Social Choreography

I describe myself as a social choreographer because I seek an interdisciplinary methodology and language. Traditionally, a choreographer designs movement for trained bodies onstage. Depending on the lineage of that design, we call that staged movement ballet, modern or contemporary dance.

Engaging in what writer Lewis Hyde describes as psychic acuity, I design movement for society in the commons. I sample from a social lineage. The resulting gesture is a social choreography in which a collective sees itself portrayed.

Artist Joseph Beuys' notion of social sculpture led me to the notion of social choreography. His democratic project, seeking works of art informed by direct public engagement, searching for an art practice capable of healing and thus transforming society, is at the foundation of the vulnerable methodology of my Listening School, and its intimate embodiment in The Listeners.

E.P.

Artist as Listener

There is a lingering notion that defines art as creative self-expression, a conservative inheritance from 20^th century Modernism that was once progressive, understandably reacting to centuries of religious and political art, courageously promoting undocumented individual narratives. Sadly, that notion created a new hierarchy, moving cultural power from church and state to independent artists and their collectors. Artists were valued for having something original to express, while the public was construed as unoriginal.

The 21^st century introduces an update to creative practice: the public can speak metaphorically for itself; the public is the source of expression and art is the recipient. We engage in a barefoot practice: the audience speaks and the artist listens. We embrace a humble practice: artists facilitate the diverse voices of society.

Of course, this does not preclude the personal expression of artists, but it gives them a moral compass, forcing the consideration of ethics because artists do not represent themselves, they work with and represent society.

E.P.

The Discourse of the Public

The only way to begin constructing democratic space is by generously offering the gift of being heard without judgment.

Can a work of art be a free vessel for empathic listening? What if artists were presented as public cultural servants?

Art schools teach a critical discourse that has become increasingly cynical. But cynicism suspects sincerity and kills curiosity. So what if art schools taught a generous eco-social discourse instead, not partnering with galleries and museums, but with organic farms, nature preserves, land conservation trusts, holistic wellness centers, and human rights organizations? Art students need social and ecological, ethical field experiences.

If we are able to turn art schools into listening schools, artist projects could be the building blocks of a conscious culture, constructing a culture of consciousness, one project at a time.

E.P.

Socially Engaged Cultural Work

I walk and pause with many questions. I train artists through questions that trigger focused experiences in society, as moments of learning that harvest the psychic rather than the material.

The Listening School is a seven-year project that will trigger a listening pilgrimage through Lower Manhattan during three middays in June, culminating in the embodiment of an ephemeral listening station on the evening of June 27.

Is this enough time? The answer is a resounding no. But these are the cultural opportunities we have and will use to listen. And they will be unspectacular, by way of protecting their integrity. There will be little to see but much to experience.

E.P.

The Emptiness of Vessels

I must become like a glass that waits for water. I am waiting for water from another glass, from a glass that is very full, perhaps to overflowing. But I can only contain water if I am empty. If my glass is full, I cannot receive your water.

Training begins this week and I seek metaphors for becoming vessels of listening. Yet I wonder if I should speak instead about rain? Sometimes I feel as if I am waiting for something much greater and unpredictable: I am waiting for the miracle of rain.

I am an empty glass placed on a dusty road, standing with an open mouth under the passing clouds. Humbling. Because listening is a patient offer. I offer my listening to someone who is upset. I make myself available. But if she is not able to confide in me right now, I must not force it. Listening must remain an invitation.

Does a glass of water process the water it receives? Does it make it cleaner? Does it make it dirtier? Does it make it colder? Does it make it warmer? The answer is no. The perfect glass only receives and holds. The perfect listener receives and holds without judgment.

This is not about socially sharing memories and experiences, information and opinions. This is not about giving advice to the public. The performers only need to listen, to offer the gift of being heard. I have not always needed to be loved, but I have always needed to be heard.

True listening needs to be protected through a set of conditions. The very fact that we depend on the public to speak, to complete the performance not by viewing or witnessing but by trusting us and actively participating is what gives credibility to our listening. We are not acting, pretending to listen. Our vulnerability is what makes this real.

But what is we set out to listen and no one speaks to us? Would the performance fail? I do not think so. If the public does not speak, then, that is a loud something to listen to. Indeed, we are on the brink of becoming a fragmented society that finds it hard to welcome, to accept, to trust, to share. We are building walls.

I would also argue that even if the public does not speak, we are listening to the architecture, air circulation, mutual breathing, and the inevitable soundtrack of a city’s horns and sirens. I would argue that we are always listening.

E.P.

The Test of Silence

Silence is the landscape of discernment.
Sound competes with words. Sound robs attention away from words. But silence creates a space for words, nourishing attentiveness.

When words are uttered unto silence, our entire attention focuses on them. And this
attentive silence curates words, said and unsaid, so that the speaker considers and
reconsiders her words.

I have noticed that when I sit in silence listening to visitors, half of the speakers do not look at me because they are not speaking to me, they are speaking with themselves. And that exteriorized internal dialogue is the point, in terms of conscious culture: to provide a creative opportunity for people to listen to themselves.

Silence makes the speaker more self-aware and thus encourages the utterance of mindful words. The speaker hears herself before the listener hears her, allowing for a profound reality check. It is not the listener who tests the speaker. It is the silence that tests.

Uttering into silence tests the veracity of what is being said. Thus, as we say it, before it is even heard, we know that we are uttering truth or illusion. The speaker enters our trusting silence like a sacred space that will only accept true depth of meaningful message.

Silence is a fierce thing unleashed.

Listening Medicine
by Valarie Samulski

Listening is a way to witness the landscape of the bodymindspirit. When we are in pain, struggle, or disease there is always a story that constellates that experience. The story is a textured conflation of past, present, future, other selves. We become trapped in a tangle of oppositions that are only perceived as conflicts... Listening Medicine is the embodiment of an emptiness that is vast enough to echo the story. This echo carries the wounds within up to the conscious mind as a montage of feelings, postures, words, patterns. Silence can be used like sutures to sew the disparate parts back together. Listening is a salve. To be heard is to begin to heal.

