sorry, this is the facebook group page....

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_145723982166973&ap=1&closeTheater=1

we have gone Facebook official

For anyone who is on facebook, this is a link to the Art of Conversation group where the chat continues. Plus pictures and videos from the performance have been uploaded thanks to the lovely Claire Sharples.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200153933355157

"Slutwalk"

There is an interesting on 'Slutwalk' by Germaine Greer at telegraph.co.uk. Look it up ! It will be in the 'womens' health'  section .

Diane

What comes out of chatty women...

Delivering my documentary to you as promised!

Always throws up some questions around (mis)representation so I hope you're all happy, particularly with the edit which can be viewed on a charming AoC group page I made just for the job and more loose chat and updates -

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_145723982166973

Have loved the skewing of ownership and anonymity throughout - 

The audio at the beginning: whose voice, whose words

Blogging under a shared name (or despite people using their own it being a bit of a guess/process of elimination job at first)

& the confessions

So here are some of the photos, more on the group page. Best,  C

Hen Do or Hen Don't

I've had this idea about a journal - an academic journal with papers written by all kinds of different people.

About Hen Do's.

I seemed to have reached the point in my life where my friends think it's ok to ask me to shell out £300 on a weekend away and a further £250 on another weekend away (and at least one day off work) later in the same year. They cleverly disguise these 'weekends away' as a "Hen Do" and a "Wedding".

Don't get me wrong - I love a good night out, but I do wonder what these Hen Do's really say about modern, liberated, educated women about to embark on an equal(?) partnership for the rest of their years.

And on said Hen Do, it's ok to carry around all manner of willy paraphernalia ... when did you last see a stag do with a cunt straw, or a cunt balloon ... no, thought not.

So anyway, this is a call for papers - 2,000 word limit, to be submitted by the 14th July 2011 to me as a word doc; kirstsil@yahoo.com. I'll make a blog. I'll invite others to submit. If it ever goes anywhere I'll set up a co-operative so we all gain. Oh and I'm the editor.

Please spread the word far and wide. Papers can be fun, serious, academic, positive, negative, by men or by women.

Kirstin x

sweet dreams

Just woken up from a dream that i think is trying to tell me something:

I realised i needed sharp knives for the performance and knocked on the door where 2 Pigeons were up to something!They showed me where boxes of them were laid out and asked if i could self-serve.I then started a very satisfying carving of polystyrene but was aware of the fact that certain people were missing that were vital if everything was going to be ok.

Then I lost my sight and with totally blurred vision kept walking the wrong way into closed exits trying to find the performance space.

I walked in and saw my son and his friend watching me perform.Me and the other performer were muppets though you could only see our heads. I am saying in a Miss Piggy voice "We're doing this all wrong" I am wondering if my son will hear himself talked about amongst the taped stories.

Anyone would think I was anxious about tonight's Happening!!

One for the team

Leaping in with a bit of a better late than never effort and no idea what to say...

Had a gander at other contributions as they've appeared and they are an interesting counter slant to the collaborative conversational bit that we do of a Thursday, possibly more insightful than talk from my point of view - is that generally understood? - not sure whether it's just concentration, the ability for people to shape and deliver their contributions as independent statements or having both the face to face and blogging in tandem.

As I seem to have opted out out of the performance I was hoping you might all be happy for me to get snap happy and document the night (with editing rights to the pics of course).

Look forward to Thursday - see you all then. Best,

Claire

Maybe a bit too provocative?

I just thought I'd post quickly even though we're meeting in a few hours time :)

I've printed off a few choice Germaine quotes for the shrine (until my printer ink ran out) and I will bring them in along with a few other bits i've collected - fake flowers, candles etc. I like the idea of there being fruit and flowers in there as well - maybe some of the fruit from the interval?

I've also commissioned something a bit fancy that I thought I'd run by you all just in case it seems, well, a bit blasphemous to be honest!

My fella is a dab hand with photoshop so I asked him if he could take a photo of Germaine and make her into a Virgin Mary/Jesus, something very holy with lots of light, iconographic image. I thought it would be a nice big colourful centrepiece to all the other bits we will collect. I also want to make a big frame around it (i'm thinking paper mache and spray painted gold!). Do you think this will be stepping on any toes? It will be a little provocative, enhanced by it being in a loo, of course.

I'm also very excited to try out some non-verbal communication gestures (some subtle, some not-so) throughout whatever conversations will be happening in the main space. Perhaps if the feeling is very relaxed and conversational it will add a strange, almost jarring performative element to the proceedings. I would enjoy that :)

See you all very soon!

