report one feature that stood out. The aim is to extract
all the salient features or points.
Players then volunteer, or are chosen by the director or storyteller
to enact their facet, coming to the stage or other area cleared
for the work. One at a time, in any order, each steps up to begin
finding /creating a single spoken phrase (or sounds like cries,
grunts) and a movement to “animate” their piece. It
needs to be simple, to the point, and to express the “heart’
of that part of the whole. It also must be easy to repeat several
times in succession. When complete, the player steps back.
When all the players have completed the first step of the animation
process, one by one, (the order will find itself) players step down
stage to perform their piece of the collage, repeating their moving-vocal
pieces as needed until the whole collage appears, all “glued”
together. Now we can see the story, thought, event told brought
to light. If the teller or director wishes, something more be more
added, or changed as desired.
I’ll give an example taken from a recent support circle gathering
of wily therapists. One member reported having suffered a trauma
at work with a client, an abused and abusive youngster who had threatened
her with bodily harm. The therapist’s employer had failed
to provide ample support, both emotionally and in terms of ensuring
her safety. Four of us hearing her story agreed to do an animated
collage to help sort out the quandary and reduce emotional turmoil.
We began the collage process with each of us listener-players reporting
one factor that had grabbed our attention: the therapist’s
fear of quitting her job and being out of work or losing her chances
for licensing; her increasing resistence to going to work each day;
her emotional shutting down; and her self recrimination for being
unable to tough it out.
As a Voice Dialoguer, I know that the collage pieces or “parts”
will correspond with or lead to key “selves” involved
in the dilemma. In this therapist’s case, with deeper exploration,
we may have found an unemployed (able) Bag Lady, Martyred Caregiver,
vulnerable Abused Child, an attacking Critic, unavailable Mother,
and a Protector-Controller busy numbing her out, keeping Anger,
Grief and Terror at bay.
Another, more playful example comes from my community college class
with older adults. A student, who had been funding the courage to
be more expressive, brought in a dream for our class to chew on:
on a wooden raft in the middle of a lake, he’s doing a class
show-and-tell of his personal poetry and art, dressed in a clown
suit. An audience too vague to make out as individuals, sits along
the fringes of the water. The mood is overall inspiring, if a bit
anxious.
On the chalkboard, with the help of the class calling out ‘salient
pieces,’ we wrote down these: the “buoyant Lake,”
the sturdy enough Raft, the Fool-Clown, the artistic Offerings,
and the Curious Audience. Volunteers then chose a part to play,
refining each, and “collaging” the dream. Although the
dream was somewhat self explanatory, the process of animating it
was enriching. Nuances were found and contributed to the enjoyment
of creating living theater, as well as being inspired by our friend’s
courage to risk embarrassing himself in order to achieve a worthy
goal. Those of us playing the “parts” found ourselves
part of a mysterious process whereby we all meld with the Dreamer’s
Psyche, becoming a unified field. Those watching the enactment,
too, were pulled into the whole experience, relating later their
own inner movements as they watched. Ideas for other “pieces”
arose, as did thoughts about ways to express those that were actually
collaged. If time had allowed, we might have done a second collage
of the same dream -or of another student’s piggybacking on
the first experience.
There are endless ways to explore this artistic healing and therapy
tool. Again, in the absence of live support from others, an individual
person may learn to do the Animated Collage process as a journaling
and drawing exercise with wonderful results.
Marcia Singer, MSW, CHt directs the Foundation
For Intimacy in Los Angeles/SFV. Reach her with your comments: lovearts@att.net
or (818) 623-6434.
|
