Department of Global Political Studies
Peace and Conflict Studies
Bachelor Thesis
Spring 2013
Art & Peace, Peace Education
and Performing Artist’s Reflections
Supervisor: Stephen Marr, PhD
Author: Dominique Rosenbohm 900517-T021
Abstract
This thesis is confronting literature on art and peace and on peace education with
reflections of young performing artists. The artists have been interviewed on their experiences in theatre, music and dancing. From comparing the interview outcomes with the literature this thesis is trying to add an artist’s perspective to existing knowledge of cooperation of art and peace. The research concludes that within the examined performing artists’ reflections, there are similarities and differences to the literature detectable, which might indicate possibilities and concerns for the cooperation of art and peace and the use of performing arts in peace education. It also indicates that there is a lot more room for further research.
Keywords: art and peace, performing art, peace education, interview, artist’s perspective, creativity
Table of Content
Abstract ... 2
Table of Content ... 3
Introduction ... 4
Aim & Research Question ... 5
Delimitations ... 5
Theory... 7
Art and peace ... 7
Peace Education ... 11
Positive Peace ... 13
Art and Peace in practice ... 15
Method ... 17
Empirical material ... 20
Analysis ... 22
The Interviews ... 22
The Environment, the Atmosphere ... 23
The Group ... 26
The Self ... 29
The Encounter ... 32
Conclusion ... 35
Literature: ... 37
Introduction
“”…So, we meet where people are being born, where people make love, where people die, where they are farting, belching, and eating together. We meet in celebration of our mortal bodies and our infinite consciousness. There, I think you will find artists as human beings and peacebuilders as human beings. Trying, without doing any harm, to engage the suffering of the world.” –Kevin P. Clements, Professor and Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies and Director, The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otage, New Zealand” (Cohen, Varea, Walker 2011: 2)
This research is focusing on performing art’s possibilities in contributing to peace research. Performing art’s importance to the field of peace education and the work of peace workers is becoming increasingly important. Governmental and nongovernmental peace organizations frequently recognize theatre and music projects as useful elements of their work especially on a grass root level. Likewise the field of performing art itself increases its interest in peace work and recognizes its unique power in uniting people and overcoming differences, in transforming hostile situations and creating momentarily different views on people and realities. Although the field of art and peace is not entirely unexplored, it appears that its research is often undertaken rather by a peace researcher’s perspective than by an artist’s one. Reason for that might be, that peacebuilding or peace keeping processes might render
performing arts practices useful, while the artist’s process can be driven by picking up a hostile or peaceful situation either in or outside an actual conflict situation as a central theme. Therefore research on the interaction between art and peace might make a little more sense from a peace researcher’s point of view than from a theatre or music study’s one. This thesis therefore attempts at including some artists’ voices and putting them into conversation with existing literature about the subject of peace education and art and peace. The special focus of the interviews for this thesis will lie in learning experiences of young performing art group participants and their reflections of these.
The objective here is to examine how people perceive their own group experiences in order to find out whether or not their experiences are comparable to literature about art and peace and to the goals of peace education. To do so I will try and detect factors that led to or counteracted the process of the group growing together, and reinforce the importance of certain peace values like openness, appreciation of differences or respect in people’s minds.
Under the assumption that, if we learn more about how personal perceptions of performing art group processes compare to existing literature on peace, we might gain a deeper
understanding of the cooperation between performing art and peace, I believe this research can contribute not only to the field of art and peace research, but also to our understanding of peacebuilding and peace keeping processes and thereby to the field of peace and conflict studies.
Aim & Research Question
This research aims at contributing to the field of art and peace by confronting existing theory with narrations of personal experiences and reflections of performing art group
participants. It intends to collect statements from performing art group participants and detect intersections and contradictions between them and goals of peace education as well as art and peace theory. The research question driving this thesis is:
What can we learn about possibilities of collaboration between art and peace from narrations of performing art group participants’ experiences and reflections?
Some operational questions are:
How does existing literature about art and peace compare with the collected experiences?
What did performing art group participants learn and observe that is comparable with objectives of peace education?
Delimitations
The limitations to this work lie mainly in the selection of material. Time and
opportunity determined the selection of interviewees. They all comprise of young people in Berlin who are or were involved in performing art groups. This determined a local as well as an age limitation that will limit the outcome to a specific group of people that I will
understand and adapt to best. There is also an uneven distribution of male and female interviewees. The analysis will therefore not focus too much on the categorical differences between experiences in different disciplines or gender perspectives, but rather treat the experiences as singular and account for different views on similar issues by looking at the
individual. During the theoretical work, the focus I developed is also slightly more on music then on theatre and not on dancing at all as it proved to be rather hard to find reliable material on it. Therefore I decided to put a brighter focus on music than on the other disciplines for the whole thesis. This, however, happens not out of a lack of acknowledgement towards the disciplines but merely out of fear to misrepresent them. Also, the interviews focus will be lying less on the various ways of theater and music’s possibilities in transforming emotions, putting them into different settings and enabling participants and observers to redefine their view on reality in order to possibly overcome hostilities or related processes. Although there is doubtless much to learn about that, it would have required a deeper understanding of psychology and performing art theory for me to research that. I am aware that any kind of generalization from interviews with a limited number of participants involved in a hand full of organizations at a singular town is not possible. The interviewee’s perceptions are treated as incidental and only true within their personal realities. They are to be served as singular examples that are not representative for anything. The participants’ perceptions are however compared with other perceptions from examples of similar projects and similar thoughts in literature on art and peace. This is not to prove but to compare and offer new perspectives. As this research relies upon people’s personal perceptions and treats them as true in themselves and true for the person who perceived it, I have to trust my interviewees to be honest to me and to themselves and to remember everything correctly. Another weakness of conducting interviews on my own is also my own bias in formulating questions and interpreting answers (Bell 2010: 169ff). The counter measures I can adapt in that case is paying awareness to the issue and critically reflect my work at all times.
