In 1998, I participated in a day-long collaboration workshop organised by composer Damian Barbeler. In the morning, performing artists were placed together in mixed groups of three (participants included dancers, theatre makers, musicians, designers) to create a short work to perform in the afternoon. As a composer in the individualistic model (Kemp, 1996), I was in the habit of controlling the shape of my music, and I showed up to the workshop with my keyboard, imposing array of gear and with my ideas already developed. I was very satisfied that our afternoon performance was artistically rewarding. In Damian’s report on the workshop, he wrote that each group was surprisingly productive and creative through achieving a synergy of abilities. One group, however, was crippled by the dominant behaviour of the musician member. He was referring to me. I was somewhat shocked to realise that I had a blind spot in creating with others, and determined to immerse myself in collaboration – to throw myself in the deep end – as a way to overcome this and to learn not to resort to dominating. I was interested in discovering a way of working together that was more egalitarian. - from a forthcoming book chapter I wrote recently
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 23:11:34 +0000
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