Caught in a web she can’t escape, Missy must make choices that will affect the lives of everyone she is connected to.

A work-in-progress showing of the performative element of my honours thesis. Webbed is a theatre-in-education performance developed for year 8 and 9 secondary school student audiences. It highlight’s the issue of cyber bullying, its consequences, and the power and responsibility that the bystanders have in these situations.

The performance will run for approximately 30-40 minutes. It is free and no booking is required. There will be some additional time for question and answer after the performance. An additional matinee performance will be held at 3pm of the same day – 10th of October.

The performance was collaboratively devised and performed by:
Evan Sanders
Jess Nash
Kacey Hocking
Nick Mawson
Nyssa Rowe

We began the rehearsal by talking about the assessment that the ensemble has to undertake which seems to be a dilemma in which I cannot do much about. After not making much ground we moved on to discussing the research that people had been doing and I gave out some more research material for the ensemble to follow up on. I had wanted to move on to doing some more practice based stuff rather than just more discussion. We did started on an exercise in which we listed all of the different mediums for cyber-bullying and spoke about which were more theatrically viable than the others. After a short physical vocal warm up I got the ensemble to create some images for me.

The first two were built in a progressions one person starts, next watches and moves in and builds on the image until all are involved. The first was built from myself holding and looking at a mobile phone. The second from me sitting down typing on a key board. We have photo’s of these so I’ll try and get them on here once they are on the wiki.

The next set of images were created by the three ensemble members from the stimulus cyber-bullying. Using the cop-in-the-head technique each ensemble member was tapped in and gave there thoughts. This was then repeated except with the stimulus of coping strategy. We also have photo’s of these and I’ll try and get them up as soon as possible.

I then wanted the ensemble to write their own cyber-bullying text message, website post, and or email. I had planned for this to be used in a sound scape I plan to create. We instead actually sent cyber bullying text messages to each other. We found that:

• some were not very good at it while others were exceptionally good at it
• Is including this type of explicit material going to enlighten the cyber bullies further
• The general consensus was that we need to avoid placing explicit material like this in the piece.

We concluded the session with a discussion concerning the human obsession with recording and capturing everything. The following was discussed:

• we do this to clarify and ensure that it actually happened
• What is the difference between a journalist recording violence on a national and international scale and a child/adolescent filming violence against another child/adolescent?
  • Are they both bystanders or both bullies?
  • Society says one thing and does another, condone the filming of war and terrorism as journalism informing the world but crucify the students filming cyber bullying
  • Can’t change society can only inform the youth of today and the leaders of tomorrow
• my idea was to create a scene in which a child films cyber bullying which grows and develops into something bigger more like a war event as the child turns from student into journalist
  • is this putting the blame on society? and voiding the actions of the bully?
  • Is this trying to solve a problem that can’t be solved rather than just raising awareness?
  • Are the age group going to understand it?

Reflection

Was the rehearsal successful? Yes although more could have been achieved there was still a wealth of discussion and practice that amounted from the rehearsal.

Why?

• The images we created can be used as stimulus for further development or placed straight into the piece
• The discussion on the most theatrical viable types of cyber bullying opening up an area for testing and work shopping these
• The cyber bullying text messaging opened up a dimension that we had been talking about but really gave it a practical base to work and argue from
• The discussion about the media vs cyber bullying was interesting and developed a discussion which still has places to go especially testing it in the space

I came into the session wanting to explore what the bully and victim characters can be. This is in order to expand our repertoires so then we can hopefully have more and better material in which we shift through.

We started the session talking over assessment for the other ensemble members unit they are completing. Then we moved onto taking a couple of minutes thinking about the bully each of the ensemble would use if it was their choice. This would include the physical, emotional, intellectual, skills, possibly the event and anything else we thought relevant. We each then wrote or drew something accordingly. I will be putting my stuff up on the wiki and I’m hoping that the other will put theres up on the wiki as well. After this we each explained to the ensemble our bully and then discussed if this bully would have implications for the following points:

• the other characters
• the narrative
• demonising the bully
• victim blaming
• empowering the bystander

This was then repeated for each of our own victim characters. Primarily what was discovered was that it is going to be exceptionally hard to avoid any demonising of the bully or victim blaming. We are walking a delicate line and it will take some very careful decisions to ensure that we minimise both the victim blaming and demonising of the bully. Other interesting points and ideas came up in the discussion:

• a bullied bully could make it seem alright to engage in bullying
• like idea of paralleling the bully and victim character
• if bully is disliked from start that could easily lead to demonising her, this could further lead to disengagement
• like idea of showing multiple coping strategies for each of the characters, certain work better
• Revenge of the nerds bullying scenario could lead to both victim blaming and demonising bully, however this could create division among an audience on if it is right for anyone to bully as a reaction or coping strategy for being bullied.
  • if we achieve discussion between an audience are we achieving something?
• The characters and situations will have to be believable if audience is to connect and engage
• stereotypes have some validity or they wouldn’t be stereotypes
• to minimise victim blaming and demonsing the bully the situation will have to be mutual/equal.

The discussions not only raised these points but also the development of ideas that we can workshop and play with. These relate to both form and content and are as follows:

• ’suicide is painless’ juxtaposed against images of grieving
• pastiche of bullies, victims and bystanders all revolving around a central character and central narrative and bullying event
• twisting stories linking the character together through dialog
• multiple situations or narratives let us deal with multiple coping strategies
• news headlines highlighting effects of cyber bullying

Reflection

Was the workshop successful? Yes and even though I had planned to get up and try some stuff on the floor the discussions were still productive and constructive for my aims.

