In this pilot project we have given much weight and time for how we approach or witness as a viewer an artwork of performing arts. How to be present for art or how to be at the artwork in a more fresh or holistic way rather than as an analytic and critical body-mind combination? How to be without evaluating the experienced performance on a good-bad, this I liked-this I did not like -axis? Looking at these questions we found a witnessing viewership.

 

After a meditative warm-up a witnessing viewer is present at an artwork with soft eyes and a warm heart. A witnessing viewer observes but does not feel the necessity to evaluate or search for significances for his observations through his personhood framework. It may sound boring, easy or naive and idealistic. But it is not.

 

Often we go through our every day life with performing attitude, frozen, result oriented and strongly identified with the story of our person. We avoid true encountering of really feeling something that shakes us, something that changes permanently the direction of our lives. We avoid being touched publicly. We avoid over all feeling something because we are afraid that if we start to feel, the dam of feelings that has been built up and safely guarded for years, may burst open and we can no longer control ourselves. Just as much we avoid mistakes and conflicts. Some of us control even our own breath smaller in social situations so that we would stay as invisible as possible or not to take too much space. If and when we live more or less the emotionally repressed, personhood framework - bound life I feel it is relevant to ask:

How can we face from this kind of space something as vibrant as an artwork?

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The answer is easy. We cannot. At least neither authentically nor holistically. From the space described before we want to consume entertainment. With the help of entertainment we want to safely float on the surface because we are not ready to dive. Art experience on the other hand is always a jump to the unknown. It is a dive to the emptiness. An art experience may lift up uncomfortable and undefined feelings. It may suck the viewer/witness/experiencer into some totally unknown dimension which may feel dubious, anxious or irritating. It may take to a trip during which one makes a decision on a divorce, moving to another country or to finally clear unspoken matters with a best friend. The art experience thrills. The art experience opens up new points of view. It carries and expands the body-mind that is bent in the frames of our personhood. The art experience is commonly shareable treasure that calls and opens up best when we as the viewers have the courage to settle down at it as empty, without expectations, without previous knowledge, without the story of our personhood (political orientation, values, religion, gender…)

 

How to then melt the ice of the viewer to become a flowing water and create space for witnessing viewership?

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The answer is again easy. If you want the ice to melt, you have to warm it up.

 

How?

 

The simplest and most effective method or way is to bring the viewer to this moment. To move to viewership from own current reality. The easiest is to start from the things that have happened during the day so that it is possible to let go of them. After that it is good to concentrate on the breathing. To bring back the person carefully in touch with the own bodily sensations through own breath. One can simply breath lightly eyes closed to the heart centre. To ease the breathing one can place the hands on the heart centre. Sometimes even this is enough. The person may start to cry or laugh. Something relieves. Usually one continues further from this. What am I really feeling right now…what if I take one step forward and go a little deeper to that feeling, what will I find from here.

 

My own experience is that the most challenging thing is to function and be honestly and authentically just in this moment. This observation applies to both myself as a director and human being and as the group and its members who I work with.

 

We have approached towards the witnessing viewership during this project through different meditative-, breathing-, bodily-, emotion opening- and relaxing exercises. We have faced none of the artworks during the project totally without warming up. I commonly think that the experiencing or receiving of performing arts would be greatly enhanced even with a short, only ten minutes of guided calming down before the performance. Like this it would be possible to collectively “reset” the daily incidents and upsettings, to come down, to get guided back to own body, get grounded and be ready to be exposed right to this moment, the artwork. Like this the art will have a real possibility to penetrate the experiencer.

 

During this project I have many times collided with a viewer experience that starts from the idea that have I understood rightly what the artist wants to say with this artwork. As if art would be a puzzle or riddle created by an artist or artists, that solved rightly would grant a drawn flower into the viewer´s note book and finally an extra credit on top of a perfect accomplishment. This is an extremely common viewer experience. I think something ought to be done to this. What has gone wrong in our art education if art can only be experienced as right or wrong? That there would exist some right interpretation that excludes all the other interpretations as wrong.

 

How could we create in Finland such an environment of performing arts where the viewer experience would be valued as such? It is absolutely breath taking thought that a performing artwork would be like a crossword puzzle or over all an accomplishment that can either be done right or wrong. Should not art be just the key hole that at its best opens up a whole new world or wakes up a realisation or counter reaction. Right about anything else than a thought of: “Did I understand this now rightly?”

 

“Earlier I felt the need to show off with accurate interpretations and sharp observations. I was like a preacher that tries to establish own truth in the minds of the pagans. How pointless it feels. When I have taken the power to myself as an individual experiencer/viewer, I have at the same time liberated myself from the necessity of interpretation. If the viewer is given the power to experience what he sees in his own terms without any official truth from the experience, the viewer has at the same time the power to remain without interpretation. He can view as an experiencer and he does not have to raise a question into his mind of what all of this means. I myself have experienced most rewarding the moments when I have consciously avoided to look for meanings. I can see that an artwork stays then inside of me for a longer time to create new fruits.”
-Heli Kärkkäinen, Community theatre group Aikuiset naiset ja Petri-

"During this process I have learned that there are NO two equal viewer experiences. Each one has their own, there can naturally be similarities and meetings. In the end everyone mirrors the performance/art to himself, his experiences and soul. It is interesting to notice how different people pay their attention to different things and details. Thus I ask myself: How much does the evaluation and opinion of a critic count for?"
-Piritta Kallio, Community theatre group Aikuiset naiset ja Petri-

"My experience is important! It is pointless to think what the artist wants to express with this. Trust your own experience. The fact that the audience first sees the performance and afterwards a viewer commentary provides a comparison baseline to own viewer process."
-Jaana Hummasti, Community theatre group Aikuiset naiset ja Petri-