Sarah.

What Does It Mean To Be A Woman?

Grace Edwards

Switch on the television, read a magazine or simply look around; contradictory messages about women are everywhere. The commercial media would have us believe ‘women’ are all blonde, busty, bronzed, ‘girly’ dependents, whilst history would teach us that women fall into two categories: the eternal virgin or the mother/wife/homemaker.

Frankly, I don’t buy that. Neither does any other woman I know.

I believe that to be a woman therefore is, first and foremost, to be an interpreter.

I am constantly amazed at the creative ways in which the women around me express their own brand of femininity. And of course, it’s more than just symbolic; navigating the waters of social acceptability is a particularly perilous task for women, whether out at a function or going for that job promotion.

I love the quote in bold. I think it reflects exactly what we have been saying in our sessions about the importance of listening in conversation.

Also I'm getting very excited about the performance now and the shrine 

Forgive me Germaine...

So, I shared this story last week, but I'll repeat it in case anyone wants to write a confession around it. 

When I was 14 my ex-boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend of the time, Donna. He then broke up with her and told everyone he loved me... Now technically Donna sinned... but I broke the laws of sisterhood also, by rejoicing in getting one over on her, rather than uniting with her against the heartless boy.  I still can't think of her without wanting to mutter 'bitch' under my breath.

I think that one of the biggest sins a lady can commit against the sisterhood is using a word like 'bitch' or 'slut' or 'slag'.  Language like that is a way of controlling how women behave, usually insulting women for having sexual confidence.  More than any offensive language, these are the words I reserve for when I'm really angry, and I feel guilty for uttering them.


Jen

An Effigy of Germaine

As part of my home work I thought I'd look up different images of Germaine Greer to decorate Germaine's shrine.

I think I just hit the flaming jackpot guys. Feel free to be not as excited as me but look at this:

http://westendwhingers.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/the-whingers-do-winehouse-amy-in-vegetables/

It's only a picture of A POTATO decorated as Germaine Greer!!! Genius, it's a sign!!!

I've been thinking about food buffets, partly because our experience has involved eating strawberries and chatting and also it's something which fits an interval. What do you do in a performance interval - you go to the loo and you (after washing your hands) go and get a drink and some snacks. We could have an entire themed food trolley!! The bar could serve bloody marys called "my friend said that Germaine said you're not a real feminist until you taste your own period blood". (I just explained this idea to my housemate who added "and the room should be lit by the flames of burning bras") Or maybe we should just have a Germaine shaped potato effigy in the shrine, and I should calm myself down. Either/or.

What I really love about Germaine's shrine making something comic from the stereotype of Germaine being a feminist Idol. I don't know if she is. She isn't my idol.

I feel very comfortable about us concluding that we have no fixed conclusions about what feminism is, what it should be now and how we should respond to the challenge we set ourselves. In fact I feel more confident about having no conclusions. I think part of the performance should include talking, if we are having a discussion, about what the new word for feminism is. I think the performance about conversation should include a genuine conversation with an audience, who feel comfortable contributing.

On the topic of finding GG photos, there are some great google images we can download. I'll bring as many objects in as possible tomorrow

Jen

Our performance

I have been thinking a lot this week about our performance piece and to what extent it manifests the sessions and workshops we have done so far.

I think it's really interesting to see what has come about, and where it has generated from. Initially I worried that what we had come up with didn't quite reflect the nature of 'conversation' and particularly gendered conversation as intended, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense...

The Germaine Greer shrine... great, a good bit of fun and almost a celebration and a finger in the air for feminism... hitting the accusation of being aggressive and in your face head on by being knowingly and celebratorily(?) so...

The confessional aspect - I have been thinking a lot recently about the confessional nature of some of my personal conversations (particularly with Sarah who unfortunately for her has to deal with my verbal dhiarrhoea)... to an extent I have found these workshops quite confessional, much more than I thought they would be given my initial apprehensions about attending a session full of women.

The sound recordings - these for me hint at the notion that not all conversation is experienced directly and physically, and particularly in a modern age this is quite an important thing to address and explore. I think there is potential for more 'interpretive' performance here, perhaps in the way we respond to the recording (as discussed) and interpret the non-physical presence with our own physical presence

Also with the tape and the confessions - the notions of stories (particularly personal stories) and how these are so important for conversation and in particular female conversation and the notion of sharing

The gestural element - I think it's really importnat to explore the physical element of conversation and there is further scope here. Something Sarah and I have been discussing is the potential of an additional intermission piece in which we sit and have a conversation in the bar, but over gesticulate in a mirrored fashion...