The literature for this thesis comprises of one section comparing writings on the cooperation of art and peace and the use of theater and music in peace work, one section that summarizes some aims of peace education and one section that states some ideas of positive peace, because peace education is leaning a lot upon them. The last part focuses on some organizations and projects that could be linked to the field of art and peace. Due to limitations of space, I could only choose a hand full of authors for each section. Johan Galtung is very present throughout the theory section, due to his importance in peace and conflict studies. Another reason for that is that it was also possible and convenient to include his writings in all three of these sections. That however was one reason for me to focus on positive peace as a third section of the peace theory that further determines the peace education goals that the theory section is trying to find among other things. Another reason to choose positive peace
was the fact that this thesis is not particularly focusing on one form of peace work. While peace projects involving performing art are mostly used on a grass root level they appear in peacebuilding, reconciliation or peacekeeping projects alike. The interviews were not conducted in a violent or conflict setting either. Therefore, aiming at values of negative violence does not necessarily appear reasonable in every situation. To focus on peace education however appeared to be necessary because, whether in reconciliation,
peacebuilding or peace keeping missions, performing art and especially theatre will mostly be used in connection with peace education or at least surf a kind of educating or demonstrating purpose. Like most of the literature, this research cannot measure the effects nor reliably predict the outcome of performing art projects that involve peace. It can only point out
instances and compare thoughts on the subject by more or less separately looking at narrations of performing art group process and comparing participants’ opinions with existing literature. Thereby it is not possible to find truth, merely common ground between a hand full of
theorists and a hand full of artists.
Theory
The purpose of this section is to examine some existing writings on art and peace and to identify some goals of peace and peace education as a ground for the following analysis. As peace education leans against peace theory a lot and often involves the reinforcement of peace values and clarification of peace theories, it appeared necessary to also include some literature on positive peace itself. This research refers especially to Galtung as a peace theorist due to his importance to peace and conflict studies. Some of his contributions to the structure of peace education, some of his reflections on positive peace and some of his thoughts on peace and art are being used to illustrate the theoretical lens of this research.
Art and peace
To understand the relationship between art and peace, this section will oppose some theoretical writings on the subject. There is hardly any doubt that art has an influence on our emotions, but is it possible to argue that it actually helps peace work? One special focus of this thesis lies on performing art group experiences.
In Music and conflict transformation harmonies and dissonances in geopolitics Galtung speaks about the group experience of an orchestra or a quartet as opposed to soloists. He describes how the individual, in putting itself aside by entering the group, can contribute to
uprising the group performance to more than the sum of its parts. “This is beyond words alone. This is peace through art by way of isomorphism and structural identity. The art lies in being peace rather than just expressing and verbalizing peace. … In the quartet or the
symphony there is that jump into a new reality, which is more than the sum of parts. And the argument would be that the kind of conflict solution that is peace building, as opposed to merely conflict settlement, has exactly that quality” (Galtung 2008: 58). Here Galtung argues for the uplifting quality of music that we, as he suggests, feel when engaging in music with a group that enables us to feel like we are part of something bigger than the sum of its parts. This experience in his eyes has the power of overcoming conflict.
In The moral imagination: the art and soul of building peace John Paul Lederach is arguing for a more creative-process-like approach to reconciliation as well. He explains the term moral imagination as including three aspects: stretching the limits of once personal perception of reality by practicing more awareness, including creative thinking in these perceptions and in our actions and finally enabling change (Lederach 2005: 26f). These aspects he believes can greatly benefit the peacebuilding process. “I suggest and will explore the moral imagination as the capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist. In reference to peacebuilding, this is the capacity to imagine and generate constructive responses and initiatives that, while rooted in the day-to-day challenges of violence, transcend and ultimately break the grips of those destructive patterns and cycles” (Lederach 2005: 29). Further he is putting the grass root level into the center of his peacebuilding approach and explains how the essence of peacebuilding also contains of four disciplines (relationship, paradoxical curiosity, creativity and risk) that are all closely dependent on imagination. (Lederach 2005: 34ff). This focusses on influencing individual interactions with the goal of contributing to peace on a greater level, and putting the individual in focus is an approach that appears close to the approach of this thesis too. In the following he gives many examples to specify his ideas. Like Galtung he is also focusing on the power of music especially. Through examples he is explaining the “nonviolent power of music and the creative act” (Lederach 2005: 152). “Music, it seems, has the power to push things either in the direction of greater violence or towards reconciliation” (Lederach 2005: 154) he writes. Further he attempts to strengthen this idea by giving examples of the power music can have in several situations. In those examples he shows how music can change people or change their minds, how it heals, how it can forward reconciliation and he shows the self-evident importance some musicians
give to their music (Lederach 2005: 154ff). Then he is preceding another thought. “Art and finding our way back to our humanity are connected” (Lederach 2005: 162) he writes. “What if reconciliation were more like a creative artistic process than a linear formula of cumulative activities aimed at producing a result” (Lederach 2005: 159)? He is making a case for
including more creativity in the reconciliation process in general. He also explains some reasons for that. In this description, the creative process is not linear, it has its own speed and is sensitive to force or pressure, it is strongest when it is simple and honest, it is not
completely comprehensible by thought and reason only, it requires passion and fun rather than formal, serious work (Lederach 2005: 159f). Both art and a successful reconciliation process appear to have that in common in his opinion. Lederach is driving his believe in the power of art much further than Galtung, it appears. Art not merely influences our hearts in his opinion; this effect can be used as an excellent point of departure for reconciliation processes. He further argues for the use of creative processes as such, thereby suggesting that peace
processes should take a leave out of art processes book. He reckons ”Art is a form of love. It is finding beauty and connection in what we do” (Lederach 2005: 161). This almost seems like the believe, that through art we might reach positive peace.
Cindy Fazzi however, though generally admiring the book, thinks that The moral imagination: the art and soul of building peace “is not a “how to” book. It does not specify how to attain moral imagination. There are no steps toward mastering the art of peace building. What this book does, however, is open up the reader’s mind to possibilities. It is a meditation on conflict, but also on peace” (Fazzi 2011: 93). This critic suggest that
Lederach’s deliberations are, though an original and interesting approach, not tested or accounted for by anything other than examples. Still it is strongly arguing for many opportunities of improvement.
Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse and Hugh Miall contributed to this train of thought as well. In Contemporary conflict resolution: the prevention, management and transformation of deadly conflicts they devoted one chapter to the influence of art and culture on conflict resolution and summarize the ideas of several other writings on the issue. They agree with Lederach that engaging and expressing oneself creatively can support the conflict resolution process. “Dimensions of feeling, emotion, imagery and imagination, which are stimulated when peace and conflict are the subjects of the visual and other arts, are clearly important but underutilized reservoirs and motivators for conflict resolution” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, Miall 2011: 349). They also agree that music can both work in favor and
counteract peace and harmony. It can unite people, work on self-esteem and –awareness, tolerance, understanding, healing and cooperating, “music provides the opportunity for contact, and therefore the potential for better understanding” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, Miall 2011: 349). Further music has the ability “to unite and inspire in a way that both acknowledges and transcends national and ethnic divides and traditions” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, Miall 2011: 350). Theatre, on the other hand, can address sensitive issues in a different setting and can therefore be used to promote conflict resolution on a different level: “drama theory can be used as a model to explore and simulate options for individuals engaged in collaborative decision- making, even in a context of potential or actual conflict”
(Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, Miall 2011: 351). So according to them, music is strong in its abilities of influencing the mind and raising emotions, but theatre can serve a different purpose. It has the ability to demonstrate different realities to both audience and actor. Music’s opportunities rather lie in providing the values and theatre´s in the setting for an effective peace promotion through art. This notion is picked up again with the idea of “the potential for cultural activities to reinforce the effectiveness of conflict resolution programs. This potential can be realized at two levels: first, at the macro- level by nourishing the more long- term evolution of peace values embedded in the idea of a global peace culture and, second, at the micro- level by the inclusion of cultural projects in the strategies of conflict prevention and peacebuilding.” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, Miall 2011: 356). They
acknowledge the use of art projects not only on a micro- level where actual art-peace projects can be conducted in a physical way. They also suggest that cultural projects can affect the macro- level through influencing ideas and values embedded in art and history proves them right.
To summarize this section, it is possible to say that music has been presented as being powerful, but like any other power the nature of its effects varies. Further the literature mentioned the uniting quality of harmony in music groups and the way in which it can cooperate with peace. Theatre is described as adding another dimension to the cooperation of art and peace. It adds a demonstrating, visionary power. It can paint another reality and address issues in another way. Both music and theatre are able to promote each other or address issues on a level that is closer to the human heart and yet more detached from the conflict issues.
Peace Education
As there are many different approaches and definitions of peace education, it is necessary to see which fits best into the field of art and peace. What general goals and
structures are compatible with goals and structures of performing arts group experiences? The first one of Harris and Morrison is a rather established and thought through approach that I used to define some general goals of peace education. I lean on Galtung, again, who is a very established peace and conflict theorist, to give his notion of an effective peace education structure. To show that there are different goals and structures I chose UNICEF as a third notion. This one is much less strict and structured than the others and I found it necessary to include, because there are many things that the stricter, more elaborated kinds of peace education can do, that performing art groups alone never could provide. To identify my intersections later on, I felt the need to illustrate some finer and less systematic, more idealistic notions.
The general peace education objectives in Peace Education Second Edition Ian M. Harris and Mary Lee Morrison seem to be reaching from personal development issues to the teaching of international political processes and their theoretical basis (Harris, Morrison 2003: 32). It immediately becomes clear, that the engagement in a mere art group can meet some but most likely not all of those objectives. Within the very same book however Harris and
Morrison mention five other principles, which appear much more to the purpose and applicable to the situation this research is focusing on. “Peace Education (1) builds a democratic community (2) teaches cooperation (3) develops moral sensitivity (4) promotes critical thinking and (5) enhances self-esteem” (Harris, Morrison 2003: 213) in order to promote peace, especially in a classroom. Those five principles are applicable to a performing art group and possibly comparable to the experiences of my subjects. They lack the whole international and conceptual dimension and are putting the focus on personal development, which is the dimension that appears to be the intersecting component with performing arts.
Those objectives are compatible with some structural guidelines of Johan Galtung’s. His reflections on peace education also mainly focus around teaching peace in schools. However, in Encyclopedia of peace education he acknowledges that most school systems engage in some sort of structural violence such as “highly vertical division of labor manifesting itself in one-way communication; the fragmentation of those on the receiving end, preventing them from developing horizontal interaction that will allow them to organize and eventually turn the communication flow the other way; and the absence of true
multilateralism in the education endeavor” (Galtung 2008: 51) which would counteract any attempt at peace education. In contrast to Morrison and Harris, however, his focus lies on structural components that promote or hinder the peace education process. He describes the content of peace education rather as a dialogue, leading to action. He agrees that one step should involve the display of knowledge about the facts of the world related to peace. After that however the students should be able to imagine their own concrete utopia of what the world should look like. Both the knowledge of the world and the values of the utopia should then be openly criticized, discussed and compromised so that the students are enabled to make concrete proposition of reaching the utopia. Most importantly, this should lead to some sort of peace action in the end (Galtung 2008: 52ff), which is hardly imaginable in a classroom. This view on peace education is much less strictly bound to a classroom. To the contrary, he even thinks classrooms are rather impracticable and not really to the purpose. It does however also include the actual teaching of knowledge in addition to the encouragement of developing thoughts and peace action. He also reflects upon the past, when peace studies were thought merely through the ideas and actions of great men like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Peace studies today however must include the study structure (Galtung 2008: 55).
Susan Fountains of UNICEF however has a far less strict approach to peace education regarding both its goals and its structure. Fountain defines peace education for UNICEF as “the process of promoting the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to bring about behavior changes that will enable children, youth and adults to prevent conflict and violence, both overt and structural; to resolve conflict peacefully; and to create the conditions
conducive to peace, whether at an intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, national or international level” (Fountain 1999: 1). She seems to merely see peace education as an umbrella term for guiding skills and values that summarize the work of peace education. Peace education to her is the general promotion of skills, knowledge and attitudes. At first there is no structural consideration mentioned, nor a concise goal definition. So this definition appears a little more elusive at first, but is described further in the following. It appears that developing awareness of critical situations and the will to take action to avoid or resolve them, the ability to reflect critically upon own actions, the provision of a peaceful and respectful environment, equality, tolerance, understanding of peace, human rights and social justice and possibly global political issues, knowing how to act in violent or conflict
situations, respect of differences, promoting peace and social justice values enable reflection and the practice of the learned skills, values and attitudes (Fountain 1999: 1ff, 5f). All those
skills that peace education in her opinion should promote as its one goal, agree with Harris and Morrison’s notion, but leave the interpretation far more open, so that one might imagine that almost all of them lean towards personal development rather than international politics issues. This rather less strict notion of the issue agrees with Galtung and might be compatible with his structural considerations. As there are no executive considerations mentioned, this approach might in reality easily drift into a direction that Galtung would not approve as peace education.
