Listening as a Radical Practice

Voices of Conrad- A 2.0 rural theatre adventure

Being apart is more convenient and involves less risk

than being together.

It may not be healthier,

it may not make for better functioning communities

or families or schools or institutions-

but it’s easier.

Being together requires a kind of energy and interest, a willful inclination.

It requires something beyond attention, which, granted, is the economy of our modern age.

It requires listening.

It especially requires listening that holds the potential for discovery.

So artists, leaders, educators, community organizers and bridge-builders, program directors and public engagement managers- you who are often tasked with capturing, holding and animating attention-

whatever you do, wherever you spend your time, whatever gatherings you attend to problem-solve for a civic culture that’s steering us away from each other into ever more isolated ecosystems of affinity and fear,

how and when and where are you making spaces where people can hear what they didn’t already know they would hear?

And once you do that, once you help make that space,

what happens next?

State of Mind went back to Conrad, Montana (population 2300) last week, and I think we engaged in radical practice.

We gathered every single student in the town’s high school, English class by English class, and broke them into groups of 5-6 per table, for 90 minutes. It took us (myself and theatre artists Kendra Potter, Zac Thomas and Ean Kessler) three whole days. We invited them to talk about their experiences in school, in family, in community…we invited them to talk about care, and futures, and challenges and aspirations. We invited adults from around the community- guests curated by the public health department- to join those tables. One adult to each group of 5-6 students. Those tables talked, and then out of those conversations, the artist and the table, they wrote. Together. Energized by an experience of being seen and heard at that table (a micro-community), the energy and the desire then shifted, each time, to being seen and heard beyond that table- beyond the micro.

Radical practice today cannot dismiss the personal when attempting to address the civic.

It cannot be based in a theory of change that does not include the individual and what they need out of any change process.

From the time we’re a child, every one of us needs, and wants, to be seen and heard.

Its how we create self.

Its how we create relationships.

Its how we begin to understand that we are part of a world that exists not just as context but in exchange. With us.

But attending to that need methodically, with thoughtfulness and design, can take rigorous intentionality.

Because being seen and heard means not just expressing ourselves, but knowing that what we share, that who we are, means something to someone beyond ourselves.

So listening,

to be an act of health,

to be an act of care,

to be an act of exchange-

to bring us together amidst all that pulls us apart-

listening has to include a reflection back, and action.

We spent three days listening to young people and adults, many of whom love their community, and many of whom, in one way or another, struggle.

The students came out of the workshops saying: we have never been asked these questions; we’ve never had these conversations; we are not used to hearing from others who aren’t in our immediate circle. They felt connected, they felt supported; they felt respected. And, they wanted to know- what’s next?

The adults (pastor, EMT, coffee shop owner, rancher, county commissioner…) came out of these workshops saying: we never get to listen to young people, we never feel they want to listen to us, we never knew that they think about these things, that they feel this way. And they wanted to know- what can we do? What’s next?

The writing that then happened at those tables-

those snatches of story and opinion and want and need-

those became our answer- the material for two efforts to reflect back, and to take action.

One:

Each class, comprised of 3-4 tables who each wrote mini-texts, funneled those mini-texts to me, and each evening, I wrote and shared back with those classes blends of the work each table had done into a class script. Those 8 class scripts now, for the next 4 weeks, are, under the guidance of two wonderful English teachers, the raw material for creative assignments that will result in an evening of public sharing for the entire community.

Two:

I spent that Wednesday night turning the 8 class scripts from the three days of workshops into a blended community script (25 minutes long) which was then performed by the actors who had led (with me) all the classes and table talks. Thursday morning, nearly three hundred 7th-12th graders, school staff, health officials and providers, adult table guests and other adult community members sat in the school auditorium waiting to hear what was said over the previous three days.

You could hear a pin drop.