The comedy aspect, the playing with conventions, the stealing of a recognisable format so as to subvert and challenge.

But perhaps where is the tradtional conversational element? I am keen to address this, but don't really have any suggestions and am anxious at how forced this may seem (I'm also not personally happy to perform myself as I'm not a perfromer)... but mabe a forced and strained conversation, or one plyed out with characters and types might address the notion that conversation is always performed, and roles are always played...

I'm also a bit anxious about how we end... hopefully we'll have lots of brainwaves tomorrow to top it off beautifully!

Ah, I don't know! I'm just waffling horribly!

See you all tomorrow!

Michelle x

AoC Thursday 5th May

MEMBERS OF AOC WE HAVE THE WORKSPACE FROM 5PM THIS WEEK STOP WILL HAVE RECORDING EQUIPMENT SET UP FOR THEN STOP HOPE TO SEE YOU STOP

I saw this ...

It was on a wall in Amsterdam. I wonder what Germaine would say about it ...

Kirstin x

It's better to ask than assume.

On Thursday we were asked (Don't quote me on the exact wording - I have a fish brain) whether we have ever failed ourselves as women, or failed woman kind.
I pondered.
I had stories of women that had failed me, but none of my own (Or that I was willing to dig around in my fish brain for)
So I went home, and pondered some more.
Just before midnight, I received a text message 'are you asleep or can you ring me' off my best friend.
I called her.
She told me she was pregnant.
She told me she was around nine month pregnant.
I waited 25 minutes for a taxi.
We drank coffee and discussed the situation. There was denial, humour, anger, laughter, happiness, sadness and frustration.
People had asked me if she was pregnant, and I'd said
'No, if she was, she would have told me. I think she's just put on weight like i have'
The next day we heard the baby's heartbeat at the hospital.
It all became very real.
How had my best friend carried a baby for nine months without me noticing.
I asked her 'If I'd asked you if you were pregnant months ago, would you have admitted it'
'Yes' she replied.
And that was the moment my heart sank and I realised I'd failed as a woman, and I'd failed my best friend.
I'd seen her at least twice a week as of November. How had I not noticed? Why hadn't I just asked her, instead of making up excuses for her about eating too many chips?
Looking at her there in the hospital bed, her beautiful pregnant tummy was obvious.
She'd suffered in silence, not knowing what to do, or who to turn to since she'd realised in January.. Waiting for me to just ask her, so she could admit it to me and to herself.


I'm waiting for a phone call to go to the hospital and be her birthing partner (Without antenatal classes)
She's having a boy.

Linguist and author lectures on differences in men's and women's conversational styles

http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/97/7.10.97/conversation.html

This is yet another article attempting to explain the differences between male and female conversation, this time stating that conversation is gendered from childhood and stems form the different ways in which girls and boys play (girls in small groups, boys in larger team games).

Yet again we are bombarded with the ideas that women's talk is less aggressive; that men are all about one-up-man-ship.

This idea of men always needing to get one over the other lads has now been taken so far there is a new TV show about to air called The Hunks in which 10 strapping blokes essentially go for a bit of a lads holiday in Newquay and compete for the love of the locals. They are followed by cameras 24/7and the audience are giving a no-holds-barred insight into their hearts and minds, covering everything from love to marriage, fidelity, sex and fatherhood. Think Baywatch meets Jersey Shore – but with feelings…

Seriously, if this kind of thing is what passes for ‘normal’ male conversation I cannot explain how happy I am to be a woman. Although all this has got me thinking that I’ve never seen my male friends act in this way… Is it because they are not as “butch” as other men, or as a woman am I turning a blind eye to this competitive style of men’s conversation. Or has television once again just managed to grossly contort the truth.

Anyway, that’s my rant over; I will get to what I was actually thinking.

As a group of women chatting we have done really well, but can we really see what we are doing differently from men’s conversation without there being any men there? I can’t help but feel that the only thing the project is missing at the moment is a man, as a control subject.

So, in the spirit of the project I propose some kind of competitive aspect to the performance. Something that hints at the child like game play that the speakers have talked to us about, and the need to constantly be ‘top dog’ in male conversation. Maybe done in that way from the exercise the other week where the words ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘me’, and ‘we’ are replaced by only using ‘she’ or ‘he’.

To Perform or Not to Perform?