Although they differ in their minutiae; most peace education definitions include the development of skills, attitudes and values in a safe, peaceful environment. Those values and attitudes mostly rely on existing peace definitions, theoretical knowledge and the skills needed for peacebuilding or peacekeeping. Peace education includes mutual learning
processes that promote openness, tolerance, understanding and appreciation of diversity and differences in culture or religion, personal development, intercultural friendship, respect, and the culture of peace. The approaches differ, however, in their execution as well as in the further definition of the skills, values and attitudes mentioned. The examples I chose differ a lot which is why I decided to take them representative of the whole field. While Harris and Morrison mainly focus on a classroom kind of environment and developed a sound
curriculum that involves much more than the mere suggestion of values, the UNICEF notion of Susan Fountain would define almost any kind of institution or project as peace education, that’s object it is to promote peace values to some extent. Both approaches can benefit from Galtung’s structural suggestions to improve the process. Even in a classroom setting like suggested by Harris and Morrison, mutual learning would be beneficial to the personal development. It is not necessarily contradictory, but such an environment would be rather more difficult to obtain. The intersections with performing art that I am looking for, suggest that the focus of this research should rest within the aspects of personal development of skills and attitudes rather than the actual teaching of international politics and peace theory. As this research is trying to identify mechanisms and their effects that promote peace education, the structural suggestions seem to be important. It still seems difficult to imagine, how such a mutual learning environment is created.
Positive Peace
It appears important to look into what peace is in order to understand the goals of peace education. If peace education teaches peace and peace studies, I have to ask what kind of peace within peace studies can be met in performing art experiences. I decided to compare the
quotes with the extreme, the most pure kind of peace, positive peace, in order to set no
previous limits to the extent of peace that can be described by my participants, despite the fact that it might be an unreachable ideal. As this research is not exactly focusing on an area where there is actual direct violence or conflict, so focusing on seeking what is already existent would not be much to the purpose either. The goals of peace education and the effects of performing art that this research is looking at are (within the setting that I have chosen) both going to aim at creating more peaceful individuals. It seems debilitating to set limits to the effects of those attempts beforehand. I decided to focus on two very established authorities on the subject. One of them is considered rather a theorist and the other an activist. Johan Galtung is often referred to as the father or founder of peace studies and therefore seemed the most eligible choice for me. He however often stretches the importance of not only theory but action and I therefore decided to also focus on some ideas of one of the, or probably the most popular peace activist of all times: Mahatma Gandhi.
Galtung refers to peace rather as the absence of direct violence. Positive peace, which he also describes as social justice is therefore moreover the absence of both direct (or personal) violence and structural violence. Briefly described, the absence of direct violence would be the absence of war and physical harm and “the absence of structural violence is what we have referred to as social justice, which is a positively defined condition (egalitarian distribution of power and resources)” (Galtung 1969: 183). Later on, in 1990, he adds the concept of Cultural Violence to his spectrum of the different types of violence, which also contributes to a more comprehensive perspective on peace (Galtung 1990). In “Social Cosmology and the Concept of Peace”, Johan Galtung presents several concepts of peace of different cultures throughout history. He states that the definition of peace can involve
different concepts from security through military forces over “justice and prosperity, harmony in society, between human beings, and in the mind, inside human beings” (Galtung 1981: 195) to Gandhi’s approach of loving your enemy (Galtung 1981: 195).
Gandhi also divides between different forms of peace. His concept of “ahimsa” (non-violence) however goes a little further. “In its negative form, it means not injuring any living being, whether by body or mind … In its positive form, ahimsa means the largest love, the greatest charity. If I am a follower of ahimsa, I must love my enemy. I must apply the same rule to the wrong-does who is my enemy or a stranger to me, as I would to my wrong-doing father or son. This active ahimsa necessarily includes truth and fearlessness“(Gandhi 1996: 40). He agrees that in the positive kind of non-violence, everybody should be treated equally
but is not satisfied with harmony. He requires love. He believes that “Non-violence is a perfect state. It is a goal towards which all mankind moves naturally though unconsciously” (Gandhi 1996: 41). It appears he endeavors to believe that non-violence is within human capacity but that most of us (or all of us) are not yet able to reach it in our present state of existence.
They both agree that the avoidance of any kind of violence or antipathy alone can be called positive non-violence or peace. This can only be worked on through bringing people together in mutual respect of one another or even love. The above established goals of peace education work towards that goal. The intersections of peace and peace education with performing art group experiences that this research is trying to detect will therefore lie in the promotion of tolerance, openness, differences, friendship, respect, acceptance and affection through mutual learning processes.
Art and Peace in practice
In complement to Ramsbotham’s, Woodhouse’s and Miall’s notion of the demonstrating power of theatre, The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra might be an example for music possessing such a power. “The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra - founded in 1999 by Daniel Barenboim with the support of Edward W. Said in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict - brings together young Arabs, Jews and Spaniards for a workshop and concert tour every year. It displays a tension between repertoire (exclusively the Western classical tradition) and marketing (as an expression of inter-cultural dialogue)” (Willson 2009: 347). Although celebrated for its unique and brave efforts in demonstrating the overcoming of cultural differences through harmony, however, it “is not alone in its endeavor to promote Western classical music while highlighting global concerns, and its apparent ‘harmony’ is in line with the putative ‘peace’ of comparable orchestral initiatives” (Willson 2009: 319).
Another example of peace work using art is the Richmond Youth Peace Project (RYPP), which was founded in 2004 by the Richmond Peace Education Center after some violent attacks in Richmond, Virginia. (Scharf, Bhagat 2007: 379). Young people of different cultural backgrounds learn about conflict resolution and leadership skills and in the end “develop their capacity for creative self-expression as a means to develop and publicly
articulate their own views on violence, its causes, and solutions” (Scharf, Bhagat 2007: 379f). This is achieved through different activities including music and poetry. The Richmond Peace Education Center states this in “Arts and Peace Education: The Richmond Youth Peace
Project” and endeavors to reinforce the argument by quoting poetry and briefly describing personal experiences.