Entry 1: These words are a bit like water
by Jessica Posner

I’ve spent most of my life being heard but not listened to, being seen but not believed. I am a large bodied, big mouthed woman gifted with a clarity of communication and a powerful ability to project. As a child, this meant a rich interior life filled with imagination, stories, and play. But once I began to form opinions, it caused trouble. As a teen, these characteristics led to a lot of character roles, role playing, perfectionism, trauma, and being told my experiences were unbelievable and therefore not true. While many people believed in me, very few actually believed me. Virtual relationships abounded. As a young adult, I had big ideas and lived an exciting life foreign to my own--eventually disappearing into an abusive relationship. For many years, I was told everything I said was wrong. Before long, I could no longer identify myself let alone my truth. I’ve lived a lot of my life on the verge, and I’ve nearly always had something to say about it.

In the years since my early 20s, I’ve re-emerged from this place of life-long disbelief as a woman, artist, partner, teacher, and writer who has had to remember many of the things I forgot to trauma. Part of this process is relearning my voice, identifying the reverberant chasm of vibration of my body and spirit. I’m carving an interior of deep time and internal listening, a resonant chamber. Pauline Oliveros’s cisterns come to mind as a helpful image: an architecture that is also a vessel.

As a writer, artist, and teacher (I’ve taught college art for the past six years), people want to hear what I have to say. As a student and partner, I have a remarkable ability to process information, experiences, feelings, texts, or discontents immediately. At around 30 years old, I realized that this isn’t true for everyone. As such, I’m continuously challenged to hold this space rather than to fill it: to value the time in the space of silence not as the comma before the next word, the period before the next sentence-- but the space of possibility. I fell in love with this deep space time, and planned a future in the deep woods that didn’t want me there. So I’ve returned to civilization to hold this space for you, for us. The space between you and me is the space in which we find ourselves in the presence of another.

I am a natural speaker becoming a conscious listener. As a listener, sometimes I need help. Like drawing, it is a learned skill that requires practice. With practice and time, however, greater ease comes. I’m grateful for the architecture/vessel of The Listening School, and am deeply curious to learn more about listening from each of you.

by Jonathan David Smyth

I want to listen
and pay attention
Put these words in to practice
Make a plan of action

I want to be open
and maintain focus
No distractions
by other things happening

I want to be patient
clear and consistent
take the time to take notice
and stop myself from stopping you

by Sto Len

I am lucky. I often wake up to the sound of birds chirping outside of my window. This is a pleasant reward after a long night of less than soothing sounds that reverberate through the backyards of my residential block in Bushwick. The sound waves bounce around the trees and chain link fences in between our buildings, making a bee line for my bedroom and into my ears. Sometimes even into my dreams. I lay and listen in awe regardless of being mildly irritated. A live salsa band plays in the distance, a car alarm goes off, then police sirens, honking, fireworks popping, and drunken laughter from the new neighbors across the way. I am a silent listener and they don’t know that I am here. I marvel at the cacophony of humanity but I can’t help but notice that everyone seems to be talking (or yelling) all at once.

These days I rise slowly from bed. I stretch to the sounds of water traveling through the pipes. I hear the coffee grinder downstairs grinding and the heavy footsteps of my roommate on the wood floors throughout the house. Eventually doors are shut and then silence - I’m alone. I walk downstairs and step out on my front stoop. The wind rustles tree branches and I hear the familiar clang of empty aluminum cans and bottles as someone goes through my neighbor’s recycling. A plane goes by overhead in the distance. I take a seat on my steps with a cup of coffee as the street sweeper swifts by. I’m struck by how much we are all forced to listen to on a daily basis. How do we then save space for the act of truly listening to others?

We edit what we hear, here in NYC. You have to. People are coming through the train one after another, telling us how they need our help. Sometimes you just can’t give any money. Sometimes listening is better than a dollar. I just nod and give a moment of acknowledgement because that’s all I have to give. I’m running off to a meeting just like everyone else on this train. What happens when we give more than a second? What happens when a community of listeners employs the act of listening as a service for many, many hours? Can we create a ripple effect throughout Lower Manhattan? Everyone needs to be heard. We are stuck listening to the voices in our heads but something changes when you say it out loud, something manifests when it is out in the open. You hear yourself when someone listens.

I internalize a lot of what is going on with me and I always have. I joined a “goals group” a few years ago and it was the first time that I had a designated space for speaking about myself and what I was working on with trusted listeners. I found it radically liberating and much to our collective surprise, the more we spoke aloud the more we really began to understand ourselves. And the more things came into reality once we said it. I believe in the power of listening because I have had the privilege of being listened to. I take comfort in the fact that we will be working in a strong community of listeners. Together we will give each other the energy and support that we will need to give our ears to the public. Amidst the chaos of city life, the stress of work life, the drama of love life, the doom of our collective political life and the distractions of our digital lives, we now more than ever need to take time to listen to one another.

The Listeners' silence as an aspect of the performance
by Young Sun Han

In social interactions, I'm always both conscious and unconscious of the amount of time and space one's voice occupies and the choreography of pouring out, absorbing, filling, interjecting, and volleying back words and sounds to each other as an obligation of conversation and maintaining presence. In many Western cultures, if one is silent for too long, it can be interpreted as a sign of disinterest, or worse yet, weakness and stupidity. Of course there are contrasting notions of silence as a sign of respect and humility or even as a transcendent practice. And in certain contexts, durational silence transforms into a power and resistance.

