First Aid for the Artist's Soul. Christina Barandun

Beyond the visible and beyond perfection – yugen and wabisabi

       Art pathways

       Art as a craft

       Practice as a mindset

       Rituals as forms of immersion

       The “released” artist – a pathforger?

       The art of letting go

       Foreword

      “I no longer feel so helpless and at the mercy of life’s adversities! It feels good to have ‘tools’ and thus the opportunity to improve something, make life a little easier, a little more joyful!”, a chorister wrote to me after a workshop I had given at a theatre on the subject of “stress management”.

      This feedback made me very happy. In my life and in my work as a trainer and coach, I deal with a wide range of people, and experience daily how merely by redirecting our way of thinking and our inner perceptions we can change many things, even though conditions be ever so rigid and adverse. The fact that artists were able to apply this learning successfully within the hierarchical and rigid structures of the theatre reassured and inspired me to focus even more on collaboration with cultural institutions.

If we want to preserve our “German theatre and orchestra landscape”, we must transfer the theatrical structures into the twenty-first century. Although envied and admired by many and nominated by Germany for the international UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage,¹ our German theatre system has in actual fact been in a crisis for quite some time now: underfunding, high illness rates and crushing overwork have created the feeling that it may collapse at any moment.

      The social change currently taking place is radical and sometimes frightening, but these new perspectives are opening up exciting possibilities for redesigning creative workplaces, for example as self-organising companies. Theatre could even be a pioneer in the cultural sector in this respect.

      In the large theatre-related institutions, potential methods of change are being discussed extensively. At individual theatres, initial structural changes are being implemented, but until they actually take effect, co-workers and artists in the theatres continue to suffer.

With this book, I want to offer artists pragmatic help to find greater self-efficacy² and satisfaction in the here and now, and within the currently difficult structures. At the same time, I hope that this growing self-efficacy of everyone involved in the artistic operations at the theatre will drive the transformation from the inside, preparing a fertile ground for future necessary changes.

      _____

¹The application for the nomination of the “German theatre and orchestra landscape” as an immaterial cultural heritage was submitted to UNESCO. The decision will be made in 2021. So far, Germany’s theatre and music landscape has only one entry on the German List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. (See https://www.unesco.de/)

²The concept of self-efficacy expectations was developed by the Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1970s.

       Introduction: Why endure when you can create?

Talented young artists,¹ fresh from university, usually get a loud wake-up call when they start their first job in theatre. Once confronted with the day-to-day operation of a theatre, the holy aura and utopian visions of collaborative artistic creation fade rapidly: when scenes are reordered just before opening night, when senior members of the ensemble ‘assert their authority’ in subtle and not so subtle ways, when they find their strong, new ideas are ignored or nipped in the bud and first signs of fatigue crop up after months of tightly packed rehearsals and performance dates, having eaten nothing but fast food; when the fear of failure rears its ugly head, blackouts occur and they can’t remember the last time they spoke to their best friend…

      The theatre “slowly eats you up”, and you don’t live in a cloud of creative bliss, as you had imagined; instead you “survive” somehow in a permanent state of mental and physical overload. The difficulties of the current situation for artists engaged at theatres cannot be overstated. When choosing our profession and considering its negatives, we might think about the issues that specifically affect theatre artists, e.g. how to deal with stage fright or accepting that you work evenings and nights, something not conducive to a regular family life. What we might not have anticipated are the myriad other, more general grievances, e.g. poorly ventilated, narrow rehearsal spaces, poor leadership behaviour, or unnecessary extra work because internal communication is not working.

      Fleeing into self-employment is not a solution either because, firstly, it doesn’t change anything in the theatre system, whose transformation must come from within; and secondly, we are just as likely – if not more so – to push ourselves beyond our limits when working independently.

      A society that wants to experience art should not allow artists to exploit themselves for our sake and the sake of art, risking their health. The economic damage would be enormous. Both the theatres as employers and the artists themselves should therefore reach an understanding that they too need working conditions and structures in which they can unfold and sustainably develop their full artistic power.

      Fortunately, the people responsible at the theatres are gradually trying to do something about these conditions. Slowly and cautiously, issues are rethought and action is initiated, not least because by now the legal provisions, e.g. in occupational health and safety law, have been tightened. This is quite a challenge for theatres because in many ways a career in the theatre does not lend itself to having a healthy “work-life balance”, as defined in health protection laws. Up to now, this fact was also the reason often proffered for not being able to change anything: “That doesn’t work in the theatre. Everything’s different there.” – Well. Sure.

      It is different, but that fact does not have to stand in the way of new developments and positive changes. Where is creative change possible if not at the place where each season numerous new productions are created? In the opera, up to two hundred people work on and behind the stage to achieve a coordinated, accomplished performance in no more than eight weeks. In an environment that is used to creating something as structurally complex as an opera, it should be feasible to optimise the overall structure of operations creatively.

      If you look at the current development of work and organisation in the economy, you can easily identify healthy, motivating working practices that could certainly be transferred to the theatre. However, due to the necessary, constant fluctuation of its workforce, it is important that specific solutions are developed for the cultural sector.

First