Greetings, dear readers. For those in the USA, I hope you had a pleasant Thanksgiving. For the rest of the world… I hope you had a pleasant… Black Friday shopping? I don’t know, maybe you bravely avoided the urge to buy like Odysseus resisted the siren’s song tied to the ship’s mast. Aaaah, capitalism… (spoiler, I bought things…).

As someone who has facilitated many workshops, and as someone who has attended many of them, I can certainly affirm that a workshop should not be exempt from ritual. Think of a séance, an experience to comunicate with the spirits where many people gather in a ritual facilitated by a medium. Am I using this example because I’m a horror geek? Absolutely. Will I make sense of it? Let me cook.

Dear facilitator, picture yourself as the medium. You are a channel between the land of the learners and the realm of knowledge. Before you start the session, you have to make sure you create a calm and safe environment. You are in charge of the mood. Gather the attendants in a circle, listen to their motivations, be intuitive about their needs, make sure everyone is listened to before engaging with the experience. Everyone has to be willing to put their finger on the planchette of the Ouija board.

Once the communication channel is stablished, mind that the attendants are there for a reason. Some of them want answers, some of them might be just curious, and some of them might be sceptic. And that’s OK. Expose the knowledge over the table and let them ask their own questions. You might not be able to summon all the answers in this session but that’s also OK, you are immersed in your own path as well.

During the session make sure that everyone is engaged so the flow of learning is communal. More importanly, once you are done, you have to close it properly, you don’t want anyone leaving the room haunted by doubts and a loose experience. Make sure that you retrace back the steps you took to create this circle of individuals sharing the same entity, the same energy. Finally, end the ritual.

This analogy might seem funny but, to me, it makes all the sense. I’ve been into many “workshops” that felt more like a lecture with exercises than a proper workshop. Don’t get me wrong, did I learnt something from them? Despite some lousy cases, yes, I even felt inspired by some. I found this style more frequently in improv, specially from American improvisers.

I’m not throwing shade at this style of facilitating, it’s just that I have another view that casually I happen to share with an European style of teaching. Workshops should be experiences, not only lectures. The word ritual might sound too hippy, but I see it as a powerful framing device that enriches any learning experience.

What’s your experience in workshops?

Do you want a séance? I’m open to bookings.

🎭 The Theatre bit

I was looking forward to getting back to my theatre readings after an utterly busy month, so I went straight to my backlog of Valencian plays. I chose L’Amant de Diògenes (Diogenes Lover), a play co-written by Blanca Bardagil and Monserrat Mas. Due the considerable generational gap between the authors, I expected something interesting, after all, the play won the 2009 Ciutat d’Alcoi theatre award. I was slightly disappointed.

The play is a large-scale farce involving seven characters, a property, and an inheritance. The writing has an ambiguous tone, making it unclear if it’s meant to be a comedy. The absurd dialogues do not match the tone of the situations. Because the script constantly shifts between characters, none of them are properly developed or relatable. The ending was kind of silly and predictable.

I really wanted to like it, but I didn’t. However I take it as a good exercise to develop the hability of detect things that don’t really work.

📆 What is coming up

• 7th of December - Long form is my jam! JAM (London, UK). I’ll be facilitating next month’s Acaprov’s long form jam. It’s only 5 quid and it will be great to see you there. Tickets here.

• 12th of December - Acaprov (London, UK). Join us in Shoreditch for our December special show, where we will improvise a musical to dive into the holiday spirit! Get your tickets.

• 18th of December - Acaprov (London, UK). We’ll be running an improvised a cappella Hallmark Christmas musical at the Hart hotel in Shoreditch. It’ll be fun! Wanna come?

• 19th of December - Shuffle (London, UK). Invited by our friends of The Pilot, the Shuffle gang will be performing on their Christmas special night. Fun guaranteed! Make sure you don’t miss it.

📚 🎮 🎥 📺 The geeky dessert

Yorgos Lanthimos movies are peculiar and not everybody’s cup of tea. I get that. I am also peculiar and not everybody’s cup of tea. I watch constantly weird movies, no matter the budget, if I see a weird idea materialised in the shape of a movie, I’ll be there watching while munching pizza, peanuts and a bottle of soda.

Last week I watched Bugonia, Lanthimos’ latest film, and I loved it. I’m not going to speak much about it, I’ll only say that I am happy I went into it mostly blind. It’s captivating, beautifully shot and the cast excels. I didn’t know that it was a weird remake of a weird South Korean movie. Now I’m inclined to watch the original source, but I’m sure that is Lanthimos’ prism what makes Bugonia so special.