Online Roundtable B: DAY 1: Theme

About five weeks after Workshop A, the team met again online to evaluate the research that was done in Utrecht. On the first day of the online roundtable the focus was put on the large amount of performative material generated throughout the workshop. Argyro Chioti, the team's stage director was the moderator of this day, the structure of which was the following:

PART A 20'

A general discussion took place on the following notes:

Let's try to define the limits of our subject.

What would be for you an interesting way to approach subject/words such as:

stranger, borders, limits, division, separation, refugees.

Let's try to find dipoles, contradictory elements, opposite forces, related to our subject/words.

How did the material that we brought approach our subject? In which way?

Are we interested in a more abstract approach of things, in an existential way?

Or do we want to talk precisely about specific social and political matters?

Do we want to talk directly about some concrete things around the subject?

Or do we want to share an experience/ideas?

Or do we want to approach/understand our theme in a philosophical/indirect way?

PART B 30'

The team was divided in three groups and joined three different chatrooms.

The goal was to end up with a sentence that recaps the group’s discussion.

What is a stranger? (Talking about borders?)

richardehaynes [8:48 PM]
there different levels to the term ‘stranger’. on an individual level, someone of the same race/nationality/religion can be a stranger. but then there are strangers to a group of people (of any size) within which there may be strangers. because the stranger in this context is *stranger* (adjective) than those within in the group, then they are considered the stranger.
does that make sense?

baswiegers [8:50 PM]
yes! another interesting point showing up during the workshop was the need of leadership in the dynamic of a group. But I found it very interesting that the group shifted (!!) leaders the whole time. This was very inspiring in a way, and somehow could be also one of the sub-themes. (As in “how to build a society” with strangers)

richardehaynes [8:51 PM]
the group was relatively egalitarian with everyone being ‘allowed’ to perform every kind of role.
i think this is an important aspect of the project that we shouldn’t lose, and that it should be clearly perceivable by the audience.

baswiegers [8:52 PM]
it connects to what Els brought in about being authentic. Being authentic needs space, and it´s important to find this space for yourself and in others.

gix [8:52 PM]
but Iro, why did we start from the word stranger?
in general, why this topic?

argyro [8:53 PM]
Oh, because we saw that many of the materials we brought accidentally had to do with that!
the play that Efthimis brought
and the photo of pepe

richardehaynes [8:54 PM]
yes but it’s a fairly tangible zeitgeist at present. there is not a day without news about refugees, integration problems, general east-west problems etc.

PART C 15'

The groups changed chatrooms and continued the discussion on the theme of a stranger, getting their colleagues' previous sentences as a starting point. The goal was to end up with three short texts that try to approach the theme.