Tribal Arts Village - (Team creativity retreat)
Unleashed Higher Purpose - The Big Idea!
Outcomes
This is a challenging, yet highly enjoyable exploration of who we are, and who we could be. By stepping out of our comfort zone, we invite the prospect of authentic creative expression and real change. By engaging with our true selves in the present, we have a genuine opportunity to transform outdated patterns and to work with the future as it emerges.
- This is a ‘full-on’ session, a joyful yet challenging journey.
- People would go home buzzing from the rich mix of experiences.
- The core mission infused throughout the activities would be to enhance people’s awareness of higher purposes in life and work and to check themselves against these ideas.
- The method would not be ‘preachy’ and ‘finger pointing’ but empathetic and non-judgmental.
- People would be encouraged to write their own ‘Life Mission Statements’ and to share them with the group.
- Such an event would act as an impactful way of introducing Unleashed in a creative way.
- It would establish a culture for the group that would carry into the next sessions.
Will the circle be unbroken?
The circle is one of our oldest and most powerful symbols. In North America, for example, the Native peoples called it the Medicine Wheel. This was a multilayered philosophical model for understanding their surroundings, and the role they had to play within them. For them everything was cyclical in nature; life death and rebirth, the seasons, time and space, and so on. Today, most of our technology is based on this primal shape; the net, DVDs (!), communications systems in general.
However, as technology becomes super-connected, it would seem that we are losing the art of connecting on a physical level; as a human community. The large majority of our relating is done in cyberspace, with our physical bodies merely acting as vehicles which carry our brains from A to B, (and which can prove tiresome if not maintained properly).
Something has gone wrong. The circle has been broken, and we have forgotten ourselves along the way. More and more we experience our lives, our communities, and the world as a sequence of unrelated fragments.
There is a tendency to understand concepts and then to apply the concepts to create change in our work situation without engaging fully in reflective personal practices that deeply transform us as change agents. This retreat will provide strong frameworks, methods, and a good environment for collective learning and insights. And the real value and challenge is maintaining and deepening the insights by putting them into practice when we are back in our fields of life and work. The habits that reassert themselves and get in the way are deeply rooted in us and in others. To help address these we need regular practices that are as powerful as our habits.
In order to reconnect with each other as an authentic community, we must re-member who we are. The circle must be made whole again. This is where we can offer the opportunity whereby this process can be initiated.
This retreat is a wonderful opportunity to 'hit the pause button' away from our normal working and living environments, and to connect on a deeper level with our selves, our environment, and each other. Through a combination of hands-on creative sessions and inspiring conversations, we will immerse ourselves in the Here and Now, the home of true creativity. By cultivating a more profound awareness of the present moment, we can go straight to the Source, with some amazing results.
When we rest in that awareness, letting go of preconceptions, we tap into our highest future self and the greatest potential of the situation. Awareness itself gives birth to insight, innovation and skillful action. Something fresh crystallizes out of open perception that can then be put into action. The insight that arises can energize significant action in the world, action aligned with greater meaning and purpose.
Trust underlying connectivity
The field is the collective body/mind of a group of people, something that we all have experienced. Good facilitators are not simply expressing opinions, but are actually sensing deeply into the group and speaking from its collective awareness or collective body. Our individual awareness and the group awareness are interconnected. Our body/mind and the group body/mind are interwoven. There is a connectivity and shared experiential knowing on this level of body/mind, even if members of the group are representing diverse views, needs, ethnicity and frames of reference. No matter how much conflict expresses itself on the surface of the group, there is an underlying, invisible field of connection and potential creativity. Performing artists, particularly those who improvise, are by necessity tuned into this field. Their music or dance emerges moment by moment from this space. Their expression can be experienced as profound because it includes both their individual colors and the underlying unity. Performing artists have skills and capacities -- sensitivity to what is emerging, courage to go into unknown places, passion for play -- which could be of enormous benefit to the domain of organizational and social change.
