A LETTER FROM THE BRIDGE: iMaGiNiTiVE Play
Visual Notetaking of Community Stories session by Kali Quinn
Hello Beloveds,
We just finished our first session of the NETneXt National Circle-Up Series! Wow, it's been a wild ride bringing this work that has been gestating for almost a year in the Bridge Ensemble to the larger membership. We took the time to move from ideation, conversation, sharing of institutional knowledge to drafting and building foundations of trust and systems from the ground up. There are big questions to answer as we face worlds of uncertainty. How can NET, the organization, serve the membership and ensemble field at large. How and who is committed to the work of building a new NET based in ensemble practice and peopled by ensemble makers in ways that are equitable and don’t detract from making the work itself? These are big questions to puzzle with. There is a great work in process here. Sometimes tedious, amorphous, at other times very focused, joyful, crunchy and until now mostly invisible to anyone outside the process. Transparently we have worked to consciously infuse the spirit of imaginative play into the work we do. What follows is a series of drawings by the BE Phase 1 Cohort based on the core values of NET. Below them is the written sharing from the first NETneXt National Circle-Up Series: Community Stories Helping Each Other Thrive which a small group developed into a devised visual and movement piece. It feels fitting to present these pieces together and see how they are in conversation and connection.
Here's to continued connection.
In Community,
Severin Blake
The Prompt given by facilitators and NET members Meena Malik and Patricia Garza: Illustrate mirror drawings of NET’s values (not listed Equity and Inclusion and Excellence)
CONNECTION
ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
KNOWLEDGE BUILDING
TRANSPARENCY
COLLABORATION
KNOWLEDGE BUILDING
RESPECT
The Prompt: As an ensemble arts community what binds us? How can we tend to each other and help each other thrive? (Responses from NET members Corinna Schulenburg, Mei Ann Teo, Severin Blake, Lisa Shattuck, and new to NET Katherine Wilson.)
A sentient body, beating heart, thinking mind
personal becomes community
Sharing PowerEmergence & Murmuration
Sacred Space Between
lending a hand
echoes of the past ripples in the future
How to tend to each other: remembering shared humanity