Attending to Your Process for Healthy Collaboration

by Sheila Kerrigan
Adapted from The Performer’s Guide to the Collaborative Process, by Sheila Kerrigan. (Heinemann, February 2001, 192pp., paper, $18.95). Web: http://www.heinemanndrama.com)

Busy artists and community activists planning a residency to address urgent community problems don’t feel that they have enough time to do more than chat on the phone shortly before the grant application is due. But time spent up front, attending to how you will do what you will do together, will save you time and trouble down the line. Artists and community activists working together on a project need to attend to their process at the beginning of planning – how are they going to do what they envision? How do they want to be with each other? What do they each need in order to work effectively together? What do the artists need and expect from the community partners, and what do the community partners need and expect from the artists? Answering these questions at the outset will smooth out the bumps and reduce the number of surprises during the collaboration.

I recommend three simple ways to attend to process:

• setting guidelines to create safety
• using check-ins to allow for the expression of feelings
• using affirmations to build trust

I have been working as a part-time artist-in-residence for 20 years, and began using these methods seven years ago; my residencies have been more rewarding, more creative and less conflicted in the last seven years.

In order to work together well, it helps to establish some guidelines about how you want to behave with each other, and what you need and expect from each other. Spend some time letting each other know what is OK for you and what is not; what you need and what will drive you up a wall.

Why Have Guidelines?

Not every partnership can articulate its guidelines, but they all have some, whether they voice them or not. Unwritten rules cause discord. If no one has said it’s important to arrive on time, and someone consistently shows up late, those on time resent the late one. The late one feels the resentment without understanding its cause. In a partnership that avoids confrontation, resentment festers and spoils the atmosphere.

Adam Gertsacov, clown, actor and director, talked about "The One Sure Thing: A Cabaret on Death," a performance he created collaboratively when he was a graduate student in Theater and Communications at Rhode Island College. He used group psychology, group communication techniques and leadership theory to structure rehearsals:

All of the literature about group management and group psychology says that one of the very important things is to have ground rules. So the first day, we spent a lot of time agreeing to ground rules. For example, people should come on time. Agreeing to norms, normative behaviors: coming to rehearsal drunk was not acceptable. Some of these are obvious. Some were not so obvious.

How To Agree on Guidelines

Set guidelines when you first meet. (This is also the time to agree on goals, evaluation, copyright of the work you will create, remuneration and royalties.) Everybody working on the project and affected by the guidelines should help craft them. Write each suggested guideline so all can see. Include picky and obvious ones, like cleaning up messes. Also include bigger ones, like how you will resolve conflict and who has decision-making authority in which areas. Use positive language that describes observable behavior — rephrase the negative ("Don’t interrupt") to the positive ("Listen silently until each speaker finishes" ). Be specific: instead of "respect," delineate respectful behaviors, such as, "Listen open-mindedly." When you finish the list, go down it item by item and get agreement around the circle to try to abide by each one. If someone can’t agree to one, leave it off the list.

Group agreements clarify your working process and eliminate secrets and hidden agendas. When everyone helps to compose them, everyone assumes responsibility for sticking to them, and everyone has a stake in enforcing them. You can change them as needs arise. Whenever someone new comes into the project, and whenever the project changes course, reconsider the guidelines together. Talk about the changes and get agreement all around.

Creating Safety

Group agreements create safety. People working in artistic partnerships need to nurture an atmosphere where everyone feels safe enough to take risks; otherwise, only heroes will bring forth creative ideas. Making art requires physical, emotional and spiritual commitment, and vulnerability and trust. Participants need to feel safe enough to move freely, experience feelings and express themselves without fear of negative consequences. Everyone working on a project holds the responsibility for maintaining a safe environment.

I interviewed more than 70 creative collaborators for my book. One of the most important guidelines that I gathered from my interviews was to acknowledge feelings.

Acknowledge Feelings

Feelings are facts. They are part of the working environment. We use our feelings to make our art. It is OK to have feelings and recognize them as they emerge. One way to make it possible for feelings to be expressed in a working group is by starting each meeting with a check-in. To check in, each person says how he or she is feeling, now.

Check-ins

Checking-in clears the air. If you just had a fight at home with your partner, you say so. Then everybody knows what’s going on. They won’t have to guess about your mood, wonder if they’re responsible, or get angry with you for walking under a cloud.

Martha Boesing was artistic director of Minneapolis’ At the Foot of the Mountain, a feminist theater company. She explained that At the Foot was the first theater company to use check-ins in rehearsals:

As feminists we had been part of all this rising up of support-group work that feminists were doing, and consciousness-raising work, and we realized that we were very out of touch with our own lives, with what we felt, with our own sense of being oppressed.... We did what we called the feeling circle, or check-in.... There are theaters, to this day, that do this, that got it from us.

We every day did that religiously. And sometimes those would go on for two or three hours because we were such an intense family that we had to really work through and process things that were going on between us. We did it before every business meeting; we did it before every rehearsal....You just go around the circle and say what you’re feeling.

Most working groups can’t spare two or three hours before every meeting. There are shorter ways to check in.

New York’s Five Lesbian Brothers use a check-in whenever someone needs to talk about feelings, to keep emotional channels open. They might do a check-in once a week, or at the end of a rugged rehearsal day. You can do a one-word check-in, or a one-minute check-in, or you can split into dyads and check in with a partner, who checks in with you.

You can check in spiritually, mentally, emotionally and/or physically. For example, "I’m feeling tired and cranky because I couldn’t sleep last night." Or, "I’m feeling anxious about how much work and how little time we have." You can ask for what you need: "My shoulders hurt. I would love a short massage." Check-ins open up channels for dealing with conflicts: "I’m angry because yesterday you said ‘X’ and it felt like a put-down." Once people have had the opportunity to name their feelings, they are more likely to be able to get down to work.

Check-outs

In my old company, TOUCH Mime Theater, we ended rehearsal with a brief check-out: each person said how he was feeling. Checking-out opens a window for airing problems that arise during the day. If the creative process has stalled, people express frustration. If a conflict has come up, checking-out may clarify or resolve it. It is freeing to say how the day has touched me: after I express my feelings, I can leave them behind as I leave the work space.

Another way to check out is with an affirmation circle.

Affirmation Circle

Marlene Johnson, Atlanta-based radical therapist, talked about giving affirmations in a "stroke circle:"

Strokes are specific appreciation for yourself and the others in the circle. You give one for yourself, for something you are happy or proud about, and one for each person in the circle, specifically what you appreciate about what they did.

Another option: Each person in the group chooses one person to give an affirmation to, telling something that person said or did that you value.

Try It

The process of agreeing on guidelines will create safety; checking in and out will acknowledge feelings and allow for human connection, and giving affirmations will build trust among your collaborators. If you take the time to attend to the process at the beginning of a project, then when difficult issues arise during the residency, you will have forged the trust and will have a process laid out already so that you will be able to unite and confront the issues together. Taking the time at the beginning will save you time and distress later on. The work will go smoother, your collaborators will go deeper into the work, and your residency will be more successful.

Sheila Kerrigan is a performer, director, author, and teacher who works in schools, with at-risk youth and in community settings. She is based in Chapel Hill, N.C. For more thoughts on collaboration, visit her Web site: http://www.collaborativecreativity.com/.

Original CAN/API publication: March 2001