Brian:

Prior to the workshop we talked about timing, should we have a careful space between our stories or quick succession, creating the feeling of piling on top of each other. These kinds of decisions, in the moment, had little meaning to me or understanding how they might play out in practice. Being invited to present a métissage workshop with two experienced colleagues was interesting for me because my academic and professional background was quite different, having little exposure to the arts.

Catherine:

The idea of methodological risk-taking comes up in conversations with students from time to time. I recall that it also came up during my own doctoral defense when I suggested that we continue to allow lectures and PowerPoint presentations to dominate. If we want to address the complexity of today’s challenges and bring our collective creative potential to the fore, we need to take more risks and make better use of alternative methods in the academy.

Beth:

Through the window pane of métissage, the thoughts of individuals sharing their narrative, becomes an opportunity to share experiences, make meaning and concrete community. The prompt extends an invitation - an opportunity to convene on a topic of shared interest. What of the weaving process? Selecting a passage here, eliminating a passage there. Surfacing what most matters to share. Taking the individual passage and identifying three parts. Much like a beginning a middle and an end. Or is it an end a middle and a new beginning?

Cheryl:

For me, métissage brings people and ideas together in a complex narrative. It weaves together the individual and the collective…messy, intricate, yet seemingly perfect. It can transform what is possible, demonstrating our connectedness and our individuality in one breath.

Catherine:

A colleague once challenged the very idea that this was even a risk. She suggested that we know that arts-based and story-based practices work. We now have documented experience and lots of evidence of this. So, if we know it works, is it really a risk? Why do we continue to frame it as such?

Kathy:

Lingering in my mind are stories, images, gestures, ah-has, and even sounds from many co-created métissage, it all belongs, like…

Brian:

As we presented the workshop, each telling our stories, one on top of the other, mixed, and meaningful, I realized how I was not just a single player but like a tree in a forest, interacting with other trees. An individual among individuals, humbled by the stark contrast and juxtaposition of the other trees in the forest, their own stories like mine, familiar but distant. In this collective of sharing, I realized there was far more to gain.

Beth:

The source can be self created through free writing or maybe the words and phrases are drawn from an existing source. The possibilities are endless. The creativity begins to be experienced and grows as individual passages are shared.

Catherine:

Each time I hear a new métissage, I am delighted by the opportunity to learn more about you and about us together. Your joy. The ways you think and the way you are in the world. Your burdens to carry. Your humanity. And what these teach me about my own.

Cheryl:

Métissage is not bound simply by words. In métissage it all belongs: silence, phrases, gesture, imagery, and song. It has the potential to transcend dialect, language, class, and generation. For one moment, we all stand in the same field, diverse, yet connected by the thread of one prompt, one invitation. It is an invitation to reveal that which is unique to one and connected to many.

Kathy:

Like,

I became to know you,

Dangling feet,

Singing her story,

Being vulnerable,

Cultivating communities of belonging,

Or, the radiance of his discovery seeing the gift of métissage in action.

Brian:

Once the workshop participants began their exercise of story telling, I was stunned by the sounds, stories, and song that emerged. It was as if the forest was coming alive as my focus shifted from my own story, and that of my colleagues, to the story of many. It was as if, in the chaos of variety and diversity an ecosystem of possibility was born.

Beth:

The weaving, is much like a braid. Three parts, individually shared, now woven together. The work of the individual becomes the weave of the collective. Once individual, now shared. Once individual, now community, once alone, now together. In coming together, the power of the collective becomes visible. More meaning being created among participants now sharing a co-created experience. Through the windowpane of métissage, individual narratives weaving together a collective narrative. Community cultivated through the experience of coming together.

Kathy:

A kaleidoscope of stories, images, gestures, ah-has, and sounds, all belonging, creating a new métissage within my mind. I came to know you. And realize through this process I also came to know us and me.

Cheryl:

Métissage breathes life into possibilities, possibilities into connections, and connections into collective memories. Braiding story over story, métissage weaves magic and meaning with the stories that live in our bodies and our hearts. Métissage helps to remember the connectedness inherent in what it means to be alive. For me, that is power beyond measure.