Can we build our “Spidey Senses” via Video Conference? We Can, and I Have.

Now is the time for us to discover how to access that deeply needed interconnection.

Three weeks into Social Distancing, and eleven days into our full Shelter in Place order here in Minnesota, I am noticing some themes: People are at once relieved to see one another virtually, yet also exhausted and “Over-Zoomed” from all the frontal screen time. What’s more, I’m hearing an unquestioned belief in the conventional wisdom that technology is a poor and shallow connector. As teachers, friends, colleagues and family members, many take it on faith that we may connect online with our eyes and ears, but not our hearts; we can see and hear each other, but we simply cannot feel one another’s presence via the medium of the screen. 

This would be true if the internet were the only thing connecting us. 

But it’s not; in fact our human consciousness is indeed connected, and now is the time for us to discover how to access that deeply needed interconnection. Like in-person human connection, it needs to be intentionally facilitated in order to manifest itself. I have had the opportunity to prototype this in an online Social Presencing Theater (SPT ) group. These fellow practitioners have served as both co-experimenters and “guinea pigs” to keep tinkering with online practices in order to get to something more meaningful. And get there, we have.

Discovery Process

In the autumn of 2019, I started a U.Lab virtual hub along with fellow SPT Advanced Practitioner, Annie Blair. We intended to examine the relationship between racism and the pervasive lack of embodiment in the dominant, white culture of the United States. Our hunch was that the lack of ability to connect each of our heads to our own bodies translated into a lack of ability to connect to others, particularly others of different races and cultures. In SPT terms, lack of awareness of the Individual Body leads to lack of awareness of the Social Body. In addition, it can lead to intense discomfort with being seen as one’s authentic self, which then can translate into the phenomenon of white fragility. 

We started to work on a particular SPT practice, the Field Dance, which calls for participants to stand, one by one, and offer a gesture to their seated peers. When this practice is done in person, the “sitters” are arranged in a semicircle and the “stander” faces them as an audience. Clearly this practice allows each participant a moment of being fully seen. But the roots of this practice have as much to do with the sitters as the stander, taking on Western constructs of leadership and presentation. As the creator of the practice, Arawana Hayashi, states in the instructions:  

"Oftentimes, people standing in front of groups are leaders, teachers, entertainers. Often people who are sitting are passive receivers. The Field Dance explores the co-creative potential in groups."

And

 " . . . Each person can stand and offer their expression without being restricted by assumptions around 'performance.' Each is acting from the whole, not delivering, performing or selling something to the group. Everyone can feel confident unconditionally.”

After trying out this practice, the feedback from the group was that we each felt seen, and that it was in fact poignant to see one another in an authentic way. But - the experience of the sitter was lacking. We couldn’t feel the connected “social skin” of the semicircle the way we had in person, and it was disconcerting to see our fellow sitters frontally rather than peripherally. We were lacking the human connection as a social body. Several members noticed that they didn’t want to leave the standing space because when standing they felt connected to the group.  

In our next session, Annie and I decided to attend intentionally and directly to our horizontal connections. We focused our directions on this in each of the warm-up activities: from the grounding meditation where we asked for a heart connection radiating out sideways, to the individual and social body awareness practices where we asked for awareness to be directed first to the side-body. We asked our group to consider that all of us were seated in a circle - one so large that we could not currently touch one another physically. 

Like other “conventional wisdom,” the idea that we can’t connect if we’re not in the same room has now outlived its time and needs to go.

When we then practiced the Field Dance again, attending to the horizontal connection, the experience was palpably different. As sitters, we could feel the energy of the group holding the space of possibility to receive a gesture from each stander. As standers, we felt not only seen but held. Interestingly, this time it was clear when to enter and leave the standing space, and leaving didn’t mean disconnecting from the whole, but reconnecting in a different orientation. One member referred to her felt sense of the group as “Spidey Senses” (referring to Spider Man’s supernatural intuitive senses), and then refined that to speak of the importance of being aware of her “Side-y Spidey Senses,” a term we’ve all adopted now. 

What’s Next?

Like other “conventional wisdom,” the idea that we can’t connect if we’re not in the same room has now outlived its time and needs to go. I am offering two weekly 90-minute online practice groups and one 30-minute mini-practice to further explore and disseminate this deeper online connection that we all so desperately need. Because I know that many people are currently under-employed or unemployed, I am offering it free to anyone who has been laid off. Because I, too, have been laid off, I am also offering the opportunity to pay on a sliding scale. And because I know that communities of color are suffering disproportionately in my city, I am donating a portion of all fees to the Northside Healing Space, an embodied and culturally affirming trauma healing center in Minneapolis’ historically Black neighborhood. Head to Eventbrite to see my current Wednesday, Thursday and Friday offerings and their registration links. If my times don’t work for you, be sure to check the global listings frequently, more sessions are being added weekly by my SPT colleagues.

Full list of global SPT online 30-minute offerings here; global 1 - 2 hour offerings here.

And, schedule a free call with me to learn more: