First week (after a year and many other first weeks)

So, after a year of development, research and engagement
the core Sojourn team began this week working in the Discovery Center at the South Waterfront in Portland

A really good week so far.

Last Saturday, with the Sojourn Institute Students, we shared our 5 ten tiny dances.
Hundreds of Portlanders came down to the Waterfront and wandered/watched dance.
Our dances will appear on this blog soon- we have some new video capabilities that we're exploring.

This past Tuesday, we hosted our first Public Interview at the Discovery Center.
A realtor and a city planner had a very honest conversation with us about Portland, about its planning history, and about who can afford what in today's shifting market.

Tonight, Thursday, we interview a mediator/community organizer and a documentary filmmaker.
The interviews begin with a brief question and answer that the whole team participates in. Then, we create pieces ( we call it performative research activity). Then, the interviewees respond, and we talk more. And then, we play the civic planning game we developed in Chicago, and continue to refine how to use it as a tool for asking participants to experience their own values in relation to place and then collide those vaues with others as they try to make decisions about community.

We are making some headway in figuring out the journey of this show/event.
Its not a plot based journey.
So, what's the dramaturgy?
What's the structure?
Its become clearer that the answer to that is all about our goal- to offer a space for a unique and active interaction between strangers. One that's dynamic,creative, thoughtful and playful.
So the dramaturgy is a series of questions that will serve the structural purpose a plot would in a story based piece. We are now working to figure out how to move through the questions as experiences, not as presentations. And, how performance moments help deepen and loosen the shared investigation as we move forward together, performers and audience.

Its alot of fun, and alot uncertain.
Which feels like the right combination right now.