1. Modes of Leadership

Planting  Seeds
We began by setting broad goals for the Movement Minyan as it moved into its second semester of existence - namely that we wanted to use it to create an ecstatic communal experience, surface new ideas in relation to prayer and G-d, use the body to answer questions, and ensure people left the Minyan with a sense of a quality they want to recreate in their personal and communal prayer experiences.


Collective Action
Some of the experiences Adina and I discussed working with this semester included exploring in the dark with the body, doing partner poses, and guiding intense meditation sessions.  We also explored the idea of bringing in another Contact Improvisation exercise that involved the whole room moving and each person being responsible to respond.  Continuing to delve into our own experiences of ecstatic movement, we talked about my
experience, at Burning Man, of a Playa-wide ecstatic dance, and the particular power of large self-organized groups dancing in public, and in several places at the same time.


Moving Like a School of Fish
The Monkey Chant was another activity organized at one of the theme camps at Burning Man that created a sense of organized movement - one in which the participants didn't know what was coming since the leaders of this dance are in the center of the room, in a circle, facing concentric circles of participants.  In describing this experience, Adina and I realized it was a wonderful embodiment of Ebn's discussion of leadership styles, and, specifically, the idea of moving "like a school of fish".  At this point, we set a goal for ourselves that we would go into the week with a question to frame our session awakened.


Four Types of Communal Experience 
As we discussed what the rest of our sessions could look like, we played with the idea of slowly move from the individual to the collective.  In this schema, the four sessions in which we explored Modes of Leadership would start with the individual in the "follow-the-leader-mode"; the second session would explore "call and response" and we would be in a "circular" formation (in which there was no one leader, necessarily); the third session would be an experience of "everyone together", exploring what it means to "pray like a school of fish", and the last session would explore the mode of praying "alone together" - perhaps using darkness or blindfolds.




Outline

I. Theme (3 min)

Tefilat yachid and tefilat tzibbur - modes of leading and following
a) In what ways do these modes appear in tefilah?
b) Why are they a part of tefilah, what purpose do they serve?
c) What does it express?

II. Frame (3 min)

Exploring the role of leader and the role of follower/community. How do you feel when you're leading versus when you are following? How do you let someone lead you? What does it take for you to present in the role of follower?
Introduce warm up (allow sound to "lead" body in movement, take space and time to warm up at the pace and in the ways you need to)

III. Warm up (10 min)
People move to improvised music


IV. Tefilah (5 min)
In this session, we read Pseukei D'Zimra, frequently read by a prayer leader at his or her own pace, and led in a somewhat "frontal" style that lent itself to exploring the "follow-the-leader" mode we explored in this session.


V. Physical practice (20 min)

We used an exercise from the world of Contact Improvisation in which people pair up, place their forearms in complete contact with each other (from the elbow to near the wrist) and the partner who is "leading" the movement explores how to move through the space (walking, running, changing direction, moving on the floor and between other pairs) while both people keep this point of contact.  Halfway through the movement flow, the "leader" became the "follower" and the "follower" became the "leader".

VI. Reflection (5 min)

Any reflections?

Did anything in these exercises mirror for you a leading/following yachid/tzibbur dynamic from tefilah? How so and what did it feel like?

VII. Hand Closing (1 min)