Researching masculinity using theatre and movement practices

Between 2011-2017 I led a series of projects - theatre style workshops, development work, film, retreats - exploring masculinity. I’d spent much of the previous 20 years working as a Head of Drama in schools and colleges, so a way into this exploration for me was using theatre, voice and movement as the container and form.

I also led mixed group improv classes 2012-17, and together with the research into masculinity, this work culminated in the production of a piece of theatre 5 out of 10 men which ran at Edinburgh Fringe 2016.

Three young men are engaged in playful, close contact, with two of them leaning in towards the third, who is lying down and looking up at them, smiling.

Three women are helping a man onto a stage or platform; the scene is illuminated with red and yellow lighting, and the background is dark.

Black and white photo of a physical altercation involving multiple people wrestling or fighting with each other.

It was 2009. I was burnt out, and broken.

I’d been flying too close to the sun..

Time to come down.

“It might take 10 years Duncan” a colleague at the college I worked at said to me then. Well.. Whatever we wish to call our breakdowns, burn outs, heartbreaks, depressions, spiritual crises etc, this was kick-off.

Looking at the state of me, my colleague perceived that ‘Project Duncan’ might take a period of unravelling and re-organising. Over the next few years my identity as an inhabitant of a male body was one of the pieces that needed some attention..

A Thames Valley lower/middle class, shy white boy, I experienced many of the taboos of a modern, westernised construct of masculinity - hide yourself away when it hurts, be fearful of uncomfortable feelings, don’t show vulnerability, never admit weakness, and at all costs stay on that bus that tells you you’re important and that your life is about you..

I remember at one junction early on in my 40s, I was in a state of oncoming collapse, that I would commit to feeling, and feeling it all.

Can we willingly walk in the wilderness? Perhaps it’s easier to acknowledge if that’s where you find yourself.

A little later, as I came across the mystic poet St John of the Cross, what spoke to me about the ‘dark night of the soul’ was how this ‘night’ is an opportunity to burn away: the deep roots of our woundedness, roots we cannot actively reach and eradicate (Dark nights of the soul btw are not exclusive to being any particular age, and may continue night after night, year after year.. as long as they are needed..!)

Everything is spiritual isn’t it? All of this beautiful, mysterious, wonderful bloody mess of things.

Looking back, these innovative, courageous projects were joyful, funny, often powerfully intense experiences; exciting gatherings where groups of men, seekers all, were brave enough to gather and express their vulnerability, their strengths and tenderness; to explore their competitiveness and access their playfulness, for the sake of discovering a little more about what it meant to them, to live inside a male body.

2014 International Men’s Day Film Project. South Bank. We met in the morning at Waterloo - and I gave out the scripts! That was it. Here is a wonderfully atmospheric docu-film of the day, and how it all unravelled.

2013 DEEP DIVING MEN: Where Are We Going? a performance project. We held exploratory R&D workshops for 6 weeks and used movement, contact, original material and poems to create Where Are We Going? We performed the ‘project’ with post-show discussions at The White Bear, The Cockpit and the not sure where else but there was somewhere..!

EDINBURGH 2016 ‘5 OUT OF 10 MEN’ a physical performance exploring the disturbing male suicide rates in the UK. The dynamic show raised awareness about the state of mental health in men under the age of 35, so many of whom are still taking their lives.

2011-12 SHOULDER TO SHOULDER Workshops gathering men to share lived experience and explore different ways to encounter, feel and connect - I often used poetry to stimulate the work.

2015 DEEP DIVING ENSEMBLE: R&Ds at Drama Centre. We began to shape up the body of work. This beautiful men boiught their curiosity and willingness to trust and experiment

2015 ‘Changing Man’ Camps There were 3 gatherings of the Changing Man camps, and I worked with amazing men Matt and Jez in Exmoor and Devon. Again there’s a beautifully intimate docu-film.