They listened for their own voices; they listened for their friends. They listened for affirmation; they listened for surprise. They listened and heard the familiar, and they listened and heard the hard to hear. They listened in a room with 11% of the town’s population, and they knew what they shared had meaning not just because it was written down, not just because it was expressed publicly, but because they could see, all around them, that it was being received. They were being received.

The students returned, immediately, to classes. I got this from one of the English teachers the next morning-

My students are doing brainstorming sessions today. I have them moving from station-to-station, reading scripts and responding to prompts. They are already generating some amazing ideas! I want to reiterate how seen and heard these students feel. I can’t wait to see what they create.

The principal tells us that a number of the adult guests, not previously involved in the school, have asked how they can engage and ensure that young person voices are more present in community conversations and community decision-making. But beyond what they want to do for young people, the principal noted that the experience left them feeling motivated to be more involved in their community. Some trust was built between those community adults and the community’s youth, and with that trust, a heightened sense of civic responsibility.

The conversations and the resulting scripts touched on hard topics. Challenges that seem intractable, traumas that are both daily and generational. Visions of what sometimes seems possible, and other times seem haunted by histories that refuse to recede. But most significantly, the conversations were had. Because listening was the invitation, the promise, the task and the outcome. The radical practice of the week wasn’t just art and its central role in the residency. It wasn’t just that theatre was at the heart of this intervention. The radical practice was using listening to manifest a reminder- one we are realizing again and again as we tour State of Mind and conduct return visits in rural Montana communities- that a polarized country and a fragmented populace is not that because we desire it. Rather, we are often that because it is what we most frequently see as the sole option in front of us. That daily narrative is calcified and amplified through mediated stories and a political system that for the most part breeds our disdain and inattention. When invited into an opportunity for a different civic, connected, purposeful experience, there is appetite. And that appetite can yield motion and growth- if listening happens every step of the way.

These conversations, when public, when in large group, are tricky; in small circles, in person, these conversations go better. When they then re-appear as public expression, ideas and perspectives that can feel opaque, locked behind strident emotional defense, can become comprehensible if not always agreeable. Next steps are always challenging to design and implement, and only possible through relationship and trust. This work is not theatre and it is entirely theatre. We are stepping into a community’s story, and inviting improvisation through facilitative process and structured dialogue. There is public narrative, and there are public poetics. Metaphor helps a group find a common theme; synthesis helps them communicate where they align and where they diverge.

State of Mind as a project focuses on mental and behavioral health. But this residency and much of the project’s work is no longer only about that. It is about building community. It is about building social connection. It is about building trust. Lots of folks in these rooms do not vote the same as each other, nor the same as me for that matter. They do not agree on everything we would consider an issue or a national topic. But they all want community that works better for everyone. They wrestle willingly with what it would mean to make health a priority. They consider what it would mean for schools to have what they need and for families to be able to take care of themselves and contribute to a greater public good.

We’re going back.

We’re figuring out, with our partners the next step. Beyond the April 13 event, what’s the best “Next”?

We’re talking about reversing the generational sides of the equation and having individual students join groups of mixed age and mixed daily life adults. We would try to expand both the act and the muscles of listening beyond this initial group; we would work to build trust and community capacity for dialogue, small circle by small circle, drawing the school and greater community tighter together. Listen. Reflect back. Take action. Our radical practice will be, here and in other communities where we’re working, a scaled and shared sense that care is as easy as connection, and trust is as solid as one conversation after another. And we’ll keep using imagination, creativity- and theatre- to get there.

What’s your radical practice?

Where do you, can you, center listening that starts with hearing, and then includes reflection and action?

Who can you bring into spaces for purposeful dialogue and creative expression in service to building new coalitions and tackling shared challenges?

Telling and sharing a story doesn’t make shared purpose or vision. It can be a start, but how do all of us make sure that the time we have together, and the effort we put into being together, is aimed beyond the minutes we spend next to each other in a room? How do you listen, how do they know, and, what happens next?