The art of listening

Listening is a soft skill when done well can have a powerful impact.

Being a Playback practitioner means you have to listen well.

Have a think for a moment about how you listen. What do you listen for when you listen? How to solve it? How it connects to your own experience? The facts of the story?

As a Playback practitioner one listens to literally hundreds of stories. I think I could safely say it is 50% dependant on the way in which a practitioner listens to a story that can make a difference.

So I think it is worthwhile to put our listening style under the microscope and see what you may want to add to your own listening style.

As a Playbacker listening to a teller (someone telling us a story) you must first and foremost be entirely focussed on that person, this means putting aside your own thoughts.

This is interesting as at the same time one must listen to oneself enough to be aware of what in the story touches you, what has emotion.

In Playback we listen to the tellers body language, the way in which they express themselves, any metaphors they may use, every word the teller uses, these are all important elements about the meaning of the story to the teller.

So it’s a balance to remain aware of yourself and how the story makes you feel but not getting caught up in you and continuing to listen to their story. To me an important essence of this is about being present and giving yourself fully, body, mind and heart to listening to their story being told in that moment.

Letting go of those thoughts about the time, what’s the next step, your own story, your to do list, their clothes etc

Listen to their story with your ears, your mind and your heart and you will be able to more fully respond from the same place and both you and your teller will feel the difference. In Playback language we like to say they feel heard.

'Hidden pleasures of the discomfort zone'

This phrase, a title in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article, sums up a lot of what we at Playback Theatre believe in. That discomfort can bring its own delights and rewards…

‘In an age of predictability, we need to rediscover our inner child to fully enjoy life's riches, writes Suzy Freeman-Greene.’ Sydney Morning Herald 16/05/2009

This article made me reflect on the experience of Playback Theatre both from a performers experience and from the audience side. Audience members have often told me that despite loving a show, they sometimes felt in the ‘discomfort zone’ that Suzy Freeman-Greene writes about.

I too have experienced this ‘discomfort zone’ - particularly when in training as a conductor. When we ask the audience to put up their hand and tell a story…… there is often a general pause and sometimes the pause reaches into the unknown. I am used to it now, but initially it felt discomforting.

I now think of it as ‘a pregnant pause’ and I feel excited in that moment. What I sense is that people in the audience are tussling within themselves battling with their inhibitions to speak in public sharing a personal story - should I, could I, dare I?!

Jodie Ahrens from Roundabout Theatre writes - ‘We are so soft with each other and protective of our personal spaces…and social norms’- she believes such inhibitions can prevent us from connecting honestly with each other.

So I say, feel the discomfort and do it anyhow. It’s good to challenge yourself. And in moving from the unknown to the known, you may move from being uncomfortable to being energized by a new way of seeing. Expanding your comfort zone – what’s better than that??!!

Actions speak louder than words

Actions speak louder than words...

After our April show at The Newtown Theatre - Family Album - I pondered on how the performance encapsulated 'actions speak louder than words' - although we also used words of course! There was expressiveness, physical imagery, relationship and greek chorus - providing a wealth of meaning to support the words.

Our Russian musician's father was in the audience, and after the show, without a word of English but with much effervesence, managed to convey to me how much he loved it. Eliona was translating for her father and I could see his passion, words were spilling from his mouth about the show; rich, soulful, essential, delicate, real theatre-how important it is for us all to tell our stories and see the story in this theatrical form.

Although you may not have the theatrical skills we as actors have at hand I recommend that when communicating, don't just rely on your words, remember to make use of your body and gesture, your voice, its many tones and variations. Make use of any metaphors, images and stories that come to mind. In this way you'll provide a much more textured message and engage your audience in an entertaining way.

breathing life into KPI's

We recently performed for an organisation who needed to get their staff more connected and engaged with the company's KPI's. You might not think that theatre and KPI's are natural partners - and I must say we weren't too sure either - but there was great value in taking the KPI's out of the appraisal meeting and into a Playback forum. The least of which were encouraging transparency and dialogue.

The Playback team drew upon the common and shared experience and heard some everyday experiences/stories about the workplace and how KPI's were or weren't working. They translated the experiences/stories into theatre - as usual drawing out the emotional content and creating metaphors and images - creating the power, as pictures do, to speak a thousand words. These words are especially relevant and meaningful to the group culture that share these stories aloud.

