I had the opportunity to take a workshop with Erik Ehn at GPTC. It was genuinely one of the weirdest 90-minutes of my writing life. But there were also so many things that have found their way into my subconscious mind about writing.
We stood in a circle and did some shintito martial arts kind of movement — walking slowly toward the middle and backwards again, breathing exercises, and other kinds of movement. If you know me, you know that I’m a quiet, internal person who’s not overly comfortable performing or doing things that might get me noticed. So I was out of my depth, but actually there was something in the monk-like person of Ehn that made it okay and even seem normal.
After that, we sat in chairs in our circle and created our own alphabet while breathing. Why? No idea, but it was fun. I’ve since learned that there is something about drawing or focusing your creative mind on a task like drawing that translates to the kind of focus you need to write.
He said we should write with the pace of drawing.
A couple of other quotes I wrote down by Ehn: “Theatre’s purpose is to learn to get over yourself.”
“Theatre is an occasion where a community can discover itself.”
After all of this we did some writing that resembled a play. I don’t think I wrote anything particularly good. But I learned a ton about process, about being focused and present with my writing in a new way.
It was so cool. I would love to continue to learn from him.