Aaargh. Why have I just dreamt about sellotaping craft knives to the underside of various surfaces? At the moment my dreams are far more interesting than my life..this week mostly nightmares around dropped bombs and devastated cities.

I saw my psychiatrist on Friday and it was pretty much standard : Me making no eye contact whatsoever and kind of stroking my hands together while trying to get him to understand that my nightmares were dominating my life and soaking into my days.

Although i can't look at him I am aware of when I say something significant enough for him to scribble something down.He is very gentle with me when i try to explain that I don't see the world as he does,that the past can change, that I re-read books and they have different endings, re-read things i have written and they say something different.

He asks me if i don't think this is a process of my disease and suggests we increase my medication.Lets face it..he is not a dream analyst he is a drug dealer. Well i have been aware all my life that the thing that used to make me dance and still makes me paint,sculpt,draw and write could be diagnosed as crazy in the hands of a psychiatrist!

More role play on Sunday. This time I was playing nagging parent.My son has this amazing pose when he is wanting to escape from a situation ..arms behind chair as if handcuffed and straining forward. He intersperses this with flapping his arms as if batting away an annoying insect (me) and hisses! So I went silent.And he went silent.Usually i can't resist saying something else. But I didn't. Huuuge silence .Then he packed up his lap top and stuff to go to his flat...Huuuge silence.Then he spoke.And he was quite right!

Ok, so here is the thing.I have loved the Art of Conversation meetings.. they have made me start to observe things around me and within me and have made me want to write and create some theatre.But i don't think the time-scale is right for me in terms of being prepared to perform with only two more sessions to go.I need more time working with the process before i would have the confidence to perform...Maybe i could pre-record something as a contribution.

I love the idea of performers and audience being in a circle with centre lit.. though spatial arrangement will have to be part of the creating to make sure everything can be seen...probably need circle of chairs within the circle...kind of all round hot seat...musical chairs...

See you Thursday

Gifts

Last Sunday I went to visit my mum.  I’m a pretty terrible daughter because before then I hadn’t seen my mum since Christmas (but I really am really busy doing things all the time, excuses, excuses).  Whenever I do call my mum (not that often) conversation usually descends into petty arguments, with her telling me off for having not called her and for working too hard.  I know it’s because she cares, as I said I’m a terrible daughter.

Anyway, I think she must have wanted to build bridges because on Saturday morning I received a package in the post… my mum, completely out of the blue, had sent me a SKIRT with a note enclosed saying “Saw this and thought of you. Any chance of a visit soon? Lots of love, Mum xxx”.  As you can imagine I felt immensely guilty and booked a train ticket to visit the next day.

It made me think about gift giving and communication.  When you know someone as well as you know your own mum, you know that a skirt in the post is code for ‘I’m not angry with you, I just miss you’.  I also know that her buying me lunch means ‘are you eating enough?’, ‘do you have enough money?’, ‘I don’t care how old you are, I’m still your mum’.

I think gifts are often a starting point for dialogue - like when you're staying in a hotel & you find an origami towel or a chocolate on your pillow as a reminder that some kind soul changed your sheets earlier and would very much like a tip.  Gifts can also to be insulting (a poorly worded offer of a mint), demeaning or fuelled by guilt (I won’t offer any personal examples).

My favourite gifts are those unexpected gifts which completely charm you.  I used to have a next door neighbour called Norman who would take my bins out every week – it was months before my housemates and I cottoned-on.  I also very much enjoyed arriving at work this morning to see that someone had left a mini chocolate egg on everyone's desk.

I'll take this opportunity to thank Greenroom for the strawberries, cakes and jelly beans.

Happy Easter.

Jen x

Mind your purse

Young female (shouts): "Menstrual dam"
Young male (stirs coffee): "Ha.We should so see that film."(shouts)"Red bat"
Young female: "All the reviews are bad..which can be a good thing"(shouts)"Womb hammock"
Young male (stirs coffee): "Ha.Its supposed to be a mixture of Alice in Wonderland and Kill Bill" (shouts) "Uterus goblin" Youngfemale: "I hate both those films"

Ok..to cut a long story short, i worked it out...they were coming up with different expressions for sanitary towels! I love when people personalise names for personal things. Not because euphemisms are sometimes necessary in ordinary conversation...but because of the sly references you can make to things... with only the ones in the know getting the joke. Yes its childish! I had one lover who referred to my private parts as my "purse" He stole a poster from outside a police station that said "Mind your purse"...it had a very graphic picture of a hand entering someone's handbag to snatch their purse!!

