ABSTRACT
Development - The Gallery of Sculptured Monsters (group exercise) A fun, safe but powerful exercise to do in a group is as follows. Ask the group to pair up, and to number themselves person A and person B. In each pair, person A will pretend person B is a lump of clay and then mould them into someone in their childhood who was cruel to them. Person B must cooperate and hold the pose given to them. Person A then trains person B in one or two of the cruel person’s statements and gestures. Then all the sculptors move away, leaving the gallery of sculptured monsters. Declare the gallery open! In the order they choose, all the sculptors (persons A) are asked to visit each exhibit in turn, including their own. If they feel frightened they can go round the gallery in pairs. When they pull an imaginary string at the back of each of the sculptures, the monsters begin to speak and use the gestures they have been trained to do. Persons A can respond and take their power back in any way they like (but no physical attacks of course). They can tell the monsters to shut up or say whatever they like. After a while, with a drum or equivalent (or else you won’t be heard because it gets loud), declare the gallery closed. This means persons A are asked to move to the sides of the room. Dim the lights if you can. Talk the sculptures through what happens next and ask them to enact what you say. ‘In the middle of the night, the sculptures come alive and start being horrid to each other. They get increasingly horrid until eventually they explode and go into a melt-down ending as a pool of treacle on the floor.’ Persons A clap loudly. Switch roles and repeat the exercise.
