Leo's Blog: Everything Changes

Is it our ability to make strong, powerful decisions in the face of constant change that creates and generates positive, forward-driving energy?

I think humans are creatures of habit and it is this pull between the acceptance of the unpredictable, ever-changing nature of reality and an attempt to create a safe environment within which one can grow that seems to be a struggle: embrace change and you don’t put down roots; put down roots, you get too attached.

I have over the years traveled a lot with work and it has taken me many years to find my place in London. It is a mixture of acceptance that everything is in constant flux and an attempt to slow the water’s flow and put down roots, celebrating what is around. London works for me if I celebrate the impermanence of experience and look for the permanence in work, community and friendship. I have just finished work with my friend and long standing collaborator: Polarbear. I directed his show: Old Me at the Roundhouse.

We work really well together. We have a complimentary set of skills. He doesn’t stop creating and in the early stages of the process part of my job was to help him work out exactly what the core, the root, the reason for all the stories he has to tell is, like sitting in a pub and having a good chat with a mate… but in the first week of the process we spent hours at it, paper on wall pen in hand, daily.

This most recent of processes has helped me to reflect on the ability to make decisions. I was of the thinking that some people were good at musical, others playing with children, other writing mathematical equations and still others at making decisions.

In tour notes # 4 I wrote about nurture verses the aggression of vision. But i guess, like everything, it is all about balance. In this previous post (tour notes #4) I favored the acceptance of what is happening as a creative starting point whereas this recent process has helped me to appreciate the concept that a decision is an act of violence: ‘Violent because it negates all other possible outcomes’ (taken from Anne Boggart: A Director Prepares) and that sometimes we need to harness this energy of violence to get things done.