More Bits

Following on from my last post I have been thinking around the issue of feminism and pondering the confusion as to what equality actually means and what it should mean. Does feminism equate with only womens' rights or with fairness and equality between the sexes? I think there is a sense of injustice in a lot of young males in that women seem to get away with things that they don't...that they have the best of all worlds. From the female point of view women have the right to do as men do eg hit on someone if you fancy them.

But there is so much confusion. I was told of an ugly incident that took place in student halls this week where a mixed group were laying into one guy for not fitting in.His girlfriend emerged wrapped in a towel and slapped one of the students who had been baiting him.The student hit her back and was bundled away by his girlfriend who said "You don't hit girls" ....Do you hit girls if they hit you?

In the interests of research I made an attempt to watch " loose women" but was bored stiff after 5 minutes. I felt like I was the only sober person at a hen party.I hate panels at the best of times.

Thinking around our performance and how to turn our musings, anecdotes and stories into more than an aural experience...thinking how often you see something without hearing what is being said...and hear things without being able to STARE...a real advantage to watching a performance is that you can STARE at people...need to provide something inappropriate that is worth staring at...hmm...will ponder this and get back to you!

Bits and Bobs

I've been noticing how much people gesture when they are having a conversation,even when they are on the phone.Just talking isn't enough ...and I was thinking maybe this is why I find listening to the radio so unsatisfying...so much of the expression is absent.

One snippet I witnessed this week:
1st student(approaching fellow student outside uni library)
"How did your night turn out? Did you get rid of that woman in purple?"
2nd student
"Nah..she was all over me.I kept dancing away from her like this (demonstrates backwards shuffle with both elbows raised and pointing forwards) but she kept moving in.She wouldn't take the hint."
1st student
"If that had been the other way round it would have been rape"

The provocations

Your homework, women of the AoC, should you choose to accept it, is to consider an artistic conversational-based response to the following provocations.

This means mulling over the following and then when we next meet up we'll discuss in groups what we think and how to respond performatively. Makes sense?

For example, Kaz talks in an earlier blog about wanting to become one of those living statues you see in tourist-y areas. So, one performative response might be to transcribe and then record a discussion between 2 people on one of the topics, then, come performance time, have two people dress up and perform as living statues with a recording of the conversation being played out of speakers behind the performers.

You can also have a think of your own provocations, and don't forget to keep eavesdropping on the bus!

Title: “The Dirtiest F Word”
Abstract: Young women today don't recognise themselves as feminists. Those we have spoken to recently have suggested a new word would be more appropriate as their views of feminism centre around ideas of the eighties radical feminist and the idea that men are obsolete. If young girls disagree and distance themselves from feminism, are we fighting a losing battle? How do we make feminism relevant to younger women? Should we be doing more to rehabilitate the term "feminism"?

Title: “Harmless Banter - Richard Keys ‘smashes’ it"
Abstract: With regard to the ‘off air’ tv clip where Keys is asking Jamie Redknapp if he 'smashed it' and is really trying hard to engage him in some sexist banter, what does ‘smash it’ even mean? Should we be concerned about the inane (and some might say insane) behaviour and language used by Keys and his colleague Andy Gray, or does the whole episode merely shine further light on how out of step football culture is from the rest of the us?

Title: "Loose Women - not any women I know"
Abstract: Award winning telly programme Loose Women consists of a panel of privileged, reactionary harridans, who say nothing to me about my life, and in fact, set the women's cause back 50 years. Discuss.

Title: "It's My Pejorative"
Abstract: A large number of insults seem to derive from words for female genitalia, including 'cunt'. Does this word (and others) still have the same power to disgust that it has held historically? Should we as women be looking to re-appropriate these words in the same way that "queer" has been re-appropriated? Are we overly sensitive to language and should we learn to let words bother us less?

Don't forget the conversation can always start before the next session, either on this blog or at twitter.

Amanda @ Pigeon Theatre

Serial Liar

I got up, got showered and had some cereal for breakfast. I raced out of the house and jumped on the bus. A man next to me nudged me, and said "you've got cereal by your mouth". And I said "I haven't eaten any cereal this morning, I haven't eaten anything".

Conversation a Different Art for Men and Women

I said in my last post “I feel that women can conform to men’s style of language more than men can conform to women’s style.”

Just to back this statement up I thought you might like to read this article on a little bit of research I came across from The University of Queensland, Australia.

http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=997

Notes on the Session: 2

We are now in out 3^rd week of the project and conversation is most defiantly in full flow. This week we where treated to two guest speakers, Jackie Hagan (a poet) and Rachel Burke-Davies (a radio presenter for Capital FM breakfast).