Although the field appears to be wide, the accomplishments of such work are not often systematically studied and written down. Jonathan White from Search for Common Ground and Cynthia E. Cohen from the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University collaborated in summarizing the conversations of a conference in November 2011. “Common Ground, the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University and the Alliance for Peacebuilding convened a gathering at the United States Institute of Peace to explore how work at the nexus of arts, culture and peacebuilding could be strengthened. Seventeen people attended with ties to academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and national and international organizations in both the arts/culture and peace sectors” (Cohen, White 2012: 3). They mainly state the four key assumptions of the conference which are, that “art and cultural work can be crafted to make unique and significant contributions to peacebuilding, conflict transformation, community development and social justice” (Cohen, White 2012: 4); that it is a rapidly growing field which produces “a need to not only support ‘mature’ arts-based peacebuilding interventions, but also to build field-wide capacities in such work” (Cohen, White 2012: 4). Further the discussion assumed that much “of this work is impressive for its aesthetic quality and its socio-political efficacy. Overall, however, the quality of the work varies greatly and on some occasions even exacerbates violence. Initiatives at the nexus of arts, culture and peacebuilding could be strengthened by processes and structures generally associated with field-building such as, opportunities to share learning and best practices; articulation of shared standards and understandings of excellence and effectiveness;
strengthened documentation and increased critical self-reflection; and mechanisms to protect those who put themselves at risk doing such work" (Cohen, White 2012: 4f). The final assumption states that today “very few peacebuilding/arts initiatives are resourced at a level that is sustainable and that allows practitioners to build relationships over time and to engage in best practice” (Cohen, White 2012: 14). There is a lot to be done in the field they say, especially in enabling projects and researchers to learn from each other in order to enable progress. Therefore experiences should be evaluated, compared and documented so that common standards can be found and initiatives can start to learn from each other to enable progress and improve safety and effectiveness (Cohen, White 2012: 6ff).
There are also many other, less acknowledged projects that impact their local social surroundings. Some of the people I interviewed for this thesis, for example, have been
affiliated with art projects that are in some way associated with political issues, even if only as a sub focus. Both the stage art school Academy and the choir Erich-Fried-Chor have been influencing generations of young people in Berlin so far. Their agendas are, as far as I know, not officially related to peace keeping organizations or research. Yet the choir is to my knowledge singing at several historically and politically affiliated occasions, raising
awareness for political issues like racism or the treatment of refugees in Berlin and constantly encouraging its participants to engage in political discussions. Academy has no primarily political agenda either but merely includes the encouragement of multiculturalism and multicultural encounters into to its objectives. Those two art projects have been my point of departure for finding interviewees for this study as well.
Method
As this research is studying personal perception of experiences, I chose a qualitative method. A mixed method might have been efficient as well and it might have been possible to account for the findings of this research with more accuracy than with a qualitative method only. As I was most interested in personal perceptions in comparison with theory, I believed it would not have been useful to divide the focus away from individual narrations. To include measurable data on the subject might be the work of a further study on a larger scale.
This thesis was inspired by the empirical phenomenological approach of Cark Moustakas’ comprising writings in Phenomenological Research Method, which
acknowledges the importance and scientific value of experiences and personal reflections as data (Moustakas 1994: 21). In order to gain a deeper understanding of processes he suggests looking at personal reflections through analyzing what was experienced and how it was perceived. Especially perceptions always differ because everybody has a different frame of references according to their different situation and everything they ever experienced. Everybody has his or her own truth and only the own truth is the true one (Moustakas 1994: 12ff, 70f). Moustakas therefore suggests to obtain statements through open-ended questions and dialogue with participants first and then reflect upon, analyze and interpret this data in order to be able to try to detect and describe structures (Moustakas 1994: 13).
These reflections inspired me to decide upon semi-structured interviews as a method to gain a deeper understanding of performing art processes in a group and find some level of common truth to compare with the literature. Aiming at confronting existing literature with individual opinions and experiences, it appears most to the purpose to directly ask people
about their experiences. By that, it is possible to gain direct insight into people’s experiences, believes, thoughts and feelings on the subject. To do so, this research will conduct semi-structured interviews. The interview questions will be treated as guidelines, guiding the discussion. Thereby the outcome will be structured, but not sacrifice too much of the interviewees’ individuality.
In Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design John W. Creswell describes the steps of data collection for qualitative research. This study’s method is conducted around Creswell’s deliberations on the snowball or chain strategy of purposeful data collection (Creswell 2012: 158ff) and the various activities needed for conducting interviews (Creswell 2012: 163ff). Therefore I first decided upon a number of open ended questions, on whom to interview and how to do so. I formed the questions upon deliberation of the theory section and adapted them after conducting a pilot study with a focus group of 4 people. I conducted one-on-one interviews. I used Academy and the Erich-Fried-Chor as a part of departure for the snow ball system, because I was in contact with participants of both organizations and knew they were artists in the first place, but have some slight allusions to social or political opinion making within their work as described earlier. Although the objection of this study is primarily to look on how art groups alone can contribute to peace work without decidedly aiming at doing so, I chose those points of departure because it makes it more likely for participants to have
thought upon the issue already, which might increase the level of reflection. I visibly recorded every interview with my phone after asking the consent of the participant(s) and used the questions as guidelines for my semi-structured interviews. Every recording started with a short description of my work and ended with me asking for the interviewee’s
agreement to use the interview for my research and possibly the interviewee’s name. For the interview location, I tried to adapt as much as possible to the interviewees preferences and possibilities, which meant the places differed from dance studios and homes to cafés or campuses. By following Creswell’s last point of order in conducting interviews: to stick to “good interview procedures”, I increasingly improved my interviewing skills throughout the empirical data collection (Creswell 2012: 166).
The data collection for this research is obtained through semi-structured interviews and dialogues with young people in Berlin who are engaging or have been engaging in performing art groups. I am questioning the interviewees on what their experiences in performing art groups were. All my participants are around 20 years old and have had experiences with music, acting and/or dancing groups. I chose Berlin for several reasons. As a native speaker it
is certainly easier and to the benefit of the research that I conduct the interviews in German. Berlin itself bares a lot of cultural diversity. Further, I am familiar with the social and cultural setting and environment of Berlin and the previously mentioned organizations which I believe will benefit my understanding of the interviewees. I have several contacts to people who know people in choirs and dance groups and to a performing arts school. Therefore I am able to use my existing contacts as point of departure for the snowball system I intend to use.
Every interviewee will be asked questions along the lines of these:
What experiences do you have with performing arts?
o Do you remember a situation that was important to you? o What aspects of the work or the group were important to you?
