Social Presencing Theater
Social Presencing Theater (SPT) is developed under the leadership of Arawana Hayashi (*1), co-founder of the Presencing Institute, and was introduced in the second edition of u.lab: Transforming Business, Society, and Self (September 2015). Some hubs integrated SPT in their meetings, and it became one of the highlights of the whole journey.
There are experienced SPT practitioners in many locations. You might consider inviting their support if you have not done/hosted SPT before. Please see the following link for SPT teachers who can introduce you to SPT pratictioners in your region:https://arawanahayashi.com/sptworldwide/ .
What is Social Presencing Theater?
Drawing on the arts and contemplative traditions, Social Presencing Theater is one of the most important and effective methods developed by the Presencing Institute as a component of the U Process to allow groups, organizations, systems to shift towards greater health.
Social Presencing Theater is an emerging art form and a new social technology that explores the creative potential of Theory U and presencing, and physically embodies the U journey. This is not “theater” in the conventional sense. The word theater comes from the Greek thea, which means “the act of seeing”. In its original sense, theater can be defined as a “place of enactment of significant events or actions”, then Social Presencing Theater emerges from the community to enable that community to collectively see itself and enact its emerging future.
It uses simple body postures and movements to dissolve limiting concepts, to communicate directly, to access intuition, and to make visible both current reality, and the deeper – often invisible – state of relationships in a system and some leverage points for creating profound change.
Social Presencing Theater can be practiced at the individual, group, organization, and larger social systems level and brings body-based, experiential learning into individual, organizational and social change efforts. It quickly generates information about patterns and relationships that are “stuck” in a system, and offers methods for sensing and prototyping emerging futures that promote the wellbeing of all stakeholders in a system.
Social Presencing Theater intro
SPT has a total of eight exercises and three of them are being presented in the u.lab 1x as part of the sensing movement of the left side of the U. In the following video Otto Scharmer introduces the purpose of SPT in the U process.
·https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FwcO-yWyXQ
Interview with Arawana Hayashi
Otto Scharmer interviews Arawana Hayashi and you can have a taste of the conversation watching the trailer, even though we strongly recommend you watch the 4 parts of the interview.
·Trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC7idY4r9io
·part 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r3vkn62qSU
·part 2:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhQg_SOephU
·part 3:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt7GgzDok6I
·part 4:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlM7ThIS15s
Arawana as special guest in one of thehub host calls:https://vimeo.com/185949687
The 3 practices introduced in u.lab
If you wish to immerse yourself beforehand in order to prepare, below are the links to the videos that will be featured in u.lab 1x.
The guides for the 3 practices will be available as materials of Week 3 in the edX platform. Below are their overviews.
20 minute dance:
Mindfulness of body is a foundational skill for Social Presencing Theater. The 20 Minute Dance is a practice in which we pay attention to the feeling of the body, without thinking about it or judging it. It deepens our sense of embodiment and awareness.
·part 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgwx5WT3ZkA
·part 2:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICylwz9RsSc
·part 3:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trFFWRrhjnc
See the written instruction from the u.lab Tools:https://uschool.presencing.com/tool/spt-20-minute-dance
Stuck
This is the main technique of SPT. The other forms (such as 4D Mapping) are variations on this practice. It is a process by which one experiences going through the whole U journey by moving from Sculpture 1 (current reality) to Sculpture 2 (emerging future). We do not know what the movements will be or where they will stop, but we can follow the movement and then reflect on our experience. Surprising insights can arise.
·part 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FLT-l7luY8
·part 2:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVeU1fTuSZc
·part 3:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8K93CLL5tk
·part 4:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcxcGrqNRfQ
·part 5:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5GQBDjUEdA
·part 6:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvgVt-JBpO8**
See the written instruction from the u.lab Tools:https://uschool.presencing.com/tool/spt-stuck-exercise
4D mapping
This exercise makes visible the current reality in a social system, such as a school system, health care system, or government; and reveal insights about the system. It sets up a social sculpture and invites this collective sculpture to move toward a deeper more holistic expression. Attention is focused on personal experience and on awareness of the social body.
