Touro Communication Club Notes #63

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Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Room 223 - Midtown

“Handling Conflict”

This topic came out of our lively conversation on Gender Communication. Conflict seems to be a frequent occurrence in everyone’s life. We’ll talk about when conflict occurs, how to mediate conflict and, most importantly, how to anticipate and prevent conflict. Obviously some conflicts are unavoidable – and healthy, but we’ll try to focus on those that we can address productively.

Dear Communicators:

The inevitable topic of politics arose in our session on the theatre last week. Most people think of politics as happening in Washington or Albany or at City Hall. I would argue that politics happens when two people get together. The degree of difficulty of the politics will vary obviously with the people and the circumstances, but it is “politics” that seem to cause the greatest heartache in human exchange.

In recent months, we have experienced many negative outcomes of politics. That’s why “politics” has such a bad reputation. The financial crisis, Bernard Madoff (and now the Sanford group in Antigua), now ex-Governor Blagojevich, the tax troubles of three of President Obama’s cabinet appointees are among the painful outcomes of “politics.8 0

If one negative aspect of “politics” is the use of any and every situation to gain personal advantage, then the prize behavior belongs to two Republican Congressmen during the debate over the Congressional stimulus package. Both argued strenuously that certain provisions beneficial to their interests needed to be included. When these provisions were included, they voted against the bill, knowing full well that, despite their negative votes, the bill would pass. Now that’s first class Machiavelli as work!

We’ll explore how politics affect communication at an upcoming session.

UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:

Wednesday, March 4. 2009 –
“Writing President Obama II”

Much will have transpired in Washington since our first discussion, reported below. More issues will surface, but the process of arriving at agreement remains the same. Since we are focusing on a real document that we will eventually send to the President, we are automatically engaged in the fundamental process of democracy – finding agreement amidst disagreement.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

“Politics and Communication”

When two people get together, there are “politics.” Politics occur at every level human interaction – personal, family, workplace, governmental, international. Politics include the ma ny elements and levels of human interchange. We’ll try to identify some aspects of

the politics of human interchange.

What happened on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 –

“Theatre III – Improvisation Technique”

Our group of willing thespians included Egypt Allen, Carlisle Yearwood, James Millner, Richard Green, Lorinda Moore, Marcus Vyandorf, Hal Wicke and, briefly, Anna Indelicato.

Hal opened the session with the difference between training and education. Unlike20musicians whose instrument is outside their bodies, the body is the “instrument” of actors, dancers and singers. The body and voice require training to accept the demands of the art forms of the theatre, dance and opera. The actor’s tool box requires extensive mind training to discover how emotions, among other factors, are created and guided in a performance.

Education, on the other hand, is a cognitive activity – focusing primarily on the mind and its critical thinking function. The mind in education exposed to a variety of subject matter to discover effective ways of thinking as demonstrated through writing and speaking. Education is designed to give students a wide range of intellectual options.

Actor training, as well as musical and dance training, is designed to train the mind to meet the demands of a performance. The mind is trained to gain access to the emotions that are an important tool in the actor’s toolbox. The mind is also trained to produce the necessary vocal and physical effects.

With Hal leading the group, the actors began with the necessary breathing exercises, moved to a series of guided images (body tracing, colors), sense memory (hot and cold), emotional recall (fear, anger, joy) to the concept of intention (transitive verb) and concluded with a brief “party” where each behaved according to their chosen transitive verb.

The group was very responsive to the instruction and candid in sharing their responses. When some had difficulty with the a particular exercise, Hal commented that perhaps the exercise was rushed and did not allow enough time for the experience to pass from the cognitive to the affective realm. Several had difficulty finding language to appropriately describe their emotional experiences. (Not an uncommon experience for people who have not been exposed to actor training.)

Not surprisingly, fatigue set in after about 90 minutes and some people had difficulty concentrating. The mental demands on ever yone are quite intense. Like exercising a new muscle, the ability to concentrate will increase.

Several who remained talked about education and what expectations students should have about their experience. Hal suggested that there is no “should” for any student. “Should” is a dangerous word because it imposes one person’s unrealistic expectations on another. Each of us may have a similar educational experience, but how that experience affects an individual’s life varies widely.

Let’s not forget Carlisle Yearwood’s IDEA several weeks ago. He suggested we develop a 3x4 index card with basic Touro information on it. We’ll talk more about this in the future.

As always, these sessions are open for everyone to attend. Bring a friend and join the excitement. See you next time.

Hal Wicke