How was your group experience?
o Did the group work well together socially? Why, why not? o What did you socially learn from the group experience?
What did you gain from the experience?
o For your social life? Do you approach people differently? (Are you less prejudiced/ more open?)
o Do you think there are aspects in performing art that could possibly help you learn values? (like openness, tolerance, harmony, respect, understanding) The first question is aiming at getting people to talk and collect narrations of their experiences. It also serves to learn more about their background in the field of performing art. Its two sub-questions can be used to forward the conversation in case it is needed. The second big question is aiming at moving the discussion towards social relations. I decided to focus on group experiences because there possible effects of creative work immediately display
themselves. So this question asks people to reflect upon group dynamic processes. The second sub question here “What did you socially learn from the group experiences”, is already
leading over to the next big question about possible benefits of performing art. The last big question therefore aims at learning about what people were able to learn apart from the arts. Here I will try to be careful to enable people to critically reflect. If they enjoyed their experiences, they might be led to idealize some of their experiences. I will try and have people reflect upon social values they gained from performing art experiences in groups, but at the same time try and ask them to be critical about what exactly forwarded the process or what hindered it. It helps if people are able to compare different experiences of different performing art groups. I am however only asking for people’s perception and people’s opinions on mechanisms and processes. I am aware that their subjective reflections of effects are neither measurable in the course of this research nor universally true or reliable.
for them too. From the answers I will develop 3 categories to analyze. This analysis will be compared to the literature.
Empirical material
This section is to provide an overview over the interviews I conducted after doing my pilot study with a group of two male and two female actors and singers, some of whom had experiences with Academy.
I have been affiliated with Academy myself five years ago, which helped me to get in contact with some participants. Therefore let me write a few more words about it. Academy is a stage art school in Berlin, an afternoon program that teaches singing, dancing and acting twice a week for one or two years, and besides has a multicultural encounter component, which made it interesting for this study as a sort of slight additional interview focus. It is located in a rich multicultural area in Berlin. Five of the 13 interviewees have been involved with Academy among other things. All of those five people however do also have other experiences with music, dancing or theater groups and are able to compare differences. Also three of my interviewees are taking part in the Erich-Fried-Chor, the choir I mentioned earlier. Another reason for the choice of collection was that people that have been involved in
Academy or the Erich-Fried-Chor might be supposed to have touched upon the field of art and social or political issues from an artist’s perspective to some extent. They might have thoughts on it without having actually touched upon theoretical work of peace and conflict studies, peace research, peace education or writings on art and peace to an extend that it might have influenced their reflections on their experiences. This might help them to reflect deeper and more critically about this and other experiences and at the same time they have an artist’s perspective on the issue which was the interviews objective. As mentioned before, I was not able to interview an equal distribution of male, female, dancers, musicians and actors. Most of my participants are musicians and females. However many of them have multiple experiences with performing arts. I will therefore not attempt to draw too strong conclusions on the
difference between the disciplines or the perceptions of people of different gender. Therefore I decided to shift the focus of attention for this research a little more towards music, not because I disrespect theatre or dancing as a useful performing art in peace work, merely because I am afraid of misrepresenting them due to lack of material and space. In the interviews, I asked people about their experiences in general, about group dynamics, thinks they learned and gained from the experiences that influenced their social interactions or
personal development and tried to enable them to reflect critically on those issues. I noticed that people’s answers were much more elaborated if I gave them a moment to reflect after I told them about my research and asked them to participate. Also people that had been involved with art organizations or projects that had some sort of political or multicultural agenda like Academy or the Choir had longer answers too. I also noticed what Moustacas describes, that some people perceived rather similar experiences in very different ways and accounted for them or interpreted them differently.
After conducting, transcribing, and reading the interviews I tried to summarize the main issues that were mentioned in a chart (which is not to be seen as part of any method, merely as an overview). Here is a simplified version of it:
experiences factors that were considered important for the experience people F/M music acting dancing leader group experience goals atmospher exercises
Maria f x x x Johanna f x x x x Robin m x x x Johannah f x x x Paul m x x x x x Jessica f x x x Christian m x x x x x Dana f x x x A.F.S. f x x x x Solange f x x x x x Tina f x x x x x x Leila f x x x x x x Karim m x x x x x
It merely states in what art people had experiences and some of the subjects they were talking about. As I mainly wanted to find out about similarities and differences to the
literature, the subjects I focused on were those that they mentioned as important factors that can influence the feeling of the group, the creative process and the experience and therefore might be important to consider for the success of art and peace projects too. Through this overview I developed the themes of discussion for the analysis. Leaning on Moustacas imaginative variation, I chose three structural themes out of those conversations that I will focus on some more. The themes of the chart were my start of departure; however, all of them are somehow linked to one another. Some of them are important for all the others and some are more important than others. This is only the general notion I got from the interviews through. They all are obviously differently important to different interviewees. I noticed that the feeling and the leader of the group were mentioned most during the interviews. They also depend on each other and influence the whole experience, the atmosphere and the creative process. Also one subject that is not in the chart became apparent to me only when reflecting on the interviews. The concept of individual versus the group that might not be too important to the broader implications of the subject art and peace however was a subject that some people during the interviews were very critical about and I therefore decided to include it nonetheless for sake of discussion. So in the end I decided on those themes: (1) the
atmosphere or environment, (2) the group, (3) the self. Through them I believe it is possible to cover many other aspects like the influence of the leader and aspects that help or counteract overcoming differences and bringing people together. There are, I believe, countless ways of approaching the interviews I conducted. This is what I myself rendered most reasonable, interesting and practical for this research.
Analysis
This section will be summarizing some of the general notions that came up during the interviews and then compare them to the findings of the theory section. The purpose of this will be to find some answers to the operational as well as the research question of this thesis.
The Interviews
This section will focus on the themes I derived from the interviews: (1) the atmosphere or environment, (2) the group, (3) the self. First, this section will focus on elements of which an environment or atmosphere consists that people described as productive for creative work and social wellbeing of the group. This I think can help understand needs for an environment in which art could work for peace or peace education. Then I will focus on processes of creative group work that according to people’s statements were important to the group
becoming a group and learning and growing together. In the end I will focus on another theme that came up and that impressed me: The concept of individuals within, with and against a group. Some people mentioned, when comparing different creative experiences they had, how selfishness of one person or competitiveness between people can make a big difference in both the creative and the personal development outcome of such an experience. Therefore I wanted to look into that as well.
