The Creativity Room

A new paradigm is occurring in global consciousness. The reality of environmental threat, economic instability, peak oil and unfair international trade and labour conditions is creating a movement of communities towards self-sufficiency. Transition towns, permaculture, community gardens, timebanks and other initiatives are replacing (or existing alongside) the top-down structure of society that most of us grew up with.

At the same time, it is being largely recognised that the legacy of the industrial revolution – a world full of good workers, highly skilled at following orders – is no longer serving the needs of contemporary society, let alone the needs of the individual and the family. Creativity, intuitive and individuality are valued more and more highly in an increasingly wide variety of contexts, both corporate and social, and are vital areas of skill and awareness for the survival of humans and the environment they live in.

The star system is no longer a useful model for social awareness, political change and ‘relevant’ theatre and arts. No matter what content an artwork contains, the static audience viewing the “master’s” work are not being given the opportunity to experience their own power to enact change, to create and communicate.

We live in a millennial age – everywhere we turn we are provided with images of a future in which the weather has gone awry, resources are scarce, animals and plants are struggling to survive in dehabitated environments and the human population has outgrown its own ability to feed, clothe and nurture itself.

This is not a time for adding further images and stories to this glut of pessimistic information. This is a time to speak of what is possible and moreover to create experiences for people of what is possible for them.

While gardeners, builders, economists and all manner of people turn their crafts towards creative problem solving and community building, the arts have an important part to play. Just as the arts have always served to support both social cohesion and the direction of social growth/change, now the arts begin to find a way to support this time of transition towards self-sufficiency and community strength. A large part of this is re-educating people in the processes of creativity and group interaction.

Creative Transformation Process chooses not to create performances in which some actors demonstrate to some passive spectators the situation as it is now, or as it was in the past. Instead, CTP gives all players the opportunity to be the artist of their own story and their own life. In play together, we come together as a group, a community, in whatever shape we find together. We find out what we have to offer and how we can accept and receive from others. We learn to trust ourselves and others, to know our limits, when and how to ask for help, and also how to grow past those limits at the pace that is comfortable for us.

CTP offers both relief from the seriousness of life and an empowering experience of your own creativity. Creativity is an aspect of yourself that is engaged in such a variety of everyday activities, underpinning so much of what you do. CTP invites you to develop your creativity, creative ways of communicating and interacting with others, and the ability to play like a child. From this follows the joy and freedom of a playful and spontaneous approach to life, vibrant interactions with other people and the transcendence of fear of failure, boredom and despondency, guilt for ‘wasting time’ and so on.

CTP may engage with other bodies of work that have similar goals – The Theatre of the Oppressed work of Augusto Boal and Playback Theatre are two examples. CTP will also develop its own form of happenings, free play. These follow guided exercises that encourage participants to trust their own creativity, to give over individual responsibility and become part of the whole/group, and come into the present, experiencing their body, voice and imagination more strongly than their analytical mind.

I recently attended the Melbourne Arts Festival. Out of six dance and theatre performances, all from internationally acclaimed companies, one really stood out. Yet even this piece, which was relevant, contemporary, original and asked devastating questions about the extinction of the human race, didn’t really sink beneath skin level. I started to feel that we are stuck in a time of “problem focus,” where activism, media and a lot of the people out there who want to “make a difference” still think that pointing to the problem is the best way to make change happen. Yet we are all so scared now about all the problems we have created. I am starting to head away from creating art and wanting instead to create events, in a workshop kind of format, where people are no longer passively sitting and consuming the art. Instead they are creating together, feeling empowered and focusing on solutions, community and communication. What is the purpose of art then? Perhaps we should be satisfied with the Nietzschean idea of the Apollonian art – art that reconnects us with beauty in its highest sense, the healing potential of beauty, and allows us to connect with our higher selves, the selves that may be physically mired in the dirt of our problems but have our sights set on the bright light of the sun.