In July, I collaborated with Uri Noy Meir and Arundhati Samudra to co-facilitate From Stuck to Rainbow, a process that brings together the magic of Theatre of the Oppressed and Social Presencing Theatre to support leaders and change-makers in exploring and unpacking a struggle they are experiencing around a specific change they are trying to make.
Over two 90-minute sessions via Zoom, in a small group setting, we took 10 participants through a “Stuck Practice”– an embodied social investigation into a particular “Stuck” situation. A Stuck is an obstacle, a challenge, a question we are holding – it is a situation where we are experiencing both internal and external forces keeping a certain situation fixed in place, unable to move. During the 2nd session, building off of the Stuck Practice, we introduced Rainbow of Desire, which allowed the participants to go deeper into the Stuck situation and make visible the possibilities for the path forward.
I was struck by how theatre was a door to connection and community for participants, essentially strangers, from different continents including Africa, Europe, India, and Canada. Even though the participants did not know each other, the Stuck to Rainbow methodologies, opened a space for story telling, vulnerability, and sharing wisdom.
This inaugural offering and new collaboration reinforced what I already knew but often forget: that embodied practices and arts-based methodologies always bring forth the wisdom of the collective, the social body.
Here is a short video clip where Arundhati, Uri and I debrief our experience.