As Listeners, I wonder if those unburdening themselves of thoughts with (most likely) strangers may also want to share silence with us. That moment may only last a beat, but the expectations and difficulties of sharing experiences through talking can also leave one feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied with what was said. As a gesture, silence may bridge the unspeakable, in the same way that touch can traverse emotional trauma. I want to listen and hopefully communicate a presence that also says, take your time––you may also be silent with me––don't speak if you don't need to, but I will listen when you are ready.

A quote that comes to mind is from a book called, An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century by James Orbinski. He recounts his experiences as the Head of Mission at MSF (Doctors Without Borders), serving in Kigali during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. In one of the mid-chapters, he returns to his native Canada after witnessing unspeakable acts and consults with a monk named Brother Benedict. They are walking through the snowy woods, the gulf of this unfathomable reality between them. After walking for an hour in silence, they return and Brother Benedict says:

"Sometimes it is good to be silent: to be as we are, free to choose in the space between what we know and what we feel."

Whether through silence, listening, or a combination of both, I hope that as a group of Listeners, we can allow people to find that space between knowing and feeling. I hope we can all revisit and navigate that space throughout our lives.

remembering my father's voice
by joy whalen

remembering my father’s voice
my dadders
soft low gentle
regular pauses
as he took time to partner the right words with thoughts
his laughter and quirky expressions
“oh, you’re a gas joy”
or “….i’ve been in the sixth dimension all day”
i’d listen intently to his acute memories of childhood growing up in the city
of his adventures
his considerations and inspiration
my dad’s stories were special gifts i’d try to commit to memory
but like dreams they slipped away to somewhere else
so now i am bereft and lonesome without his telling them to me
it is the sound of his voice i remember deeply
often as we hiked
the trees rustle and our footfalls crunch crunch crunch on the path below
swooshes from our hands grazing the greenery along our path
as birds call and critters pitter pat
his voice floats in and out
then a chuckle
natural
sharing his life with me

There is a certain flow
by Kate Harding

There is a peril, a catch 22, a double edged sword, a calling out...that if you are not considered, not reflected but serve as a mirror, not asked, that the internalized voice can’t hear itself, or in so hearing itself can turn on itself, and seek exterior noise and input, to consume the thoughts and input of those outside of you to fill your spaces that are not empty but don’t seem to be valued enough to be heard or absorbed.

And so in this, to be asked about one’s thoughts, asked to verbalize about yourself, the verbalizing can become a kind of practice in hearing yourself speak and deciding if you believe what you hear… and if you then believe it, do you like it? I’m finding writing similar. Do I believe what I just wrote? Writing and speaking are not the same.

I grew up listening very carefully and became, I thought, very discerning.

***
Listening, to me, is a space of beckoning. The disruption of atmosphere mechanically finds its way into my interior

Harmony can’t exist with just one note by itself

Why can’t I hear my thoughts on this? Why don’t I feel like I have the words when I have an ache of knowing what this means?

My words…what are they… is there really space for them? Is there really time to hear them? I’ve got some things, I’ve got some things that are simple enough, but the simple words don’t come as quickly as they used to… the longer phrases, the more precise… the as precise as possible for the possibility of not coming across...speaking plain… why can’t I if even to myself… so can I practice here? Can I say things here? Will it be ok if I don’t know if it’s what I mean? I stand up in front of others beckoning, beckoning voices with giant ears, my brain churning, whole self watching and listening, relaxed but nimble, facilitating space…. The words have become agile deployments… and in them I feel my time as striations reading like lines on a map of my learning away from home… but my words are so different that I don’t feel like they translate anymore and I can’t express my heart to my home with words anymore… these new words… I can’t hear myself in them so much… they don’t work at home, and I’m out of practice with the spoken language of my self to myself.

****

When I was very small, my mother read James Whitcomb Riley’s poem, “Little Orphan Annie,” to my brother and I, most days. I was learning to talk at the time, and so I listened carefully, enraptured by the story and sound of her voice while the words rooted themselves in my head. It’s not a short poem, carries with it layered messages, and I suspect I will never not know it by heart.

But as much as listening to and remembering words meant in learning to speak and I wrote something in 2014, that tells the story of a more embodied gestural form of listening and being:

Unspoken knowledge is that which goes unsaid, precisely because it is understood through other means and verbalization is unnecessary and in most cases inadequate. If words were an accurate way of transference, they would be employed, however to do so knowing the “information” already is superfluous and frivolous; perhaps even boastful. While I attempt to put certain ways of being into language that can be written, to name something is to take control of it, and I do not propose to put my own signature on an unspoken understanding that is not mine to claim alone. It would be arrogant to assume also that I have the right to speak for a culture either, especially after I have left it geographically, as what I would speak to is explicitly tied to locale and living with that land specifically.

In the Germanic folktale, “Rumplestiltskin” to name that which made all connections clear and material, was to eliminate it. Rumplestiltskin lived in the dark, laughed and made sense of things by seeing the connections that were always there. To name him was to take hold of him and fix him in the understanding of someone else’s gaze as a means of control. He was no longer fluid.

Generalization rubs me the wrong way, but through articulations of instance, personal and discovered through research, ways may be illuminated. I cannot speak for others, as they cannot and would not speak for me. But we can and would stand up for each other. In this is an action, and only an utterance when necessary. This is how I was raised: by my mother, stepfather and the land that I was brought up in, knowing I was just a part, but an integral participating part. By all this I do not only refer to a human existence, but a shared topography. It is for this reason that I introduce autobiographical instances as to not abstract a sentiment, but to tell a story sited in lived experience.

In 2009, I visited my step-grandfather Walter Harms in the veterans home in St. James Missouri. He was 96 years old and had been there for a few months, as his health had declined to the point that my mother and stepfather couldn’t care for him anymore. Prior to this, he had lived on the same plot of land since he was three years old, when his family farm was established in 1916. This is the farm I was raised on, and the hills I grew up rambling through were the same for him as they were too for my stepfather, his mother, and her relatives. The son of German immigrants, the first language Walter learned was low German, though his primary language was English.

