Happenings - Flower Crowns?!

Why, you may ask, is there a picture of Francis Booth, our bass player extraordinaire, in a Renaissance-style portrait, bedecked with a crown of flowers?

Because of happenings of course, what else?!

I think this picture captures what began to occur with the group over the course of the workshop. The happenings started as a clever way for brief moments of group creativity. For instance on Day 2, we created a group line drawing, and on Day 3, partners had to complete a listening and drawing exercise. As they progressed, they also became lovely ways to get to know each other better, and to develop team-work. Day 4's happening occurred at the riverside beach. We were divided into small teams and had to make short performances using our voices and movement, which were across the board absolutely ridiculous. One of the songs became the defacto theme song of the project "Hot air in Gois! Hot air in Gois!". On Day 5, we played a version of Chinese whispers with objects, which ended by creating an odd group sculpture. In all of these instances, while some of the art we created together was interesting, the emphasis lay on how we worked together creatively as a group.

Over time, the happenings became more collaborative, loose, and playful. On our day off, the hour of the happening arrived as we were packing up from our swim at the gorge. We developed a circle game where we made the rules up as we went. I'm sure the other swimmers at the river thought we were mad! Day 7's happening was the Jam - no more need be said there - while Day 8's happening was Flower Crowns! Hannah is adept at creating flower crowns, so for her happening she decided to teach us how to make our own. I had ordered pizza and salads, and as we endeavored to learn this new skill, what began as a rather difficult task for many of us, quickly became a silly and joyful exercise. What we then realized was how amazing we all looked in our crowns, and just like that, an incredible photo series was born. Marie captured all of the men in their crowns in a renaissance style pose on the balcony.

Following happenings included a mojito-making tutorial, an exercise in drawing your partner as if they were a landscape, and creating a word association map in chalk on the road outside the school. On the evening of the sharing, our happening included everyone, even the audience - we provided little cups with marbles and paint and wordlessly instructed everyone to roll them over a blank canvas, creating in effect a collaborative painting.

By the last night in Gois, happenings began occurring left and right. The group felt so comfortable together, and the creative floodgates had been opened, everything had the potential to become a performance, to become a work of art, to become a moment for play.