Finding the Thread
Photo by Giulia Boratto
What does an interdisciplinary workshop in theatre, movement, acrobatics, and music have to do with communication consulting? More than I thought.
This past weekend I attended a workshop with the Compagnia Finzi Pasca at LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura. At one point, we were asked to choose a story to tell and were then divided into groups. In each group, one person stepped into a strip of light crossing the stage as the main performer, while the other two stayed in the shadows: one whispered the story line by line for them to repeat aloud, while the other suggested the expressions and movements that would bring it to life.
Afterwards, we were asked to weave the three stories together and imagine how to stage them as a single whole.
Our group had three very different stories: a city where the color red had been banned; a group of young people sheltering in an abandoned greenhouse in Chicago's Expo district, suddenly transfixed by a flock of colorful parrots; and a simple question: how many different ways can you say, "It's a beautiful day?"Three completely different worlds.
And yet, the moment I heard all three, a thread connected them: color as emotion, as surprise, as the thing that breaks through when everything around it is gray and controlled. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞, 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫. We also had two Hugojo© and one ADN© as scenographic tools. The red ADN© seemed to find its place in the story almost immediately.
And during the preparatory phase, as we worked out how to weave the stories together, one of my fellow participants instinctively began translating the main narration into Grammelot, the invented theatrical language made famous by Dario Fo and Franca Rame. It was extraordinary to watch: something you can practice and refine, perhaps, but which at its core feels like pure instinct.
What this exercise made viscerally clear is something I work with every day in a very different context: the 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 is not built by simply adding things together. It 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐛𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞.
Three separate stories became one world in the space of a few minutes. Not because we forced them together, but because we listened carefully enough to find where they were already speaking the same language.
That is storytelling. And that, at its core, is what strategic communication does.A sincere thank you to Maria Bonzanigo, Rolando Tarquini, Hugo Gargiulo,Francesco lanciotti, and Caterina Pio for creating a space where that kind of thinking — intuitive, associative, alive — could happen so freely. I only regret not being able to stay until the very end of the workshop.
#CompagniaFinziPasca #LAC #Lugano #Storytelling #StrategicCommunication #B2BCommunication #CreativeThinking