Why? This process was successful because it enabled the ensemble to discuss and open up some of the many possibilities of where we can take this. It has given us material to work with and develop. I had hoped that during this stage of the process when the focus is heavily on research the ensemble would start developing their own moments that they would want to create. In a way this had already started happening. It would have been great to get up on the floor and work on a couple of the activities I had planned to see what physical moments eventuated but time constraints prevented this and the discussions were extremely valuable. It does highlight for me the joy of the unknown and working together as an ensemble to create something uniquely us. It is great to have my own ideas of where the performance will go but then to interject the opinions of the ensemble it adds an entirely new dynamic that works to produce something completely new or unexpected. It is not to say all of these or even any of these ideas will be taken up but just that they inspire play and play is what is essential at this early stage. On the other hand my ideas are my ideas and they are not precious either. I want to explore the issue of cyber bullying and it will be the process and the learning that occurs for the ensemble along the way that will dictate what the performance becomes.

This is an idea of letting the process dictate was womething that I was keen on for the TIS performance as well. However the initial lack of planning didn’t inspire confidence in the ensemble. It much like Brook (1993) who argues in The Open Door when he says that planning is a great exercise but that this planning cannot destroy the life of the moment. He says ‘One needs to do the preparation in order to discard it, to build in order to demolish’ (1993: 29). He continues ‘It is fundamental rule that until the last moment, everything is a form of prepartion, so one must take risks, bearing in mind that no decision is ever irrevocable’ (1993: 29-30). Brook is writing about theatre created from a script but it highlights the need in any theatre not to be struck by the fear of the unknown, rather embrace this and work with it to see where it can take you. The process need not be directed by planning but rather the process itself and all those involved in the process.

This very idea of not diminishing the importance of the unknown and the process for the sake of the product is a devising strategy promoted by Robert Lepage. ‘Lepage insisted that it was not a matter of imposing one’s vision… It was about paying attention to details, being open to the randomness of life, and to that which occurred by chance’ (Magnat, 2005: 76). This rehearsal was an opening up of ideas and to the chances and possibilities that the ensemble can offer. It was not planned on what we would achieve in the discussions and what was revealed has the power to and will direct the process in a direction. This may or may not be the right direction but until we reach that destination I can not say if it was successful nor could I ever say it was a waste of time. The failures that we experience should make our material better and stronger.

So we had our first official rehearsal for the cyber-bullying project last night.  The idea of attempting to do a bit of a gestation thing on the wiki didn’t work so I decided it was necessary to organise a gestation rehearsal face to face.  Working around teaching rounds and the ensembles work commitments has been difficult but we planned out a months worth of rehearsals.  I have decided to book in dates and just record who attends and who doesn’t and hopefully it works out for the best.

So after time tables we did some brainstorming and discussing on the following areas:

• Brainstormed the following concepts/questions:
  • Bullying
  • Cyber bullying
  • The effects of bullying
  • Strategies for coping with bullying
  • Why some people are better than others at coping with bullying
  • Bullies
  • Bystanders
  • Victims
• Discussed the following:
  • The digital divide and its effects on cyber bullying
  • The implications of creating a show for a year 8 and 9 audience
  • What the ensemble wants to say about cyber bullying

This was not an attempt to lock anything in but rather assess where the ensemble sits in relation to the issue.  A process of planting the seeds and seeing what grows and develops.

Some interesting points about the digital divide came up in that discussion:

• Unplugging or logging off won’t make a difference
• Some said that being connected 24/7 is making worse other said it is not
• digital natives grew up with certain technologies and feel comfortable with them
• Digital immigrants didn’t grow up with it and can struggle to learn it
• The digital divide is represented in this dichotomy but also that digital natives feel they must be connected 24/7
• The digital/virtual world is just as important as the real world
• Digital natives are loosing their ability to interact in the real world

I raised questions and some interesting points about the year 8 and 9 audiences

• Has to be hard hitting or funny – better if hard hitting with moments of humour
• Year 8 and 9 reasoning centres fully developed? – ??
• Scaffolding? – not necessary
• How does this affect the form and content? – not really at all
• What are these year levels into in the virtual world? – we need to do research

I hope to be able to take photos of these and post them here but lack of digital camera impedes this venture right now.  The final task I asked of the ensemble was to think about who their bully, bystander and victim is because next week we will be workshopping character development for all three.  This started a small discussion which will be followed up on monday.  Some key points from discussion and for monday’s rehearsal

• avoiding victim blaming – how?
• avoiding bully demonising – how?
• the sex of the characters and their role, will this be believable for year 8 and 9 audiences?
• Empowering the bystander – how?

I also handed out some research material which I need to put up on the wiki as well.

Reflection

Was this successful? Yes.

Why?

• We developed some mind maps that contain concepts, words, ideas that we can draw on throughout the process.
• It was the start of a gestation research period which is beginning to develop the ideas we will be dealing with in the process.
• It worked well because the ensemble had lots of ideas but it also opened up more questions for us to research.
• How was this different from TIS?
  • Establishing it as a gestation period that will lead to research.
  • Not saying we need to know now but rather it will be an exploration process.
  • the process as a more fluid organic structure, starting with a gestation phase and moving into areas I want to explore hopefully the ensembles ideas will begin to develop and they will add to the agenda as the process continues.

May need more time to reflect on this as time goes on to discuss its effectiveness.