When I visited the veterans’ home with my parents, Walter had fallen into a state where he was incoherent most of the time, and the man I remembered as physically fragile, but mentally feisty, sat in a wheelchair, clearly sedated. I had brought him flowers and sat close to him talking more than I ever had to him about things that didn’t truly matter. We had never related much through talking, but instead through just spending time in the same spaces and playing double nine dominos when I came home to visit after going away to college and beyond. He’d always faked me out for the first game and then wiped the table with me with no mercy after that; except on my birthday.

He was unresponsive at first, on that day of my visit; his head leaned forward, his chin nearly touching his chest. I can’t remember if it was my stepfather, or I, but we took one of the little flowers that I had brought, and put it in one of the buttonholes of his shirt. As if he’d been gathering up all the energy and alertness he could for this moment, his head shot up and he looked at me, his eyes clear and with a smile like I hadn’t seen from him in many years,

“Katie! Oh well, hello, Katie! Oh hello!”
“Hi Walter! I came to see you. I brought you some flowers!” My stepfather says, “Hi Dad. She put one there in your shirt there for you.”
“Oh look how pretty! Thank you! Those are pretty flowers!”
“It’s really good to see you Walter. I came home to visit. I missed you.” “Oh, thank you for coming!”

And very shortly after, something was said that took him to another place, and it was as if a shadow passed over his eyes and his head fell forward again. He didn’t speak anymore, so I started talking to him about things that weren’t that important again. It felt odd and self-conscious, like I was talking at him, not being with him. He raised his head for a last time and looked at my stepfather and mumbled something to him that I couldn’t understand, but sounded like irritated Low German. Jerry spoke back to him in German a few words. For him, it had been the first language of his mother as well.

“Huh.”
“What did he say Jerry?”
“He said you were windy.”

Wind in many oral cultures is one of the most powerful entities. It is atmosphere, weather, breath and speech. It is the air connecting everything, both inside and outside. Weather, in farming culture, is not just small talk.

By talking to essentially just have Walter know I was there, I was saying things that didn’t need to be said. He knew I was there. I was using air and moving it around needlessly. I was making bluster out of what had always been a shared stillness or breeze.

Some notes on listening
by Molly Teitelbaum

Grandparents are some the most reliable listeners.

Grandparents are not good at listening to other grandparents.

I listen more to people when they cry, especially if they don’t often cry.

Beware of people who pride themselves on being a “good listener.”

I listen poorly over FaceTime.

I listen closely to people who talk softly, especially if they don’t normally talk softly.

I say “totally,” as a way to encourage the speaker as they speak.

People have told me I say “totally” too much.

I don’t listen well once the meal has arrived.

I listen best with warm earl grey in a to-go cup.

Do we love dogs so much because they don’t talk back?

I want my mother-in-law to stop saying, “listen to me,” as she tries to make a point.

I think I need to listen to my body.

Sometimes I don’t listen very closely to the stories my husband tells me from his workday.

Sometimes I feel used by the speaker. My neighbor uses me to talk at.

I listen best to those who don’t know they’re being listened to.

Ethical Listening
by Benjamin Thorpe

Linda Nochlin said somewhere that Pissarro’s series of paintings depicting women in conversation are the only ones she knows of in modern European art that represent the act of listening to another person. The women in these paintings, though one of them is usually talking, have a listening disposition toward each other. Neither is being “talked at” and neither is speaking without also listening. They give us an image of beautiful friendship and mutual listening.

Are we today interested in ethical listening? Are we interested in goodness? Toni Morrison says that representing goodness is more worthwhile to her than representing evil and, also, more difficult. “Evil has a blockbuster audience; goodness lurks backstage.” We’re very aware of the “pointlessness and comedy of goodness” but can we create sincere, forceful, earned expressions of goodness?*

I asked my wife, who is a singer, what she listens for when she’s practicing. She said that if her voice sounds too loud inside her head, it means she’s holding unnecessary muscles in tension and closing the space through which the voice should be moving. Singing is about relinquishing a certain amount of control. A healthy, resonant voice moves freely through the body and spins on the outside. (She makes small, deft circles with her index finger half an arm’s length beyond her forehead to illustrate the spinning voice.)

I was extremely talkative and performative as a child growing up in Bangladesh, speaking both English and Bangla. When I was ten years old, my family moved to Maine and I became very quiet and shy. There was a large woods behind our house that didn’t seem to belong to anyone, and I used to take long walks to certain places and listen to the creaking trees. One day I was in the woods during a snowfall, so I laid down and let the snow accumulate on my body. I remained so still that I could hear snowflakes landing near my ears, and I thought that on some unconscious level I must be hearing millions of little ice crystals falling down all around me in a deafening roar.

The body also listens. Vibrations are passing into and through the body. How can one listen actively with the body? Can the body “hear” culture? Can the body remember what it hears? Are the pathways clear - inside/outside? Is it spinning?

*(Harvard Divinity School Talk, Goodness, Altruism, and the Literary Imagination, 2012

Listening is an Action
by Sara Jimenez

Listening is an action. I think about being able to hear myself, being able to be fully present to what someone else is saying, and being able to respond. The response sometimes is silence, sometimes is in words, or sometimes is in gestures. I want to be able to separate my feelings and thoughts enough from a situation, so that I can hear what’s being said. It’s easier to hear my own thoughts than to truly hear what someone else is saying. It’s easier to assume what someone else is thinking and feeling than to ask and risk the experience of vulnerability or unknown territory. It’s easier to separate than to stay connected. It’s easier to blame and shut the door than to briefly extend my disbelief and consider that I may not know everything. Listening is an act of being in relationship.

