Bernd, a psychoanalyst and group analyst in Freiburg, has been observing the Dancing to Connect and Dances for the Blue House projects since 2006. He offered the following comments about the Waldorf-Waldkirch workshop led by Carmen Nicole:
Though not foreseen, we can understand better afterwards that Carmen's group showed the new challenge of this year´s project: to merge students from different schools into one group. It was known in advance that this was an experiment, but not what that experiment implied. Now, after the fact, we are wiser.
Though Dancing to Connect is the theme, we don´t have to connect what is equal or identical. In so far as the term “connecting” implies that there are parts, (individuals, or groups that are different from each other) in some ways, this was more drastic in Carmen's group than in the others. The students of the “Sehbehinderten Schule Waldkirch” are, by their visual handicap, physically different from the others. And those of Waldorf Schule come from a philosophical background that demands to be different from others.
When they all met on the Tuesday, they came together quite naively and merged in an astonishing way; you could think, they had already found their choreography after one day. But then the second day showed the hidden dynamical conflict. Simply merging neglects the differences. This must lead to an emphasizing of the differences and the “inconnectibility”. So the differentiating impulse had to break through on Wednesday to a point that it might have seemed that these groups were not able to dance and perform together.
But your (and the teacher´s and student´s) ability to “contain” this, i.e. to hold and deal with it, and to digest it, lead to a solution in connecting the differences. Your idea, shared with the teachers and Jonathan, to let the Waldkirch students start with their dance, then to bring in the Waldorf students to intermingle with them for a real “dancing to connect”, and then again let the Waldkirch students leave the stage to the Waldorfs, digested the conflict to a real dialectical solution.
Dialectical in the sense, that the contradiction (if not antagonism) of being so different was “aufgehoben” (i.e. German past participle of “aufheben”). The German “aufheben” means all of the following: solve and abolish – lift to a higher level – and keep. In so far, the title of Waldkirch-Waldorf-Dancing could be: We – Connected – You.
What I am pointing at is not a mere problem of the students. The outlined dynamics were already existing when they met, in our society, organizations, the teachers, etc.. The groups merely reflected and mirrored the conflicted dynamics. This happens by mechanisms of splitting, projections, projective identifications – as we call it – and are mostly unconscious.
To dare a look forward: If the project should go into a third year, again with the experiment of putting students of so different backgrounds together – perhaps, in a step further – with groups of students with a migrant background connecting with native German students, it might be wise to have some new setting: to accompany the student´s workshop by a “connecting group” with teachers and dancers to communicate differences as much as points in common. But, of course, this group would need a group-dynamic leader, neutral, not engaged in the project itself.
Don´t forget: What I said here means: Carmen and all participants, organizing committee, dancers, students, teachers did a terrific job. And Carmen worked along and worked out the conflicts, “contained” them to such a fabulous result.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment