The overall purpose of group ritual facilitation is to introduce ritual designs and floor plans that can amplify the existing conditions and dynamics of each individual and the group as a whole. The skills necessary to facilitate these rituals can only emerge from doing the work itself and gaining familiarity with its transformative processes from the inside out. The role of facilitator is not a director, teacher, guru and/or therapist, as much as a kind of “third eye” for the group, gathering pertinent information for challenging and supporting the the expression of the existing dynamics.

Only by careful observation can you learn to detect the tendencies evolving in each person and in the group as a whole. Pay attention to present-time moods, needs, resistances, and the overall spirit embodied by the group in each session. Look at the more obvious yet essential properties such as differences in gender, age, energy levels and talent. By staying receptive to the innate dynamics of the group and each individual, you can better allow them to unfold their natural outcomes (rather than the outcome you want for them).

Effective paratheatrical design depends on a perception for seeing things as they are, not as they should be or could be to serve one’s own agendas but truly as they are. Consistent practice in No-Form can proffer this kind of receptivity to the existing conditions of oneself and others, as well as, minimize the tendency to impose one's own projections, fantasies and expectations on the organic group process. The facilitator should have easy access to No-Form, not as a conceptual understanding but as a realized spiritual state he/she can drop into at any given moment while facilitating the group.

The first time to observe group energy levels is when participants enter the space for the first time and then, throughout the Physical Warm-Up Cycles and the Personal Polarizations. The following four references can provide useful information to base your ritual selection decisions on: individual and group resistances, commitments, attention spans and excitements.

During the rituals themselves, participants can only experience the facilitator as a disembodied voice. There are certain vocal and tonal adjustments that serve ritual facilitation better than others. Combine words and tones in ways that invite engagement, development and the immersion of emotional surrender rather than commanding or dictating directions. Participants are not in their heads or are, at the very least, attempting not to be. They tend to respond more directly when your suggestions are not too spelled out or require a lot of thought to understand them. Take your time and keep it simple. The body needs more time to discover and experience a direction than the mind needs to think about it or talk about it.

The less you say the better. In a rare area, single words can often act with the power of mantras; sometimes, one word can be enough. Speak to the body. Physical intelligence, or body wisdom, resists over-definition. Allow your directions to remain somewhat incomplete to invite participants to discover and evolve their own responses and processes. Give participants ample time to explore and exhaust your suggestions.

Speak to the Central Nervous Systems and Bodies of participants, rather than their personalities, minds and egos. Learn how to relax. If you're tense, it'll show up in your voice and resistance begets resistance. When you experience unnecessary tension before a session, express this vocally before arriving or find some other way to get it out of your system. Participants have enough resistance to deal with without having to deal with yours, too.

Exercise your powers of observation. It is useless and distracting to speak before observing. Read that last sentence again. What you are looking for are signs and symptoms of present-time group dynamics unfolding moment-to-moment before your eyes. Stay alert. There are changes occurring out there on the floor. The words you use may require continual adjustment to coincide with the influx of new information from the group itself. Stay flexible. When in doubt: relax and then, look to see. Do not speak without observing first.

Adapt an outlook that permits uncertainty. The facilitator is partly responsible for initiating an atmosphere, a kind of creative climate of openness, that supports the autonomy and integrity of each person in the ritual setting. One internal adjustment for setting up this kind of climate involves a certain "lack of self-investment". If you become too personally excited or ego-involved, participants will pick up on it and tend to resist your suggestions.

Create space for the participant's emotional involvement by removing your own. Don't take your position too seriously. This does not require self-diminishment but self-restraint; a catalyst never undergoes the same changes as the catalyzed. The facilitator is a ritual catalyst.

On Endings and Group Circles

There can be anywhere from one to three group circles in a typical 3-4 hour paratheatrical lab session. Group circles provide an opportunity for participants to voice their experience. Sometimes, nobody will say anything and when this happens, do nothing. Wait it out. After a particularly charged ritual, people may be silenced by what happened. Look around; look to see. On the other hand, if participants start searching for or espousing meaning or philosophical contexts to their experiences, simply refer them back to present time, i.e., "What happened to you ?" "How did you relate to what happened ?"

Use group circles to ascertain which tasks and contact points might best act to layer and build the next ritual. If you are gathering information for the final culminating ritual, it should take into account all the previous rituals as supportive layers, or stepping stones, towards restoring equilibrium.

It is wiser to end cool than to end hot. Due to the attention given to energy itself in this medium, this work tends to excite psychoactive states; the Central Nervous System is stimulated, activated and sometimes, "on fire." Design a final ritual that serves a cooling off process, rather than one that leaves everyone wired. Perhaps, you may wish to suggest a ritual design for restoring planetary connection that supports stabilization and integration. Sometimes, a group circle is needed to formalize an ending and other times, no group circle is needed at all. Go with intuition. So much depends on what is necessary to the moment and where the moment leads.

 

Excerpted from
"Towards an Archeology of the Soul" by Antero Alli
(VERTICAL POOL PUBLISHING, 2003)

Related Issues

• PARATHEATRICAL ORIENTATION
  
• LAB PARTICIPATION PREREQUISITES
  
• INTERVIEW WITH ANTERO ALLI