Through the experience of my last romantic partnership, my mind has shifted about what it means to listen. For years we were stuck in a pattern where we could not hear the words that were being said and could not truly have empathy for one another. It was like playing an endless Ping-Pong game, being stuck on the loop on a tape, repeating the same conversations over and over and over again. Our therapist said we had 'compassion fatigue.' Although the details of our 'stuck arguments' changed, the root of our dynamic did not.

I learned new tools in therapy. I learned how to notice 10 steps before the fight, the signs that we were moving towards the spiral. I learned how to take time outs when we were heated and to trust that we could reconnect and talk later when things had settled. I learned how to feel angry and upset, communicate my feelings honestly, while also being kind. I learned how to take care of myself without being mean or abandoning. I learned how to pause when I wasn’t sure. I learned to notice when feelings felt out of proportion to what was actually happening. I learned what was important to say and what was not important to say. I learned how my body language communicated support and listening and when it did not. I learned how my tone created meaning. I learned how hard it is to listen to difficult truths in myself when I don’t want to hurt someone else. I learned how hard it is to listen to difficult truths from another without personalizing them or catastrophizing them. I learned again and again how the only place to return to is the present and how most of my suffering comes from dwelling on the past and thinking about the future. I learned that listening is an act of being present.

Although that relationship is no longer in my life, it was an incredibly important and pivotal teacher for me regarding listening.

Defining “The Listening School Project”
by Ernesto Pujol

What is The Listening School Project? It is my effort to research listening in public, seeking to relearn how to listen not only in Trump’s America but also across the globe. Creative participants meet to reflect, talk and write about their diverse definitions and listening experiences. They also voice their concerns and fears about what they may hear yet not wish to bear, seeking strategies and listening ethics. Vital to the credible sincerity of their intention is the willingness to be open and transparent: to undergo this process through performative research in public spaces. Participants uniform themselves (in blue) to be accountable, as they inhabit crowded spaces hoping to connect, listen, and learn. Their presence is unspectacular: there is no entertaining or provocative spectacle. Yet for people willing to engage, there is the relational experience of connective mindfulness.

Afterwards, they meet again to speak not of what they heard, but of what they learned about the act of listening to society. Sometimes, the school process culminates in a formal durational performance called “The Listeners” sited within an emblematic building, for the sake of communicating the dignity of collectively forming a listening vessel to contain psychic material, listening to lives in silence over hours as public servants. And then, The Listening School Project migrates and disappears until another institution or venue wishes to host it on these terms. Hosts need not be defined by art; they can be holistic, historical, or ecological, simply wishing to listen for the future.

Listening (with...)
by Riva Weinstein

Listening (with body and being)
I sometimes feel as though I am an ear to the ground, poised and waiting for rumblings of a quake in the mantle of the earth while wishing for a gentle stream of comfort, calm and safety.

Listening (with my eyes)
Weeds grow in the cracks and crevices of a somewhat abandoned block across from a park where kids kick balls and homeless men sleep on benches. Nightshades. Others I recognize but can’t name. Dead trees rise black against a blue sky, while those still growing sprout suckers at the base of trunks in a few square feet of dirt encased in pavement.

Listening (with my skin)
My husband's warm morning body after I've gotten out of bed and crawled back in for a few moments of touch before leaving this sanctuary of skin on skin, getting dressed and leaving for the day.

Listening (with my feet)
Walking across the wooden floor of the dojo. Smooth and cool. So familiar, I almost don’t notice.

Listening (with my nose)
Scent of blossoms of an unknown tree as I walk across 28th Street in the rain.

Listening (with my ears)
Cars honk. Birds tweet. People chat, yell, whisper, whistle and sing. The tv blasts. A man upstairs wails unexpectedly. Sea gulls. Air conditioning. Sirens. The clock ticking.

Listening (continuation)
by Riva Weinstein

Listening (with my heart)
I cross the street to this more wild stretch between 9th and 10th Avenues, where weeds grow from pavement cracks. Soda cans, cinder blocks, trash everywhere. But also unbridled green growth. The scent of fading blossoms. Death, decay and life all wrapped up in a city block. Seagulls cry. And swirl. Cars rush by. It is a place to me more beautiful than any tended formal garden or greened city space. I belong here. This space between pavement and plant. The High Line stretches above and I remember standing in a gallery looking down at the abandoned railroad bed, its weeds and decay calling to me. Some still small place in my heart it touched. And I wonder listening to my heart, walking and talking to myself, thinking out loud, if these neglected places call to me because I understand what it is to be a seed left alone to grow in dirt that may or may not be watered, left to root. Sometimes trampled, shaded, seen by few, dismissed by many as ugly, unworthy. And yet I sprouted. And yet I grew.

"Listening to strangers"
by Young Sun Han

I experienced wide-ranging discussions with strangers about how to be a good listener today. Every person who offered to speak with me brought their own unique constellation of ideas, experiences, and biases. I remember fondly the first participant – a young black woman named Kiana who spoke of the need to listen to people in marginalized communities, especially black folks and LGBTQI+ individuals. I asked her if there was anyone she was thinking of in particular, and she named her friend Mojo – the only trans woman that she knew. I told her that I'd keep Mojo in my heart this weekend during the Reclaim Pride march.

On Wall Street, the contrast of political values also emerged when I spoke with a Trump supporter, who in the end concluded that both Democrats and Republicans weren't listening to each other–and that this situation was getting worse–he wished that the president would stop using Twitter altogether, which was exacerbating a culture of not listening. He wished he could speak with his girlfriend about politics, but the overwhelming emotions prevented him from doing so. The next couple I spoke to were gay men who had just visited Stonewall from Georgia, and they were equally sick of the president's inability to listen, and I presume that their ideological similarities helped to affirm their relationship with each other, despite jokingly accusing each other of being a poor listener.

When I asked folks who was being unheard in this country – there were a range of responses, but there was consensus that women were still being unheard despite the #metoo movement. Also – refugees and immigrants, those without power (politically and socio-economically).