I'd like to share two pieces of feedback from the session, which we were thrilled with -

'It opened dialogue with staff and gave the group a boost of energy around the Key Drivers of Success'

'The Players were able to quickly summarise the situation from audience comments and draw analogies very accurately. Viewing situations differently by analogy helps you to think differently about issues'.

So once again, Playback was able to take what might initially appear as a very dry topic - and breath some life into it. Rather than an ideal driven by HR the topic of KPI's became humanised.

Allowing the staff to express their feelings and experiences - both positive and challenging - and using theatre to create an exchange, enabled everyone to share and contemplate their relationship with KPI's and each other. A win win for all.

So next time you're at work, feeling deflated or engaged with a work KPI, why not turn to your colleague and ask them how they feel and encourage a story about it. You might find out a lot more than you think!

Why personal stories

We live within a storytelling culture, constantly we hear stories, ever since we were kids from parents, grandparents, school, books, tv, movies newspapers, internet. These stories can shock us, confuse us, they can move us, they can enlighten us and they connect and define us within our culture and cultures we live within.

Stories are a very human currency and when you think about it we are in fact always telling our own personal stories - at work, with friends, family, people we don't even know well. We tell stories for many reasons; they communicate something about us - our values, our identity, a story can help build relationship with others and it's just plain fun to tell a story. Usually the stories we tell are stories that involve us or have some meaning to us - these are the types of stories Playback Theatre invite you to share when you come to a performance.

But I am still not answering why personal stories.

We were doing a performance recently at a conference with many different stakeholders. The large group had met quite a number of times previous and there were some tensions and misunderstandings between the various groups.
During the performance we heard a number of personal experiences about the work they do.Afterward we had the opportunity to speak with audience members and people said things like ' I have met ... before and this is the first time I have understood what it is like to do that job'. In that statement I heard a barrier of misunderstanding bridged, empathy felt and new perspective gained.

I think all I can say is that is the power of a personal story

Personal stories told can resonate with us as humans like the toll of a bell or a ripple in the water from a stone landing or a leaf falling.

Working together

So we have been busy rehearsing and doing shows, at The Newtown Theatre, organising new shows at conferences and training events and revisiting/reworking the ways in which we perform the stories we have heard.

Whenever we listen to your story each performer must consider the essence to the story. Since there is no one truth or meaning to a story, each performer needs to be able to listen/ feel or sense/connect to this story in some way and then be able to express this via improvisation. This is the exciting challenge for us as Playback performers - how do you do this within a team of six, when everyone has their own ideas and impulses?

Will the story when Playedback be just a mish mash of individual ideas - ideally no (and this is why we rehearse weekly). Ideally the level of listening whilst onstage - to each other and oneself - combined with the skill in receiving theatrical offers from other performers, - by musician or another actor - will mould and craft a multilayered reflection of the teller's story. And why do we do this? What is the relevance of listening and reflecting these life stories to an audience? A very good question for next blog! Until then.

Welcome to the Playback Theatre Sydney blog, this is our first of many dialogues on our work with Playback Theatre here in Sydney.

For those that don't know Playback Theatre rather than go into a long winded description I thought I would write some descriptive words to pique your interest; personal story, shared experience, improvisation, actors, musicians, movement, metaphor, dialogue, theatre, humour, connection, barriers parted, isolation broken down....

We, that is the company of 14 members at the moment, obviously love this form of theatre and its unique artistry. The playback performer needs to be first and foremost in touch with their love, respect and interest in our shared humanity expressed through our stories, the everyday ones and the extraordinary ones. Then a playback performer needs to be their own writer, director and choreographer and that old adage a team player!

We as a team rehearse weekly and practice the many different crafts that make up the art of this form some of which are; the ability to listen to the stories and to each other on levels that one does not normally, to accept any offers of music, movement or text, to say yes and.... to be very present in the moment ready to use ones impulses to work as an ensemble to be aware of the lighting technicians offers, to weave the red thread of meaning and connections through the many stories told, to use ones intuition and express feeling fully.

There is alot going on emotionally, intellectually and physically for each and every performer in each and every moment of our 90 minute performances.

This is as I say the first in our many and ongoing blogs on our work with Playback so look forward to hearing from you.
All the best
Playback Theatre Sydney