The Environment, the Atmosphere
The first theme that this section introduces is the Atmosphere. The atmosphere to my interviewees seemed to be dependent on the structure and organization of the group work. Galtung, as explained earlier, reckons the structural setting as crucial for the peace education process as well. When comparing different experiences of their own, many people mentioned that the environment they worked in was essential to both the success of the production of creative work and the promotion of openness, tolerance or respect. The composition of this environment or atmosphere was during the interviews often associated with the leader of the group or people in charge. They have the ability to determine the level of control and trust under which the creative work is done as well as to serve as a role model in a way that is setting the guidelines for the atmosphere of the creative project. There are different teaching stiles and philosophies as to what stile of teaching and what amount of control and leisure produces best creative outcomes. If the leader of a group is for instance judging a lot, it will counteract the group’s process of overcoming differences. A leader can promote a more competitive environment that counteracts trust and openness as well.
“It’s because the teachers set an example too” (Johanna).
If people are able to feel the leaders trust, if they notice that their opinions are taken seriously or for instance are trusted to be able to develop some little scene or dialogue on their own, they felt it promotes trust within the group as well. If everyone’s opinion is important to the leader it becomes important to the whole group and enables people to learn something from everyone. To not immediately reject ideas, was considered as promoting a mutual learning process. Not rejecting is very important to theatre in general. In improvised theater there is the concept of “saying yes”. It is also frequently used for all kinds of brainstorming. It means to let people contribute whatever comes to their minds and try to reframe from
“I still remember one creating process when I was 13, 14 at the rhythmic gymnastics where I was told: you cannot reject everything, you need to have a counter-proposal. And I believe that influenced me. Well I'm still someone who is fast in complaining but back then I really took it to heart” (Dana).
Obviously, if people are improvising a scene and one partner is expressing a desire to climb a skyscraper within a scene, the other one does point out the risks and impossibilities; you say ‘Yes’ and then deal with your fears. The reason for that is that the scene would be terribly boring if people are always just discussing impossibilities. It would lead nowhere. The effect however is even greater than an interesting scene. It directly supports Lederachs notion of an open minded creative process and is one of the aspects of a creative process from which reconciliation can benefit (Lederach 2005: 159). It also bares the possibility to
counteract hasty judgments and promotes people’s self-confidence so that they are able to express themselves entirely and not hold back or hide for fear of being judged.
“That everyone is accepted and everyone can contribute his part and that it always results in something big in the end. No matter who you are, and that is just what I admire of the art, that it doesn’t matter but that you just, simply surrender without being judged by some strict criteria” (Karim).
When this attitude is adopted in everyday life, it may counteract prejudices. Not to be judged in the eyes of my interviewees, gives people the opportunity to gain trust in them through the opportunity of being open without risk and getting positive feedback. This has a value not only for the group’s harmony but can have an impact on people’s behavior towards the outside world too. This can give people the confidence to experience themselves and learn that there is no need to fear judgment.
“When I was younger I once sang a solo in the choir and just felt totally, totally, very badly insecure and said I will never sing solo again. And only much later – well that was when I was perhaps 12 or so right? – and only with 15, 16 or so I actually got positive feedback so that people somehow said: oh, that’s totally great and important that you're here and you sing absolutely beautifully" (AFS).
The same notion was one of the two things most of my interviewees mentioned they gained from their experiences with performing art group. Apart from gaining general openness many of them said they feel that they gained the idea of not judging a book by its cover. Some however acknowledged that judging is not such an easy thing to reframe from.
“That you cannot immediately categorize people, which you still do, I do it too, but I try to do it less. Naturally doesn’t work, but you can try” (Johanna).
While many agreed that the experience made them more open or that creative group processes have that power in general, some consider openness a requirement as well.
“It depends, for example if I am an established listener of classic music I might not open up to the modern hip-hop culture. But even for that there are attempts at building bridges.
Especially subject opera and modern productions, huge conflict potential. But I believe you either have to possess this openness to some extend beforehand or have somebody, for example a teacher who leads you there, right” (Maria)?
People who are very intolerant to begin with, or very shy; will probably not choose to attend such a group at all. There is a limitation to the use of arts in promoting openness and tolerance in the reachability of the audience. A save trustful environment that promotes openness and reframes from judgment was one of the most important preconditions for a successful creative process to the people I talked to. This, they said can be influenced to a great extent by the group as well as the leader of it. A leader can do much more however. Some interviewees pointed out how a group can adopt even political opinions of its leader to some extent.
“The choir was founded by Andreas Bunckenburg who, before he became a teacher, actually wanted to become a musician, and who definitely has a clear notion of how he would like to live, with also politically ideas, but above all - and this is my interpretation of it - who just has clear values and morals that he is passing on and that we live together” (Maria).
Though this indicates, that the leader of a performing art group for young people is holding a power position with certain responsibilities, this power can also further contribute to the group atmosphere. A leader can introduce structure like for instance democratic structures of decision making, that combined with openness can contribute to Galtung’s idea of
introducing an open structure for peace education too (Galtung 2008: 55).
“Here in this choir, we also do extremely many rounds of discussions and something with sheets of paper, I don’t know what it’s called (…) Well democracy naturally helps the group in a way that everyone feels recognized and everyone feels that he can contribute” (AFS).
The Group
The strength of the group’s community is considered another key aspect of the success of both the creative work and its possible social implications. Inter-human interactions within a group may overcome cultural or ideological differences or prejudices or possibly even promote values in an art and peace project. While the group was considered as influencing the atmosphere and vice versa, both are under the power of the leader and both determine the outcome of the projects. Some people mentioned that trips were what strengthened the group’s community the most. They felt that being thrown together and being forced to spend time with each other forces also to deal with differences and get to know people. It also often forces to overthrow previous judgments of people. This again is something that can become very useful in the real world. Many people mentioned it I suppose because the experience of overthrowing prejudices is a rather strong one, because having to do so surprises. Therefore it often stuck with them and they learn to try to rethink previous judgments.
“One should not rely on stereotypes and that in a way there is something special in everyone” (Robin).
