How to invite people to the party? # 2- mapping past and future of the Writing Movement Network
During Lab 4 of The Writing Movement Network taking place in Riga from June 9-12, 2016 during International contemporary dance festival Time to Dance the participants tried to figure out priorities in their shared interests. On the first day of the lab participants chose 8 topics out of long list of different keywords, issues discussed, phrases said etc.that has been recorded over the whole year of activities. Then out of all the marked themes, 8 most popular where put into next stage – writing about them. Each participants had 8 minutes to write on each of the topics and then the notebooks got passed to next one in the group. At the end all 8 participants in the room wrote something about all 8 topics. After that each participant got one of the notebooks with 8 quick writings on one of the topics. The task was to somehow bring it all together, conceptualize, summarize and create a text (or some other form) bringing together all 8 voices. The themes dealt with during the writing experiment and also the long list of other ones recorded as part of the Writing Movement Network activities provide both insight into past and vision of the future of The Writing Movement Network.
How to invite people to the party?
The collage written by Anne-Liis Maripuu
There were altogether 8 people trying to answer the question in 8 minutes. All of them were from the Writing Movement Network. In addition to me there were Linda, Kamma, Svetlana, Sesselja, Madli, Inta and Moa. In this class room of the Latvian Academy of Culture in Riga 6 different countries were represented: Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Belarus. And it was dance and writing about dance that had brought us together. So how did we answer the question? (Let it be said that we never agreed upon jointly what we meant by “party” or “dance”.)
When we want people to know what kind of party it is we have to write about the dance performances and do it accurately enough so that people could get a sense out of them. That helps to create also general curiosity about dance. More dance writing rises the quality of reflections and advances culture on the whole. Different approaches enrich culture and the dance field.
Also trying different channels for communicating could help to encourage new people to join us: say your thought on video or try out the sign holder concept. Maybe part of the answer lies in the academics: could the higher institutions have the power to grow the number of the party guests? But not only; it’s clear that one party cannot meet everyone’s expectations: selected audience is also important.
Sometimes it happens that the hostess herself starts doubting about her actions and motives: do I believe in dance as something worth sharing? Or is it my own personal and private pleasure? Do I want them to think and feel what I think and feel? But in the end it comes to being passionate: if heavy metal is your cup of whatever, do it all the way so people see that kind of heavy metal and maybe shift a bit from the house club movement.