We Are Many Things: Investigating a sense of shared space and questions of mixed identities in Indaba by Ayla Brinkmann

This artistic research project deals with Indaba, a performance for young audiences. Indaba is an isiZulu word for a meeting or discussion where the right people meet at the right moment to figure out things that concern them. Our performance Indaba explores questions like: How does it feel to be Finnish, or African, or both? How do many identities fit into one person? This artistic research and performance investigate important and underrepresented topics in the Finnish context: a sense of shared space and questions of mixed identities. The research question addresses shared space as follows: “What kind of tools and skills are helpful in creating a sense of shared space in a performative setting?”. The research takes a closer look at a series of five alternating and interconnected indabas and reflection sessions with the performer-trio: Pietari Kauppinen, Kasheshi Makena, and the author of this exposition. This written work also maps out some key conversations and concepts that our indaba and this artistic research connect to, such as third space and intersectionality. The main research findings are a practical tool for establishing a way of sharing space and the importance of the performer's responsibility in making meanings. Relevant skills that emerged from these findings include observation skills such as being alert and sensing what meanings things carry in the context at hand, and proactive skills such as the ability to respond in the moment.

4 FINDINGS FROM PERFORMING OUR INDABA

In this section, I will first present a concrete tool that we found useful in establishing a way of sharing space. Next, I will take a closer look at the responsibility of the performer in making meanings and discuss in more detail what kind of shared space we are after. Finally, I will identify some of the skills we feel are central to holding a shared performative space like our indaba.

4.1 A tool called “wooo” - establishing a way of sharing space

In the beginning of each indaba, we introduce the idea of encouraging your friend on stage and ask the audience to suggest some sounds for this purpose. In our fifth indaba the children came up with “wooo!”, “hurraa!”, and “hyvä!” (Finnish for “good”). We accept the suggestions and practice them together with the audience by doing a couple of repetitions of each expression of encouragement to teach our bodies and minds that this is welcome behaviour in this space, we are doing it together, and it is good.

The following video excerpt demonstrates this:

Later throughout the indaba, we performers act as an example of witnessing and encouraging your friend by listening and expressing support for each other during the performance. We also make a point of using the exact expressions suggested by the audience here and there as a reminder that this language (their own language) of encouragement is at their disposal.

In this indaba, the audience did a lot of encouraging:

Here the audience are active subjects sharing the performative space and using their voices to react to the performers and to each other mid-song and mid-dance. The shouts spread, starting with one child saying “hurraa!” and others quickly joining. A sense of shared space is present. Drawing on this, I would argue that “wooo” (a placeholder for any co-created expression of encouragement) is a helpful tool in establishing a way to share the performative space with the audience.

4.2 The responsibility of the performer in making meanings

In our third indaba, we were working with a freshly updated script for one scene which we were not quite on top of yet. The following happened:

Kasheshi follows an impulse and asks the audience if they think he looks Finnish, and the children reply a unanimous and resounding “no”. Kasheshi goes on to ask if the audience thinks he looks Tanzanian, to which the children conclude “maybe”. Kasheshi listens carefully, takes their word for it, and repeats: “So I do not look Finnish and I maybe look Tanzanian”. We skip some of the script and jump to the next part of the indaba and leave the topic at that.

I was mortified. By this I mean that I noticed in the moment that we are saying something that we don’t want to say, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

In the updated script Kasheshi asks Pietari if he thinks Kasheshi looks Finnish, to which Pietari says “yes”. The only difference this time was that Kasheshi asked the audience instead of Pietari, and of course the audience didn’t follow the script. Our aim was to suggest that there is no one right (white) appearance for a Finnish person, and that you cannot find out someone’s nationality by looking at them from the outside. We found ourselves stumbling in the opposite direction.

The statement that Kasheshi, as a black person, does not look Finnish was left hanging in the air. The notion itself was not wrong: in fact, the children pointed directly at one of the social constructs that our indaba aims to make visible and deconstruct. This interaction with the audience needed some tactful unpacking in the moment and would have required us as a trio to depart from the script, engage in the conversation on a deeper level and realign ourselves with the key messages of our indaba.

Later in our fourth reflection session, we discussed what this means from a performer’s point of view:

KASHESHI: Ya I think we need to be like AHEAD. Like if we would think we need to be like an eagle, there again high in the air. So whatever comes down, we are on it. That will keep us. But if we think like ok it’s like a discussion, now we are listening… then we’ll be always behind. So we need to be alert, like waiting.

(Brinkmann, 2025)

As performers, we cannot control how the audience perceives the performance, but we can control the practical things we say and do and how we frame these things. This power and responsibility take an especially vivid shape in this type of performative setting. In our indaba, there is room for improvisation and reacting in the moment, and at the same time, there are certain non-negotiable key ideas that we need to deliver or we might as well go home.

Once you have invited your audience to be active subjects and encouraged them to react, comment and think out loud during the performance, you are now dealing with a different kind of audience - which, in turn, might call on you to be a different kind of performer, or a performer using a different skillset. You already know the practiced material that you planned to perform, good. If we engage in making meanings collectively together with the audience, we also need to navigate and hold the shared space sensitively and responsibly.

4.3 Discussion

The story of the previous chapter and the questions that it raised showed us that we are, in fact, not interested in all kinds of experiences of shared spaces and interactions within these. More precisely, we wish to explore a guided and value-based shared space. We owe this more accurate understanding in part to the clumsy moments in our third indaba and to the awkwardness they produced. This is felt knowledge in the making.

To facilitate this kind of shared space, we need a shared understanding between our trio of what we want to do with the shared space. The following questions serve as a tool to answer this need:

Why are we here? What is it that we are doing? What are our non-negotiables? Where is our focus? What kind of things do we notice, and want to notice, when we perform?

These questions are most acute during the performance but they don’t answer themselves there. This work must be done in rehearsals. This work must be done together.

KASHESHI: It’s a conversation. Ya.

AYLA: Yeah I want to be in connection with you and I can’t practice my connection with you alone in my room.

(Brinkmann, 2025)

Being in connection is a skill that relies on trust between performers: it helps to know that if I miss a moment, my friend will guide us back on track and vice versa.

Other relevant skills emerging from these findings include observation skills such as being alert, noticing things, and sensing what meanings things carry in the context at hand, and proactive skills such as the ability to respond in the moment and act in relation to the other performers and the audience. These skills also apply to performing music and movement, not only to scripted and improvised text on stage.

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Ayla Brinkmann - We Are Many Things: Investigating a sense of shared space and questions of mixed identities in Indaba - 2025