Jackie got us thinking about how language can be individual, how children (and adults) make up their own words for things. There is an aspect of play in conversation. It got me thinking about how play is therapeutic, and also how we might be able to use a game as part of the performance.

Rachel spoke to us about how she works with three men, and the role she has found herself having to play. Being the only woman she feels the need to keep conversation, whilst ‘on air’ grounded, and standing up to the men with a woman’s point of view.

What was really interesting was Rachel’s story about one man who was left in the studio with two women presenters. He found it difficult to engage or cope with the change.

I certainly feel that women can conform to men’s style of language more than men can conform to women’s style.

What I felt was the most significant point about this weeks session was the similarities between our two speakers. They work in such polar opposite ways, one is scripted the other improvised. One is presenting and thinks about the way she holds herself, the other we never see… yet both of these women told us about the power of using silence in their conversations. The way that silence control an audience.

I am interested in how silence can be both awkward and powerful. I think that if you are in a conversation, and a silence occurs this can be awkward, someone feels the need to fill this silence. This may be because power and responsibility in a conversation is constantly shifting. In a presentation a silence can be very powerful. When the talker is commanding all the power the silence can give time for an audience to take I what is being said, to contemplate and force people to question what is being said.

Both Jackie and Rachel also spoke about the way they use gesture and facial expression to have silent conversation. I am very interested in this form of communication and I feel it is a skill women exceed in more than men (this is a generalization but I have witnessed men become completely perplexed when women around them use this form of conversation)

silent treatment

We finally got around to playing with ideas for our performance at the end of last night"s session. We got into "pockets of 3" and I had the overwhelming realisation that I wanted to play a listening role! I wanted to be the ears that overhear all kinds of snippets of conversation and "make shapes". i didn't really know what I meant by "making shapes"...just that they would be some physical rather than verbal response to what was going on around me.
Watching the other "pockets" there was a really good interaction when a 'baton" was passed amongst one group to decide who was speaking.I liked this visually as well as it obviously being a useful tool for creating verbal dynamics.It also seemed a useful way of creating a focus and clarifying (at least to ourselves) that a performance was taking place.I think this kind of device will be important if we are to be amongst the audience...
This group also had someone with a really compelling speaking voice which is a real gift in that it meant I could listen to whatever she chose to rattle on about for as long as she liked: much as one of our fab speakers this evening had suggested that we dived in and didn't rely on our individual skills but tried something new...dancers singing or whatever...certainly in our "pocket" we agreed that skills were important to avoid a "bad shit performance"
I woke up this morning and had a flash that what I wanted to play was a street artist. For some reason my first vision was that i would spend the whole performance filling in a huge orange chalk square. Then I thought about those creepy living statues..especially those ones that remind me of the child catcher when they hand out lollies when someone gives them money. I thought maybe being "handed the lollie" might be a bit like being handed the "baton" as a sign amongst ourselves at least that a scenario was taking place. Chucking money in my hat could be a sign that someone wants to perform...well you get the idea...please can I be a ghastly living statue?

Notes on the Session: 1

In our last session thoughts where flying from every imaginable area. Within the first twenty minutes our ladies had discussed everything from the state of the feminist movement (and men’s involvement with it), right through to the difference between men’s and women’s toilet etiquette.

This shift in conversation got me thinking about how rapid conversation can be, and how much our brains process and choose to keep or loose. I wonder if I hadn't been making notes (knowing I needed to write something) how much of this week session would I have remembered, or, if I'd been less subjective about the chat, how much would have resonated with me?

So this week we where graced with the presence of Leeds Met University lecturer in Performance, Teresa Brayshaw. This was Teresa’s second visit to the Art of Conversation, having been a guest talker last year too.

Naturally, being interested in performance herself, Teresa helped us to discover and discuss the ‘liveness’ of conversation, and how the smallest things can influence how we talk. For example a spontaneous phone call can interrupt a line of though or the reaction of a person you are talking influences the way you may respond.

One of the main interesting points to come out of this was the question of ‘speaking Vs conversing’. Who has the power in every form of conversing? Is it equally shared, or is it one sided? Then, following this, do we all feel a responsibility when we are talking to make sure what we say is relevant and interesting? Abraham Lincoln said "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt"? In what situations do we agree with this, and in what scenarios will we truly express exactly what we think?