Some qualities that it takes to be a good listener (sampled from the public): empathy, compassion, time, silence, thoughtful questioning, responsive body language, focus...

This was just a first day of listening to the wider public, and we commence this work tomorrow from 11:30am–2pm at Liberty Park (155 Cedar St) and from 2–2:30pm at the South Oculus Plaza (Church & Greenwich St at Dey St). If you are free and have time to participate, you are welcome to join the conversation!

by Riva Weinstein

Morning

Yesterday, our first official day of listening in the public sphere, I had several short conversations with people who weren’t terribly interested in having one. And two reasonably in-depth conversations with women who were delighted to have the exchange. One had sought us out, having seen a post for The Listening School on Facebook. The other had no idea and when I said the word “art” her whole body and face lit up, and she glommed onto the questions and conversation with gusto. Her insight was remarkable to me. That is, that listening is the science of inquiry. The ability to simply ask questions and maintain interest in the other. She saw it as a scientific process in a way. Not looking for a particular outcome, but investigating the possibilities. A mirror really, of exactly what we were, and are, out in the world doing these few days.

The conversation itself was a delight. She was so animated, and clearly so happy to have someone ask her questions, and allow her to talk uninterrupted. And I was truly deeply interested in not only what she had to say, but her enthusiasm and liveliness.

I’ve always loved listening to people who have something interesting to say. And also know that it has something to do with quality of voice for me. I shut down and out when a person drones and drones on. I suppose we all embody the content of that which we are communicating.

Anger of course is difficult to listen to because it sounds and feels threatening. Sadness in another can overwhelm us. But for me, it is the boring drone that is deadly and I had an experience of that as well. Which for me feels like a vacuum I am being sucked into, and because of that unfortunately, I had to cut the conversation with kindness, short, and excuse myself to regroup.

Listening is hard work. Though one seeks to both remain alert and present, while not attached to the information or content, in an attempt not to identify too much with it, but to witness it fully, it really is almost impossible not to take on, or not to have some kind of energetic response or reaction to others especially in conversation and also in listening. Perhaps the therapist has skills with which to remain completely separate and unaffected, but I suspect really they have tools and skills that help them to let go. A process. A way of listening, perhaps. We are not therapists; we are listeners. And perhaps we all identify and hold energies differently, too.

One of conversations revolved a bit around the body as listening tool, too. And the fact that we don’t, as a rule, listen as closely as we might. At our own peril. But I could see as I was speaking to this particular woman, that she was listening to herself as she spoke and was learning about ways that she might be a better listener to her children in particular. We hadn’t started talking about the personal, but about the societal lack of listening, and how we might be able to change or impact that. Of course it wraps around to the personal. How can we change society or anything without first looking at ourselves. And leading the way, or making ourselves an example, a model. Put our cellphones down, look someone in the eye, reserve time to talk with our children, our mates, our friends.

I spent time listening to, to the sun, to the water in fountain in the park, to the shadows and leaves, to the hum of the indoor atrium and the sounds of city streets. I am often aware of something I call “in one ear and out the other” although it’s really two different sounds in each ear. In one ear, the sound of water rushing down a concrete wall, in the other, the sounds of sirens and trucks. In one ear the sound of conversation, in the other the drone of the city. In one ear the sound of birds flitting here and there, in the other the sound of construction.

And so the listening continues. Human and non-human. Aural and visual. Physical and metaphorical.

Evening

Listening is not so much a relaxing activity, though it may be relaxed and easeful when in progress and process. This just to say that a full day of listening is not relaxing. It is tiring in its way. The body and brain are filled to capacity and possibly beyond. A karate class helped. A glass of wine did not. A bath helped. Getting slammed with texts about a job interview did not. Being here on the computer writing thinking is not helping.

The after-listening
by Riva Weinstein

There is the listening. And the after-listening. When the listening is still taking place. When the insights of what has been heard continue to bubble up unbidden. Connections, like synapses firing.

I am feeling badly because I spoke with a young man whose energy was just zapping me of my own and I kindly but rather quickly wrapped up the conversation and made my escape. It has been troubling me that perhaps this was someone who was terribly unlistened to, and really needed someone to hold the space for him.

Apparently that someone was not me, as I was simply unable to do so. But here is the insight that bubbles up days later. Another question. And, as it was suggested to me by one particularly astute young woman I spoke to, the bedrock of listening. That is, inquiry. I wonder, if many of those who feel unlistened to, may not actually be listening to themselves.

It’s one of those, of which came first, the chicken or the egg question. And also one of those thoughts that make me think of that old adage about our own complicity in how people treat us. But before this starts to sounds like the old argument for “she asked for it”, let me unravel things a bit. Thinking as I write.

I do not mean that immigrants ask for it. Or that homeless people ask for it. Or that any marginalized community asks to be marginalized. What I do mean, is that as individuals, if we are not listening to ourselves, we can’t possibly expect others to hold the space for our voice and expression. And this does lead me back to huge historical moments. Women achieved the right to vote not because they were or weren’t listened to but because they heard their own voices and knew them to be voices that needed to be recognized, heard, and acknowledged. They did not sit waiting for someone to say, “Oh! We’ve heard you, let’s make sure you get the right to vote.” They did what needed being done because they listened to themselves. And made everyone else listen up.

Now, it does not need to be a revolution. But before one can ask to be listened to, perhaps one does need to hear the still small voice inside. And at least note that it needs a bit of attention. What is that voice? What is the thing that needs to be heard? Perhaps that is the kernel of who we are.

