Collecting/Gathering

The latin word 'colligere’ means ‘to tie together’. People join or gather (‘together’), single parts are added to a whole.

I collect fruits from the ground, mushrooms in the woods, chestnuts under the trees in autumn. I open my mind and collect ideas and thoughts.

People gather around a pole, an attraction, they gather in groups, swarms or crowds around a common idea, around music, a shared gesture or in interior or exterior movement.

In a group improvisation it may happen that we gather as a reaction to a stimulus, a sign, a trigger or in a process as a reactive chain or in swarm behaviour.

An interior process may be the collecting of ideas, the collecting of distracted actions. Collecting may have the meaning of concentration and deepening.

In improvisation we collect our tools and techniques in a moment of elevated attention and concentration.

Ulrike Brand