Leading lines

I have two long-standing, met-at-the school-gate friends who later (at different times) employed me in the small organisations they managed. We meet up as a threesome from time to time and this afternoon after I'd finished work we had tea and a chat together. We have lots in common and our chats and walks often go on longer than planned but today I had to keep an eye on the time as this evening, coincidentally, I was meeting another previous line-manager, WJ (no nepotism/head-hunting involved in that job) to go to the theatre.

We saw Kin, a drama about migration created and performed by Gecko. It's physical theatre/dance whose few words in different languages were, mostly, intended not to be intelligible. People with my sort of politics and experience must have been right in the middle of their target audience but I was disappointed. There's no doubting their energy and skill but I wanted either to be moved or to engage with narrative and, apart from briefly, I didn't experience either. The sound-track was not varied enough - mostly relentlessly loud and dense - and the movement fitted that.

But there was one small part, where we were wordlessly encouraged to clap as an accompaniment to movement and quite a lot of people didn't, where I was viscerally reminded of some training my companion organised nearly 20 years ago. Our roomful of trainees had been split into no-talking groups of six. In our groups each one of us created a simple movement which the group combined into a routine. One member of each group was then told, unexpectedly, to leave and join another group. In feedback afterwards the static groups said they felt they had been welcoming to the immigrant by teaching them the group's routine. The migrants said they'd felt superficially included but sad that no-one had wanted to know their own particular movement, still less incorporate it into the routine.

That was one of the very few bits of training I've done in my life that has changed my views and, I hope, my behaviour, and I was glad to be reminded of it.

WJ enjoyed the performance more than I did and I was surprised in the pub afterwards, when I reminded her about the training that had mattered so much to me, that she had almost no recollection of it.

How different things affect different people differently. Another useful lesson.


I appreciated the unexpected laughter yesterday. Today's picture, taken on my way home, has no connection to the text at all (though the title is a weak pun).