And this leads me to one of the insights I had while talking to another young woman who initially was reading a book and might have preferred that solitary pursuit but was open to the exchange, and really engaged. It was not something she said directly, but as I told her authentically, she seemed to be one of those people who creates paths for others. Something about what she says leads to insights others may make. She said she thought she was a good listener. And I’d agree, but her listening also involved her speaking, engaging and making a way with her words and ideas. And this is where she led me as we spoke of the homeless, the mentally ill, youth and diversity. That is, we group people together, ostensibly to solve challenges, like homelessness, mental illness, poverty, etc. But a group is made of individuals and we may never solve problems until we listen one by one. That may seem an insurmountable task. And there is no doubt that programs designed and developed for the many may in fact, and must help the individual as well. But I can’t help but wonder. Does it really? Or just trap them in another pen? Perhaps, an unanswerable question. I don’t know.

I do know it is of course important, urgent even for us to listen. To ourselves, to one another. To the world at large. To be a mirror by being an auditory canal through which we can row each other and ourselves home.

So I want to wrap back around to the issue of listening to people who are not listening to themselves. And out of generosity, thinking that of course someone needs to hold the space for them, to listen to them so deeply that they will begin to emerge from the downward spiral and swirl of their own inability to hear themselves. I’m a bit perplexed by this, admittedly. For someone may be very lonely and unheard. But if they are caught in the net of their own refusal to listen, I’m not sure any amount of listening will help them emerge. It’s a long drawn out droning of words that seem to float unmoored to anything concrete. But it’s far from theoretical. It’s like a kite flying loose and lost to the clouds, ultimately crashing into a tree and being torn apart bit by bit by time and weather.

It is reminding me of, I think a part of the Arthurian legends, in which a tapestry unravels as it is being unwoven. Perhaps another metaphor, the Sisyphean boulder rolled up a hill only to come crashing down again. On the one hand, metaphors for life itself. But more pointedly, the lessons of life unheeded, unlistened, unintegrated.

The Day After
by Riva Weinstein

The morning after the rotunda, I feel a sense of dispersion. We have listened, and learned alongside each other. It is layered and there is a buoyancy I had not anticipated. Truly I wasn’t anticipating knowing how I might feel, but knew this would be revealed with time. I was curious to know what those who came would tell us.

In the three days prior, during The Listening School, I was gifted with conversations where the public had said yes to being heard, though I feel those who did not previously know about the project and were instead approached, were not confident that was what was going to happen. These conversations were typically quite in-depth, as I asked for their thoughts on listening.

Now with this process concluded, there is a feeling of the closing of a chapter, which means that it is available to refer to, and informs what comes next as we move forward with what is ours to do. Last night, for The Listeners, we sat in a circle, each with an empty chair next to our own, separated from each other listener by space to allow privacy, but retain our collaborative form and support for listening. Each of my four conversations had its own rhythm and need.

A speaker expressed not knowing what to say or why they came exactly, but it became clear there was something needing space to find a way to words. We spent time, a good amount of time, and there was a loosening. After indicating a closure, and leaving, I saw that eventually they came back in, and sitting with another listener, and seemed to be able to unlock the words that had begun to find their voice in the chair beside me. Another speaker spoke of curiosity in detail, but in this curiosity and pattern of speech seemed to be shielding themselves from truly being heard. They expressed searching for a place within the performance to feel something in particular, just wanting to see how they felt, as if they were experimenting with exploring listening to their own inner dialog. There was a moment when it seemed this might dissipate and something might be shared, but this moment hardened again and she chose to leave to find another listener. A speaker expressed that what they told me could not be said to anyone else in their life but was being held as a secret and not stated out loud. The hearing of their own words and being witnessed by someone listening without stake in their life seemed to be what was needed. One who came had a sense of humor about their own unknowing of what to do or say seated next to someone listening but not talking back. There was a self-deprecating nature and analysis of the circumstances as a path to understanding their position in the performance and society.

During periods of time when no one sat next to me, I listened to the rhythmic vocal noises of those in the rotunda, as well as the occasional sounds of feet walking. In those times, it was possible to feel the weight and air of Federal Hall and to sense ourselves immersed in the fluid of that history.

I also daily kept track of what had happened but am not sure if it would be appropriate to include in the journal, but thought if might be useful for you to have as part of the history of what occurred.

A Summary of Listening
by Riva Weinstein

These are just a few of the insights I had, and wisdom that was shared with me over three days of conversation with the public, with people of all ages in downtown Manhattan, and the silence of Federal Hall.

The Listening School

@ 180 Maiden Lane & 88 Pine St.

Listening is the science of inquiry. Ask questions.

Women listen. But don’t feel heard.

@ Liberty Park & The Oculus

One can have a thoughtful and somewhat quiet conversation while standing next to a tour guide screaming through a microphone in a foreign language.

Immigrants, and other marginalized communities and individuals, may be better listeners because they have trained themselves to be on alert, and so may always listening, watching, waiting for signals of danger.

@ Fosun Plaza

Listening to and talking with 4 years olds can be a revelation.

It is easy to fall in love. It is not always so easy to listen.

Love is listening.

The Listeners @ Federal Hall

It is easy to listen to a friend, to silence, to beauty, to joy.

It is easy to listen to someone who is asking questions, noticing the world around them, making meaningful observations and having even the smallest insights.

It is oddly comforting to hear the roar of the subway, beneath a monumental building.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to listen to someone who is not listening to themselves.

Highlights of Listening

When I asked a 4 year old if she listened to her parents and her parents listened to her, she told me that every day when they get home, her family shares 2 good things that happened to them, 1 glitch, 1 bummer and 1 disaster.

When I looked into the ocean blue eyes of a young man I was talking with, I forgot everything he said.

When I asked another man what he thought listening was, he thought for a minute and said, “love”.

When I listened to people who were not listening to themselves, I lost my own capacity to listen.

When I listened to people who were engaged, enthusiastic and expressive, I was all ears.

When I listened to the roar of the city, I was overwhelmed and exhausted.

When I listened to (and looked at) water I was quieted, calmed, revived.