“There are still people with great prejudices against others. You just can never quite
overcome this. But because for example, we had joint rehearsal days where we spent together all day or rehearsal trips for 3 or 4 days where we even spend our breaks together, eat together and in the evenings play games together and find ourselves in groups together. You just can separate yourself entirely and I think automatically develop a kind of tolerance that actually increases because you realize differences in simple things like, oh, he likes classic music, still maybe he is not that bad just because of that” (Paul).
Another strong and often mentioned notion was the importance of working towards the same goal. People felt that when you realize similarities, especially one that is as real and present as working for the same goal, you are just drawn together and tend to forget what divides you.
“Then you realize, yes, you have the same interests, can be good in most cases but can also be bad, but I think that's a big advantage to achieve something through similarities. At
Academy the goal is the stage performance in the end of the year together and because of that I would say that it is not at all difficult because you have a common goal and you want work on it together. So it would be foolish to work against each other. Of course in the beginning there is this examining each other and probably envy but I think that when you realize you
work for a common cause that people start reaching out to one another and in a way have to, no matter what differences there are” (Solange).
This process is not restricted to creative processes but can be intensified through feelings that are given to the importance of personal expression in front of an audience. “Especially in the choir, we just went to many competitions and had many concerts also but the competitions just glued us together if you want to achieve something you got to work towards it together. And then actually winning a first prize internationally is really something, something that sticks with you. Yes” (Johannah).
At an afternoon project like most of the ones that my interviewees participated in, there are similarities beforehand like taste and interests. At the Erich-Fried-Chor Choir, people share political opinions to some extend even, and at Academy, people of different cultural background are chosen in the first place. There are always cultural and educational
differences as well as differences of appearances and opinions. The more open you get with each other, the more differences you inevitably detect. Although at some point being different and open about it might become a similarity again.
“Simply the fact that we were all a little crazy, and I think, that just naturally caused mutual attraction” (Solange).
Some people mentioned simple preconditions however. An environment that promotes the appreciation of differences for instance obviously needs first of all differences.
”I believe it takes some preparation to let oneself get involved with anything. Because we just grow up with certain things. We coin our ear and just have preferences and that is fine and it requires tolerance and a certain willingness to discover new things” (Maria).
As performing art is mostly and many would say also needs to be done on a voluntary basis this might turn out to be a problem for the success of art and peace projects. If people have different opinions or origins and prejudices for instance, why would they agree to dance, sing or play together? The influence of the leader is important here, too. While he or she can promote competition within the group through pointing out personal weaknesses in order to promote personal excellence, a leader can also try and promote the appreciation of
individuality.
“Theater made on an entirely free level, simply on a basis of trust. The teachers encounter you with a lot of trust. This I think enables young people to create some sort of freedom in the
art and also so much joy at creating. Simply because they are not put under pressure and thus have beautiful results (...) And in my musical education for example, it was the opposite. There was hardly any group companionship because it had a lot to do with competitions and who is better and thus, I think, the art suffers a lot” (Leila).
There are different opinions, I believe, as to which one of those teaching styles are best for the quality of the performance, it is easy to conjecture however which is best to promote the appreciation of differences. Certain exercises, that are mostly introduced through the leaders as well, can promote trust and openness, which are both essential to the group’s feeling of community as well.
“These exercise where you have to work together with a partner. You have to stand in behind each other and the one in front closes his eyes and lets himself fall and has to trust that the partner he doesn’t even know all that much, actually catches him. That was pretty intense because it needed a lot for me to trust somebody I don’t know” (Karim).
“And if you can’t say it with words, than perhaps through exercises, though I put my hand on your shoulder or you’re smiling at me or what Eliane (one of her teachers) always does: The thing with holding each other’s hands and leaning backwards. There you have to actually focus a lot to not fall over” (Johanna).
Exercises can also define the atmosphere of the experience again by encouraging trust, reflection, democracy or involvement but also the feeling of the group. Performing art in a group require some sort of feeling for the group and its dynamics.
“You often just do exercises that are just totally embarrassing. But then everybody does them. And since you don’t laugh at somebody because ‘Ha, what strange breathing exercises are you doing’ or ‘What are you doing with your face’, but you do them together. So it’s no longer embarrassing and then, I don’t know, intolerance isn’t able to arise at all. Because we are all equally stupid, we all look equally dumb and everyone does the same. That naturally promotes the group’s community immensely” (Tina).
“Exercises that appear perfectly simple. For example all walk through the room and focus at one point, everybody has a different one. You don’t focus as a group. But you focus on
something and walk towards it. Still you will never get into somebody else’s way or crush into somebody, because you still keep a feeling for the group and you feel the group despite your personal focus. And it has to be the same with the work you create on stage. That you have your own focus but still see the whole group” (Leila).
This “feeling the group” and notion of harmony is another element that some people mentioned. Music especially is said to promote every kind of harmony like Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall suggested too (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, Miall 2011: 349). A group needs harmony to produce a harmonious sound. Some people described how learning about the importance of listening may improve social skills.
“On the one hand listening to one another, on the other hand expressing myself through music and listen to music differently not as mere entertainment like elevator music but actually as a great source of ideas and communication. So listening to each other,
communicating with each other, understanding are somehow basic requirements to enjoy living with his fellows human beings” (Maria).
“Especially playing in an ensemble generally extremely promotes the interpersonal. You just have to listen to each other, right? You can’t always be in front but as instrumentalist or vocalist depended on which chord or orchestra, you must be able to really integrate into the group and play with the others and not try to fight for yourself. This is also very beneficial for the group dynamic. On the one hand channeling your emotions through music, letting out what is inside you and expressing it through music. I think this is first benefit and on the other hand maybe the interplay with one another, listening to one another, considering one another is also an important subject within an orchestra. Otherwise you are not able to create a sound. You can’t transmit the music and I think all this promotes the social behavior of children too” (Jessica).
The Self
Performing art has a lot to do with ambition and self-presentation. Some of my participants felt that this in itself can sometimes be corrupting the atmosphere as well as the group community.
“If you're constantly getting pushed into the background and have no option present yourself at all. Because I think, well that's just normal when you enter such a group, then not because you want to shyly stand behind the curtain. And, if you just get pushed away repeatedly, then I can imagine that the feeling increases. Then one wants to somehow prove oneself more than ever. So if you just are under the impression that your efforts or talents are not accepted or you can’t show them, I can imagine that such a feeling develops” (Tina).
Especially musicians seem to do so out of rather selfish reasons according to some people I talked to.
