Appreciation
The Copenhagen Interpretation has always aimed to use theatre to enable participants to connect with the story, with themselves, and with each other. So insight, emotional, and social values are certainly the most relevant aspects of our work, but we don’t want to use them against which to measure a successful experience, so the word ‘value’ is not right for us.
We’ve chosen ‘appreciation’, in the sense that a participant might have a social, emotional, or insightful moment within the experience that they particularly appreciate.
We invite them to capture those moments in triplicate:
one copy can be kept for themselves, as a journal, as an aide memoir, as a working memory
one copy can be given to another person who was involved in that moment, as a gesture of appreciation for their involvement
one copy can be given to us, as capture of qualitative data
It is important to us that the noting of a moment is not about counting the number of significant occurrences one might have during an experience, but rather, appreciating the significance itself of any single moment, and any echoes of it after that moment has passed. We invite responses to these moments in a reflective conversation towards the end of the experience, and also after a week, and a month, and a year have gone by.
Social appreciation isn’t spent, it doesn’t disappear. It’s not summative. When you use it, you increase it, by strengthening a bond with someone, and by creating new bonds.
Emotional appreciation is fully developed through exposure to all emotions, both positive and negative. Collective storytelling that encourages self-reflection and shared understanding can enable this with a protective distance from reality, and in a supported environment.
Insight appreciation comes from active engagement with information within a collective experience, in consideration of yourself and others, giving exposure to a broader and deeper diversity of understanding, leading to an appreciation of genuinely personal insight rather than imposed knowledge.
At the front of the triplicate capture book, it says:
> You can accompany each other in capturing Appreciations. > It might help to talk about it first. > It might help if you write for each other. > SOCIAL: make meaningful new connections and deepen existing connections > EMOTIONAL: experience, openly express, and explore emotions > INSIGHT: clarify information, broaden knowledge, deepen understanding
Then on each page, it says:
Answer these questions and/or use the grid below. > Who/what affected you? > How did it affect you? > Pinpoint the moment you were affected.
The grid invites people to consider the depth and/or lasting impact of the appreciation, which can change over time.
Click here for the first post in this series: Barriers to Theatre
Click here for the previous post: ‘Copenhagening’ Evaluation
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