A Summary of Listening
by Kate Harding

Day 1, Monday June 24, 2019

Day one I was lucky to have someone approach me at the beginning. He asked about what we were doing and we had a conversation that lasted at least 20 minutes. It was generous in its topics and generous in the time he was giving me, and the consideration. He described himself as a good listener and I think he was right. He sometimes said something in response to what I asked and then asked me what I thought. He talked about growing up with people talking to each other more and manners. He hadn’t felt heard growing up. He was friendly and open to thinking and participating. It was pretty relaxed.

The next person was nervous, taking time to himself, to relax and eat lunch. My approach was still not great but I noticed sitting not too intently with body language that maybe helped him feel less pressure. Half on bench and half off, his body faced out not towards him. He said that he surrounded himself with good listeners and felt very heard. Family. Partner. He had good bright answers that made sense but stayed a the surface. When I asked him where he might choreograph us to listen, he thought for a long time, much longer than before any of his previous answers. He said “emotions…” because people tend to keep those hidden  and don’t have those heard a lot of the time. No place in particular, but “emotions.”

I approached a woman who expressed wanting to be a better listener… that she was actively pursuing it. I felt relief when she allowed me to join her. She spoke of those she felt heard by and the need to listen to children, especially those in high school.

I was waved off by people who said they didn’t speak English. I approached two women eating salads together. They looked completely shocked I was talking to them. Forks held midair with blank but uncertain looks. Finally one offered they were having a working lunch. It was awkward and I needed a couple moments after that. After every rejection I felt it really strongly, but I survived.

My longer interaction was with someone who expressed never feeling heard and I think expected me to leave quickly. That one I was there for, for probably over 40 minutes. Long pauses were there and I let them be there, not comfortable, but seemed important and he continued to have something to say after these extended moments. I found that in each conversation, I needed to offer some of my own story but felt good that it wasn’t too much. I was transparent in saying what the structure of my learning was and why. That said, the offering of my information seemed important when I was talking to a “good listener” and mostly I was. It was disarming for both of us, an exchange/sharing.

In the last, long conversation something evolved in a solid intense way. It felt old in that I was using old currency from my younger days, the kind of talking older people would do with me for some reason in bars where I wasn’t old enough to be. I also realized that my currency was female. I felt that with 3 of the men I talked to, but not as much with the first person that approached me. I’ve decided that’s ok, but again I want to keep things light for myself in terms of what I carry with me. Tomorrow, I’d like to be breezy and light in my approaches, and to take things lightly too; to pour out the vessel to be ready for providing a vessel to the next person.

Day 2, Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Today felt lighter but still had a hard time approaching people and approached three before the fourth person agreed to talk. I am always a bit relieved when they say yes. I wonder a bit about my approach. I had to use the whole “not selling you anything” line once and it actually did help a lot in that moment.

There were tourists/visitors to this city at this location which was very different from the day before. Some were more open and curious whereas others were guarded. There was a gung man who felt very unheard. He said we should listen to victims. There were young women having lunch. They said to listen to people on islands disappearing due to the rising sea levels… and to young people because people make assumptions about their generation. Another man said to listen to everyone. Everyone needed to be listened to. Two women approached me. It was lovely to be sought.

Also got pooped on by a bird… and was surprised by how quickly that news spread amongst the Listeners.

I’m surprised by how spent I am after these days. Physically, emotionally, and mentally/psychically. The support of the other listeners means so much. That this is a collective effort is everything, like in seeing this collective listening there is a larger inference as a thing to do. It occurs to me that documentation of this may not capture what is most taxing to me personally. The asking, the approaching, the practice of that. It feels like a practice for me and the person approached. I’m becoming in the pattern of showing up and being there and asking. My small talk skills are not so fluid but not bad either. I’m making a point to practice more.

Day 3, Wednesday, June 26, 2019

I wonder what today will be like. I would like to dive in and savor it. Keep light and invite thoughts. For those that engage, it can be meaningful. For those that don’t, it can or doesn’t have to be. I’d like to be soft today. And this last bit is something that I noticed that I am not submitting for the journal but wanted to share with you.

One can only offer, humbly
by Ernesto Pujol

Many art students and artists say that their work is about connecting and reconnecting. They state that people are disconnected. From inside the technological cloister of our art schools, they theoretically wish to connect with people (society), and to help them connect with others. But connecting is extremely hard work, frequently peppered with episodes of challenging and even painful rejection. Connecting is an extremely humbling, long-term practice. Because we must always remember that listening is a gift, and gift-giving relies on the absolute freedom of the speaker. Our gift may or may not be welcomed and accepted by a speaker who is too hurt, and thus, too armored and guarded to trust and accept it. Or our speaker may unleash his anger on us, perceiving us as willing and easy targets because we are peaceful, because we offer a safe moment and space to experience catharsis. On the contrary, our gift may be rejected instead, no matter the good intentions. Indeed, no matter our intentions, listening should never be forced upon anyone, imposed on a people, mandated to a public, dictated to an audience.

There should be no artistic manipulation to the gift of listening, no choreographically forcing of anyone to interact with a listener. The performative listening act is merely sited in a place, like a social sculpture, a moment of social practice, of relational aesthetics (choose your metaphor for manifesting). The artists offering it must have truly embraced its tenuous nature. In addition, when we finally connect, it will take time and patience to listen. We may hear the unexpected, the insulting, the shocking, the provocative. It will take the calming of our inner voice to not interrupt it and hold it. It will take generosity. And what we listen to will have an effect on us. We may agree of (strongly) disagree with it. It may disturb us, deeply. We may feel hurt, used, violated by opposing beliefs and opinions. Or by a story. Listening takes amazing courage. Listening is always a risk. And it is never about numbers: about how many came, about how many entered, sat, and spoke. If only one person came to speak and got to voice her pain, her fear, her trauma, that alone would be worth it. One human being is worth it. Because listening to one or many is the only way forward, for me, right now.