Now it’s time to get the thesis journal back on track. I’ve been doing a series of experiments over the past few weeks. I always thought that this topic related to my field. When I came to limited space, I began to realize how the second-hand experience stumbles me. The scenario helped me focus on the individual feeling. Like how those intuitively feeling came through and how people respond to that. When all those happen collectively, it can change the atmosphere in seconds.

 

I’d like to thank Ellen for her generously sharing. Her experiment notes help me have a clearer goal in the process of designing and analyzing the experiment. Thanks Ruta and Carrie for always giving me feedback at any time. Andrew provided me with a lot of theater books and resources. Meanwhile, the process of advancing the thesis constantly pushed me to “build” connections with the unknown field from my surrounding environment. In a few weeks, I felt that my knowledge of theater was accumulating. I think I already knew where is the final stage I wanted to be, the details of how to get there are beginning to emerge. I think this process is meaningful from any aspect.

In addition to interviewing these participants, I also reached out:

Professor Steve Wangh

I e-mailed him for the answer of how to make strangers engage and focus on the present.

He kindly reminds me I don’t need to remove the fears, untrust between strangers at the very beginning because I can’t, fear is the motivation for the game. He also introduced one of his approaches （the tag game）to me, and that makes me notice that the pace will be something.

铁头（Through Haoqi, I got in touch with an acting coach based in Shanghai)

I interviewed her to follow by these questions：

people (who with no experience of performance)’s acceptance of the instruction \ From her side, how does she evaluate the success of a theater game \ the importance of inclusiveness, how to making individuals feel concerned by others. She said that the people who came to the workshop had something in common, those who are happy with their state wouldn’t reach out for support or connection. It made me start thinking about what brings people into my project.

Michael

Michael has given me a lot of valuable advice. Not only because he gave me a lot of exercises that incorporates his personal experience but also helped me think of the various strengths and weaknesses. The boundary practice he shared which is a game has a pause mechanism between two people.

Boundary_Practice

I’m planning to experiment with it in person this week. Besides, I was very interested in the close coordinator he mentioned to me, a position I had never heard of in the eastern world, I think it has the same meaning as the therapist. If I were to have a simulated human on a project in the future, it would undoubtedly serve as an intimate coordinator.