b'Creative Collaboration in Drama and in the Workplace I believe that having confidence is important indeveloped through improvisations. BodyStorming any workplace environment as it encourages youalso helped us develop skills regarding the respect Genevieve Graham-Rack to speak out when you feel that your voice can bewe gave to one another; by only joining in with a heard. Pixar works to create a safe environmentscene when it felt appropriate, we developed the Genevieve Graham-Rack reflects on working with other people on a creative task in a Drama module and how that matchesfor everyone to share their ideas. This is vital insame respect for announcing our ideas, ensuring best practice in companies such as Disney and Pixar. ensuring ideas are heard and can be developed inwe didnt interrupt each other and allowed an-the best possible way. Confidence is establishedother persons idea to flourish as much as they Studying Drama at university, I have gained athrough initial interactions with fellow groupwould like before offering our own ideas. Many of multitude of skills, many of which are transfer- members. I believe that this is not done enoughthese skills are so crucial in a working environ-able to a workplace environment. This becamein the workplace and that projects would huge- ment. Ideas can be rejected so easily and in such particularly evident in a recent seminar in whichly benefit from beginning with group exercisesa way that the person offering the idea does not we were tasked with the Spaghetti Challenge,which create an environment in which nobodyfeel that they can speak up again, and so having in which the aim was to build the tallest towerfeels judged.respect for others is important. possible using dried spaghetti and tape, topped off with a marshmallow. Our seminar leaderOne of the main aspects of collective creation isThe Walt Disney Company is renowned for not noted how we were one of the best groups sheimprovisation. Throughout the Working Togetheronly that which they create, but also the way in had seen complete this challenge, and I stronglymodule, we did this through BodyStorming andwhich their company works; it is hugely collabo-believe that this is a result of us all being DramaPlayStorming, which come from the Americanrative. Pixar selects employees based on not only students who have gained the knowledge of howRussian Theatre Ensemble Laboratory (ARTEL)their talent, but also whether they would be a to work successfully as a team. Throughout thetraining. These are improvisational exercises.good fit with the organization. It was impor-Working Together module we developed theseThe former is free form, and the latter involvestant to Pixar executives that the atmosphere was skills and were trained to develop our collectiveusing a text in hand. Whilst it is very impor- collaborative, and an important way of doing that creation as well as being advised of collaborativetant to allow free improvisation within collectiveis by hiring people who know how to collaborate. strategies. In this essay I will analyse how thiscreation, the addition of limits and structure laterOne of their ways of creating a good collabora-module has allowed us to develop our skills, andin the BodyStorming process meant that we hadtion was through plussing, which is a way of further look at how these skills could be transfer- more concise improvisations, where we had toadding to an idea in order to make it the best it able to a workplace environment. I will focus onlimit ourselves within scenes, such as only beingcan be. We were encouraged to use this strategy analysing the structure of the Walt Disney andable to move within a certain space. This limita- in our collaboration, and it came in very useful Pixar studios as examples of companies that havetion also came in useful when creating our finalwhen we felt stuck on ideas or felt that an idea successfully prioritised collaboration and creationperformance; there were so many ideas which wecould be improved upon. Rather than rejecting an within their workplace environments. had and wanted to develop, but we did not haveidea straight away, or simply having an idea and the time or space to do each one and so we had toaccepting it for what it is, we kept pushing with Our performer training was based around how tothink within these boundaries of what was feasi- where that idea could go and created a far more work collectively, although the exercise that weble, and what we could achieve within these lim- interesting piece as a result. The idea of plus-did every day was perhaps one of the least collab- its. Edwin Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, writes insing relates to the Yes, and strategy which we orative exercises you could do, or at least it washis book about the power of limitations. He writeswere also encouraged to use in our collaboration; initially. At the start of each practical session, wethat the limits we impose internallycan be athis strategy encourages collaborators to not turn began with the Stream of Consciousness warmtool to force people to amend the way they aredown an idea but instead to suggest how it could up, in which you allow yourself to warm up inworking and, sometimes, to invent another waybe improved. We used this often when collaborat-any way that feels natural to you. To begin with,(2014: 8). Catmull suggests that through imposinging and found that it made a much more peaceful I felt uncomfortable at the thought of being solimits, not only will you be able to avoid wastingand cohesive collaboration as nobody felt they exposed with body movements. As we continuedtime, but also use your time most efficiently andwere not being listened to, and as a result they with these warm-ups, they began to become moreeffectively. Knowing how to be creative withinfelt they could continue to share their ideas with-and more collaborative. We began to accept thatboundaries is a hard skill to learn, but once youout judgement. we could copy somebody elses exercise withouthave done so it can be invaluable in any environ-feeling like we were intruding on their warm-up;ment. Traditionally, roles are used rarely or not at all in sometimes we would also make it more creativeCreative Collection, with the main idea being that with each other, responding to other peoplesAnother positive that came from BodyStormingthere is no hierarchy, and everyone creates to-movements and creating scenes. I think thatwas the ability to see when you could plus angether. I enjoyed not having distinct roles within learning to connect your own body and mind isidea from another member of the group, withoutour process, as it meant we could be involved in crucial, and helps you begin to progress towardoverpowering or making the scene less impactful.any of the creative areas that we wanted to. As the collective creation. This exercise alone helps toCreative Industries module students undertake an exercise.Improvisation proved hugely useful when it cameprocess went on, we began to allocate roles to one develop confidence. Photo, Anna Kiernan to creating our final performance, as many ideasanother in terms of doing jobs such as booking 34 35'