Tag Archives: storms

Resilience and Creativity

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.‏Human beings are incredibly resilient creatures.  So too are creative people.  When I work with BTEC and A Level students I share my observation that often the difference between being great and being successful is resilience and that resilience isn’t easily taught.  I think that this is best summed up in the following tweet.

@boltcity Creative process: 1) This is going to be awesome 2) This is hard 3) This is terrible 4) I’m terrible 5) Hey, not bad 6) That was awesome

The sentiment of this tweet could apply to anybody undertaking a creative journey so I’m not going to dwell on the hardships of professional arts practice.  The difficulties of making a living in the arts are well documented and in some quarters gain limited sympathy.  It might be argued that being an artist is a choice and that any need for resilience to cope with rejection is self inflicted.

Resilience rears its head in many ways when you talk about creativity.  For instance there are artists who continue to express themselves in the face of restriction and sometimes oppression (eg. Ai Weiwei, Pussy Riot, The Belarus Free Theatre and The Moustache Brothers).  Perhaps some of those I have listed might be viewed by some as troublemakers but their refusal to be silenced demonstrates their own resilience and in turn offers strength to their audiences.  It is this resilience that is offered to the participants and audiences of creativity which I wish to highlight here.

At the beginning of 2014 Britain was hit by some of the worst storms in living memory.  I got first hand experience of lashing rain and wild winds when I visited the South West in February.  I was there to lead Stories of the World and Brecht workshops.  At one point during the workshop the Fire Door blew through and dumped the overflowing gutter into the studio where we were working!  Despite their town being sodden and local roads being impassable all the students who could attend did so.  Despite miserable conditions outside, inside the groups laughed and joked about the weather and participated excellently in the workshop.  Why?  Well this could have been for any reason really; interest in the subject being presented, an awareness of impending assessment or just a desire to carry on as normal.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.Some would say that the flooding was a once in a lifetime weather event and that this is just an example of a very British storm in a tea cup (excuse the pun).  What if the storm is a metaphor?  How much resilience must it take for a family to carry on at moments of crisis (long term illness, family breakdown or bereavement) and what does the ability to feel normal mean to them?

The world can be a hard place but its through creativity many of us find our resilience.  Creativity can be many things to many people: escapism, hope or just routine.

What of creativity itself?  Can creativity survive the uncertainty of funding cuts, policy changes, fashions and tastes?  Of course it can.