Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2018 - 58

Pictured: Jaime Ramos. Photo by Jesus Lopez V.

my arm and the column painted itself."
The loss of self-consciousness that
is closely tied to the merging of action
and awareness is another aspect of flow,
though it was less commonly cited by
survey respondents. In flow, concentration becomes so complete that there is
no room for self-reflection. In flow, artists become part of the task at hand, and
they are able push themselves beyond
what they were previously able to do,
expanding their definition of their abilities. In Csíkszentmihályi's own words,
"When a person invests all her psychic
energy into an interaction-whether it
is with another person, a boat, a mountain, or a piece of music-she in effect becomes part of a system of action greater
than what the individual self had been
before" (Csíkszentmihályi 1990, 65).
One respondent in the survey described
an experience with this aspect of flow:
"There was a major scene change in between every scene. During the change, I
was solely concentrating on the task at
hand, but was aware of the feeling that I
was a part of the show." In this and other
examples from the survey, theatre artists experiencing flow reported that they
were no longer thinking of themselves
as individuals, but viewed themselves as
an extension of the project, the group, or
more frequently, the production.

Perception of Control

Consider this scenario: Halfway through

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THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2018

Act I, the power went out. The stage
manager sprang into action. The headsets were battery-powered, so the stage
manager called down to the crew and
told them what to do. Within seconds,
the crew had gathered their flashlights
and were delivering a speech to keep the
audience calm and in their seats until
power was restored or they received further instructions. Next, the stage manager had given instruction for the light and
sound boards to be set properly to prevent loss of data during reboot. When the
power came back on, the stage manager
was able to get the whole team to reset
from the beginning of the last scene. The
show went on, and the stage manager
now had quite the story to tell.
The feeling of being in control in
extremely difficult or chaotic situations
is a commonly reported flow experience in activities, such as live theatre,
which involve risk. In these situations,
respondents often describe feeling that
they were in complete control when,
in actuality, there was the real possibility that they could have made a mistake.
For example, a mountain climber who
believes he is in control of his ascent
could encounter a strong gust of wind
that could suddenly disrupt his efforts.
Other examples include first responders
and emergency personnel (Glick-Smith
2012). Technical theatre is no exception
to this idea of perceived control in chaotic situations.

One sound designer had a unique
way of describing the feeling of perceived control when flow was more likely
to occur: "[It] hits the fan a lot... someone's gotta fix it." A costume technician
offered a different explanation: "Anytime
I have to solve a difficult problem or engineer a costume to defy the laws of physics, it's really easy to get so focused that
you tune everything else out or become
unaware of your surroundings and just
focus on the task at hand." In situations
with many unknown factors and the
real possibility that something could go
wrong, the individual is not actually in
control of the chaotic or seemingly impossible situation. Rather, the artist is
faced with a challenge and rises to meet
it, confident that his or her best effort
will be good enough. The perception of
control occurs because these individuals
know that they have cultivated the skills
necessary to possibly solve the problem and control the situation; the same
highly specialized expertise that allows
for flow in a creative work environment
permits the perception of control when
faced with a challenging situation. This
perception of control makes these flow
experiences more intense.

Transformation of Time

Consider this scenario: It's dry tech, and
the lighting designer is programming the
board for a large musical. Hours pass
while the designer is totally focused in
the moment before the stage manager
calls for a break.
In flow, time can appear to slow
down or speed up as a result of complete concentration on a task. In this example, rather than focusing on time, the
designer is occupied by challenging activities that require skill, clear goals and
feedback, complete concentration, loss
of self-consciousness, and perception of
control of the task. These elements, rather than outside factors such as time, determine the designer's experience, and
the experience of time is then altered.
Consider another scenario: It is
change-over for a repertory summer
theatre festival. The stage crew shifts
out the set for the matinee and sets up
for the evening production. The team
knows that everything is going smoothly
and that they will accomplish the shift in
time because they can "feel" the rhythm
of the task at hand, even though no one

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2018