This led us to discussing the performative nature of a listener, an audience member, or an eves-dropper. The way we listen to people in public places and how much we can find out about strangers lives when they think no-one is listening (weather we want to hear it or not).  We discussed the way proximity to a speaker has an effect on the way we listen and how comfortable we feel. It was nice to discover that It’s not just me who has an “I’m not listening to you… but I’m really hanging on your every word” stance and demeanour we portray in public places when eves-dropping.

The thought’s that the week’s session have left me with are;

Is it really "better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt"?

How many people are actually listening to me at any point when I’m talking? And should I be censoring what I say because there are people listening who I haven’t intended to hear me?

…and

Which is worse, being asked to talk, or being asked to ‘shut up’?

What to say and how to say it

A conversation can be a tricky thing to negotiate at the best of times, but in a relationship it can sometimes seem impossible. How do we find a way to balance what we need to say with the best way to say it?

Plenty of women don’t find it difficult to say exactly what’s on their mind. Some shout, some fiercely lay out their position, some calmly sit down and talk things through, all perfectly happy to put their feelings out there in the open and deal with the potential fallout later.

I’ve never been able to do that. Instead, I tend to rephrase things over and over, from a million different angles, until eventually I’ve analysed it so much that either I neutralise it or, more often, end up empathising with a partner’s point of view so much that I feel guilty and apologise for being grumpy in the first place.

I’ve been thinking about this habit of mine since Art of Conversation started. In every other area of my life, I’m a fairly forthright, ballsy kind of a creature. I can hold my own in contentious meetings. I can write a letter of complaint that would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I once got ripped off on the internet and pursued the man who scammed me with such ferocity that he not only gave me my money back but apologised like he’d killed my firstborn too.

But when it comes to relationships, the truth is that I become a bit.. errm...  rubbish.

I know I’m not the only woman out there who has this going on. Maybe it’s because we’re socially conditioned, as females, to nurture and protect. Maybe it’s because on some level we still find it unseemly for a woman to shout and scream and lose her temper. Maybe it’s because we still believe that a good wife or girlfriend should put her partner first.

I’m working on it. My new partner was a good friend for eight years before we got together and he’s wise to my neuroses. He’s seen me in action before and he’s not interested in the Stepford Wife that he’s seen me become with other boyfriends. We first knew each other back in Leeds and we’ve instated something called the Rule of Yorkshire Bluntness – whenever one of us finds something difficult to say or we’re worried about phrasing it right, we say “Yorkshire blunt?” and then just blurt it out and worry about the phrasing afterwards.

It might sound strange to ask permission before saying what I really think, as though I’m not being honest the rest of the time. But that’s not it. Instead, it’s a way of sidestepping all the complications that come with being in a relationship so I can get to the point.

I guess each of us has to find a way of expressing ourselves when it comes to relationships. For some women, a big blowout will clear the air. Others need linguistic tricks to get them off the hook. Perhaps it’s not about finding the balance between what you say and how you say it, but what you say and how you feel about saying it that matters...

Should men have a role in feminism ? If so , what should it be ?

I pose this question as a fervent proponent of women's rights . he problem I have with modern feminism is that it too easily demonises men for perpetrating sexism without calling out women who do the same , which , in the spirit of sexual  equality ,  is inexcusable.Men may have benefited more from sexism but they are in no way solely to blame for its existence or dissemination.

I'd like to hear the responses of others to gain a more rounded perspective on this issue , one that will hopefully inform my writing.

Diane Ofili

mary kelly projects

If you haven't yet seen the Mary Kelly retrospective at the Whitworth Art Gallery go see how a visual artist uses words as her material and turns voices into visual form. Her famous documenting of the first five years of her son's life...in particular his development of language...is here, amongst other treats.
I am looking forward to learning some "pigeon theatre methodology" to help us turn our conversations into creative outcomes!

learning gender language

My 20 year old son is in student halls of residence and is looking for a flat for next year with 3 female friends...it would have to be with female friends because he has no male friends! We were talking about this fact and he said he just found females funnier, and he didn't find areas of common ground with males...they had nothing to say to him! Which seems very strange given that he is on an art course and surely has that in common with a number of males.
(....i suddenly feel like I am writing to a problem page!..)
Well he has never had a father figure...and when he was age one until he was five, i was in a relationship with a woman (...which is interesting in that at a time when I should traditionally be submerged in all kinds of domestic responsibility I managed to find a way of not exactly passing the buck, but sharing the buck! )
So during his most formative years he was learning how females operate and how to deal with them..but not males..
He has said that he is able to be a sympathetic ear for his female friends ..and that I have 'credit for that' because he learned how to deal with all my high drama!
I am really thinking about how much conversation relies on empathy..I found it interesting in last nights Art of Conversation session when we talked about how telling lies can be a necessary part of social engagement...especially when it is used as a way of finding common ground.
I am hoping that any kind of live work / performance that comes out of these sessions will allow for some fantasy and surrealistic interactions to take place..I think mobile phones and wires definitely have a role to play!