Invite "not-knowing"
These practices allow us to see patterns. One pattern is a tendency to narrow around an agenda, thinking that things have to go in a certain way, driving straight ahead towards a pre-set goal. This view demands having to control outcomes, filter out inconvenient truths and miss seeming extraneous information that may, in fact, be of great value. Feelings of "not knowing" and vulnerability are seen here as a liability so we avoid or shut down to anything outside of our single track.
Another option is to actually invite "not knowing." Not knowing is the basis for creativity. We can take a very large view. We open up. Closing and opening are physical as well as psychological responses. One sensation might be more pleasant than the other; one may be more familiar than the other. However, both are well worth noticing. Noticing is the key. In any given day, in any given situation -- a conversation, meeting, or presentation - there will be some of both. They are perceivable at the level of subtle feelings as well as in what we say and do. It is valuable to take note of these patterns in oneself and in others. It is particularly valuable if we are interested in changing habitual patterns in ourselves or in creating open spaces for others.
TRIBAL ARTS VILLAGE – TEAM EXPERIENCE
Some of the possible simultaneous workshops:
Singing – gentle yet profound. Our artist coaches have a lot of experience encouraging people to sing in a safe non-threatening way.
Sound shapes – using a whole array of world instruments led by professional percussionists. We have used Sound shapes for reflection, contemplation and releasing imagination. As a late night ‘chill-out’ session they are deeply moving and calming.
African Dance – In a spirit of fun this will allow people to free themselves under the guidance of a professional African dance teacher.
Building – under the supervision of an expert (someone who has lived in them for years) the teams would build their own shelters. It connects people with their roots and with people around the world who live in whatever they can build themselves. It is a grounding sometimes humbling experience whilst being fun.
Drumming – Exploring group energy together. A dynamic experience in its own right loaded with insights via metaphor. With a wide variety of instruments added carefully the group would enjoy a fantastic experience and create a performance which might be recorded and sold for charity.
Cooking – Cooking with unusual ingredients around a camp-fire. It transforms a known task into an adventure and demands collective effort and imagination.
Ceremony/Ritual – devising their ritual. Their ceremony might be conducted around the theme of nature and our place in the Universe using any ‘tools’ they wish. Understanding the role of ritual in human experience is a profound experience.
Cabaret – The teams could work towards a climax cabaret or performance.
Concert – African dance night with a full 10- piece African drumming band.
Discussion Forums – based around a ‘Café’ people would lie on carpets drinking Moroccan tea discussing some of the issues and be given specific discussion topics.
Change and innovation. Creativity and values. Organization and communication. Passion and commitment. Career and achievement.
Evening fun & entertaining options (if necessary)
1. Beyond the Beat Band – around the fire
Every dance band needs a drummer! African djembe, djun djun and conga players combine their skills, and their percussive passions, to create the most irresistible rhythms this side of Africa. Beyond the Beat has vocalists too, singing sweet, powerful harmony songs from all over the African continent. Within minutes your event guests will be tapping their feet, swaying their hips and singing along too.
With drum arrangements by Chris Tero(son of Yardbirds' drummer Jim McCarty) and vocal arrangements by Tom Morley (ex-Scritti Politti drummer), audiences have been enthralled by the spirit of Beyond the Beat, the band with a wealth of experience of providing corporate events music and entertainment.
2. ImproVizati theatre show and/or StandUp comedy
ImproVizati represents a unique concept on the Romanian artistic market. Without being a classical theatre experience, ImproVizati highlights both the acting skills of the performers, as well as their ability to improvise on subjects, locations and situations the audience provides. Having the audience provide so much of the subject matter leads to a high degree of interactivity, making every person in the audience feel like they are part of the show. The structure is flexible, open to customization for each event, and it is based on an actors’ crew. During the show, they build sketches, opera arias, stories and songs, all of these on the spur of the moment. The duration of the show is also a variable, depending on both an initial brief and the reaction of the audience.