Reflections on Summer School 2024…

A blog by Ess Grange, Research Associate and Facilitator

I'll start by talking about the weather, because I'm British. Why do we talk about it so much, a friend from a hot country once asked me. Because it's always changing, I replied. We live in a permanent state of uncertainty, carrying around bags full of extra layers and waterproofs. We have to be prepared for sudden and unexpected change at all times. We turn up in the countryside in glorious sunshine, but ten minutes later it's cold and wet, or blowing a gale, then the next minute it's 30 degrees and we're all complaining about that instead. Such a week was our 2024 Summer School at Bore Place.

There had already been a number of changes. We had gone from two weeks to one, and from three artistic directors facilitating to one - Lee - joined by Sarah Wright, Flo O'Mahony and others who stepped in to run sessions in various gentle, it's-the-right-time kinds of ways. For the first time, we were also staying in The Big House, rather than the old stables, which was another kind of new (in that it is very, very old). The group included a few returners from last year, and a fair few folk new to Improbable, some new to improvisation and puppetry, and new to Bore Place. In the background, ie, the rest of the world, other things were changing too. A new government in the UK, a growing demand for leadership change in the US, a hole in the internet, and of course - inescapable in Bore Place - the climate changing. Change can be scary, or exciting, or unwelcome, or longed-for - but one thing's for sure - it is inevitable. Olivia Butler wrote in The Parable of the Sower: "All that you touch / You Change. / All that you Change /Changes you. /The only lasting truth / Is Change. / God / Is Change."

Each day we checked in, reminded ourselves of the Open Space principles and law, and then - for the rest of the day - practiced changing. After all, improvisation is change as art form. For anything authentic or honest to unfold, we must be able to let go of things quickly and gracefully, receive the new offer with openness and playfulness, and then, at the right time, let that go too. Kyros time - much loved by us in our open space process - is the ancient Greek term for timing, rather than time. Originally referring to the right time to loose an arrow, it is 'time' meaning a response to change, felt in the body, not counted by the clock.

We focussed a lot on the core improvisation skill of 'yes, and..' Accept the offer being made, make a new offer in return. This is really about accepting change, allowing oneself to be changed, and to offer that possibility to someone else. We learn to let go of any attachment to what we thought was going to happen, and to pay attention to what is actually happening (OS principle: whatever happens is the only thing that could have). Workshop plans were made, but often not adhered to. The rain, or scorching sun, or energy levels, or what had piqued interest, guided the activities, enabled us to change our minds, our viewpoints, our long-held narratives..

On a residential week like this, it's possible to notice the (maybe tiny) changes we make in ourselves. There's time and space to work up to overcoming a barrier or stepping across a personal edge, allowing parts of ourselves to unfold like the newspaper creatures in the workshop. Some folk found they could unmask, unlock, free up parts of themselves. Equally important, we also noticed boundaries. There can be a kind of tyranny in 'yes, and' when it's practiced without paying attention to genuine consent, or the ways in which it reveals the power structures, entitlements and privileges that come along with the layers and waterproofs in our psychic backpacks. Working with the kind of patient focus that Lee and Sarah instilled, I was more able to tell the difference between an edge I wanted to step over, and a boundary that was necessary in order for me to resist a tiresome or toxic social narrative. Phelim often describes how some people come to an open space event and fire themselves through it like a missile, exiting the other side completely unchanged. The summer school week held a beautiful invitation to pause, listen, and find out what was possible if we said yes to changing even a small part of ourselves.

We noticed changes in materials too - Sarah's puppetry offers allowing us to notice when twigs, twine, newspaper.. changed from dead to alive. The flickering space between those binaries teaching us how controlling things can sometimes kill them, but listening might bring us all alive in different ways. We burnt things in the fire pit as a way to welcome in change, we listened to the walls and beams of the old house to hear them change us, and be changed in return ("beneath every surface is an energy constantly giving rise to that surface" John Kells). I noticed how full of change the barn and old house were - traces of changes going back more than 800 years. I thought about how Improbable is bringing more change to this site, and how we want to bring that change with the same spirit of listening, attention, slow unfolding as the workshops taking place around me. And of course, by changing the site, we will be changing ourselves. Someone posted a session on the wall asking what this place thinks about us. I think the answer will be a long time coming, but I know we'll all be listening out for it, and when we hear it, we'll answer yes, and... we'll be ready to change again.