Unfathomable languages and what's in a name?

This week's Art of Conversation has Teresa Brayshaw as guest speaker. Teresa is a lecturer on performance at Leeds Met. University and on last year's project wowed us with her routes into making conversation a creative (rather than a mundane) act, and her ideas for working with made up languages.

This week I've been considering unfathomable languages, and how they can often be aligned on a gender bias. For example, the Six Nations prompted me to reflect on how the rules of a game can often seem to be written and even spoken in a different language to the one we use on a daily basis, unless you have taken the time to learn it.

I recently learned a new language - becoming pregnant and having a baby opens up a whole new medicalised vocabulary of terms I can honestly say I'd never heard of before (in this context and with new meanings). A 'show' now has the capacity to mean something completely different to 'putting on a performance'. But I wonder how much of this new language was something the baby's father got to grips with, or did the insular nature of the relationship between pregnant women and midwives exclude him from this? And are childless women similarly excluded from the language of birth?

Having a baby also means you have very different conversations with you partner to the ones you had B.B (Before Baby). The ones everyone comments on are the ones to do with excretions - frequency, colour, related pains and reactions - however the one that has interested me the most in terms of the project is naming and labelling. We have begun to discuss what names will be given to her body parts when that time comes. For baby boys it seems straightforward. A straw poll amongst parent friends reveals that people universally use 'willy' for male genitalia. However for girls there appears to be no consensus at all. Some have chosen to opt for whimsical, 'delicate flower' names such as 'tuppence' whilst some have chosen to be more clinical about it and use 'vagina'. I can't see myself using either of these labels - one is far too fey for me, the other almost too clinical and also flawed, in that 'vagina' only really refers to the internal sex organs thus leaving the external female sex ignored and inaccurately described.

We're currently toying with the idea of re-appropriating 'fanny'. To us it seems like the companion term to 'willy'. Suitably (anatomically) vague, harmless and non-threatening.

Can't believe I'm actually about to click 'PUBLISH POST' on this blog but here goes!
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This post was written by Amanda and in no way reflects the opinions of either Pigeon Theatre or the greenroom.

It's all in the preparation

Projects, like shows, rely on research and planning to avoid meandering away from the subject, but with a project like the Art of Conversation, such meanderings are integral and interesting. AoC aims to explore the gendered nature of words, language and conversation, and often the best place to begin excavating this is via the media. So, listening to the news on the radio last night I was reminded of the saying, "Loose lips sink ships" as William Hague was criticised for putting Libyan lives at risk by declaring early on in the revolution (or rebellion, depending on your POV - and there's another meander worth coming back to at some point) that Gaddafi got the hell out of Dodge and fled to Venezuela. It's not yet clear why he chose the jump the gun in this way, but it reminded me of Hague's boastful history - his looseness with language and the facts. Do you remember him claiming that as a boy he used to regularly drink 14 pints? I do, and as I pondered this again yesterday, meandering away from Libya, I tried to think of a comparably ridiculous boast that a female politician might have made about their personal history but couldn't. Can you?

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Is the opposite of the male boast the painful silence that occurs after a good drubbing? You'd certainly think so in the face of Man. United's non-response to losing 3-1 to Liverpool at Anfield over the weekend.

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Join in the convo about the Art of Conversation with us Pigeons over on Twitter.

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This post was written by Amanda and in no way reflects the opinions of either Pigeon Theatre or the greenroom.

Led by Associate Artists, the all female Pigeon Theatre Company, The Art of Conversation returns to the greenroom for its second year running to discuss the craft of female communication.

Why is it always ‘gossip’ when women talk and not when men talk to each other? 

Who says women ‘talk more than men’?

How and why do women communicate differently with different people?

This year the project is being supported by Manchester City Council and marks the centenary of International Women’s Day, celebrating 100 years of women’s achievements.

Over the course of eight weekly meetings a group of twenty local Manchester women, age 18 and over, will convene at the greenroom bar to muse, contemplate, ponder and generally natter over tea and biscuits.

This blog will follow their progress.