How we do it

We start with listening. We listen to our client's needs and desired outcomes, then we create a proposal based on the client's intentions and on our knowledge and experience of how people learn and function.

Our work has three fundamental components that we combine to create focused, integrated, and enlivening experiences.

Brain

Our brain is a funny organ that functions in a very specific way. How we perceive the world affects how we act in it, and the type of ideas that we create about it. Our current educational system emphasizes mostly analytical intelligence, while it is now evident that different people think in different ways, and that each person can benefit from thinking about something in many different ways, from analytical to visual to kinesthetic. If we want to stimulate new and creative thinking, we need to consider starting with a new way of perceiving things.

One of the ways we address this in our design is to include explorations of the world that de-emphasize our habitual thinking. We bring in principles from cutting edge Neuroscience research on attention, perception and learning. We utilize tools from theater improvisation, contact improvisation, and somatic research to build experiences that provide a fresh perceptual approach, stimulating creativity. Providing unusual experiences, that engage people fully, we support and promote groundbreaking thinking.

Body

We bring in the body in our explorations for many reasons. First of all because it is a part of ourselves, and a part that it is often neglected in our society. You can see a very poignant talk on this topic on TED by Ken Robinson , leading expert in education, in which he points out how our educational system forgets that we have a body. He also stresses how that might not work for the years ahead, given that we have, less than ever, any idea on how the world will be, and we will need to be able to act in the moment. Being in your body is essential for being present and alive in the moment and be able to act accordingly.

A second, equally important reason why we like to include the body is because it has its own way of thinking, through movement and we have been playing with how this inform the thinking with our brain.

Play

Playfulness is the key to successful exploration and learning. We make our work playful so that we avoid fear based reactions that bind us to habitual thinking and make us less likely to take risks. Recent research on play is showing how play has a fundamental role in human behavior in general, and in particular affects the ability to cooperate and collaborate. You can see an inspiring talk on this topic from Dr Stuart Brown again on TED.