·part 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdl6XjwOCGw
·part 2:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0_lJYqtkxo
·part 3:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uTYjA5RSIA
See the written instruction from the u.lab Tools:https://uschool.presencing.com/tool/spt-4-d-mapping
How can you practice SPT in your hub?
We invite you to include the embodied SPT practices in your u.lab 1x experience. We appreciate that bringing physical experience into the learning process is unusual for some of us. You can use the videos for instruction if you have not received training in SPT facilitation, and you can call on the support of an experienced SPT practitioner in your area (*2).
Principles
·We suggest to have a moment of sitting in silence at the beginning of each practice to ground ourselves in our bodies and to approach the practice with a “beginner’s mind.”
·It is important that people feel a warm inviting atmosphere in which they will not be judged. There is no right or wrong movement. Whatever is offered is appreciated with loving attention.
·Encourage participants when debriefing the practices to speak from the first person voice. Share "movement data": what they saw, what they felt, what they did. Refrain from interpretation and immediate meaning-making. This allows for unexpected insights.
·Keep in mind that the SPT facilitator's role is to set up the purpose and instructions for the practice and hold the space for dialogue after the practice. The facilitator does not intervene during the practice with their own interpretation or input regarding what is taking place.
·Remember to allow for lots of spaciousness both in the practices themselves as well as during the dialogue afterwards. Silence enables deeper embodied reflection.
·SPT grows out of a contemplative arts background. It is not designed as a problem-solution or psychotherapeutical method.
·It is important that the room in which the practices are taking place is warm, has natural-light and a clean, inviting floor on which people would actually like to lie down on. Carpeting or wood-flooring often works best and allow for people to more readily engage in the practices.
4 steps
We suggested each exercise should follows 4 steps, and steps 2, 3 and 4 are detailed in the u.lab Tools:
1.Mindfulness-awareness practice
2.Clear Framing
3.Doing the practice
4.Reflection on the experience
Mindfulness-awareness practice: sitting meditation between 5 and 20 minutes Begin the practice session by sitting together in a circle. If you are on cushions, sit cross-legged in the middle of your cushion. If you are on chairs, sit in the middle of the chair with your feet in parallel on the floor. Feel your connection to the Earth. Your spine is straight without straining. Feel your connection to the sky. Gaze gently down. Your hands can rest on your legs, palms down. Strong back; soft front. Notice the space around you. Feel your body. Then feel your body breathing. Let your attention rest on the feeling of the body breathing. Feel each breath. When you notice that your mind has wandered away from the breath and is thinking about something, gently and with friendliness, return it to the feeling of the body breathing and the space around you.
Clear Framing: Please refer to the videos and u.lab Tools (links above in the section called ‘The 3 Practices Introduced in u.lab 1x’) for clear explanations about the purpose of the practices and instructions on how to do each practice.
Doing the practice: After the facilitator introduces the practice, the participants engage in silence without interference. There is a clear beginning, middle, and end in each practice, and an atmosphere of respectful attention. Each person attends to his/her own physical embodiment, to the sense of the social body, and to the emerging creative process.
Reflection on the experience: This is a dialogue in which we share our experiences – what we saw happen, how we felt, and what we noticed in terms of a field shift. Reflection questions specific to each practice can be found in u.lab Tools.
How to go forward with the practice of SPT?
How to go forward with the practice of SPT? u.lab 1x is an introduction to Social Presencing Theater. Anyone wishing to learn more about SPT and to deepen their practice and facilitation skills is invited to contact an experienced SPT teacher or facilitator and to register for a basics in Social Presencing Theater Course (*3). There are qualified facilitators and teachers in most parts of the world who are able to offer support. Advanced SPT Training Programs are available.
(*1)https://arawanahayashi.com/
(*2)https://arawanahayashi.com/presencing-institute/spt-teachers-and-facilitators/