When to use it?
This practice might be more generative by the middle of processes, when ideas, questions and subjects to be worked with have already emerged through the participants‘ exchange.
How to do it?
This practice should be made in relation to a subject or an experience that is being explored in the group process presently. It could relate to a previous practice or conversation, as well as, for example, a social issue that concerns the whole group.
The participants are asked to write down one keyword that conveys a relevant aspect of the subject the group is exploring. Another way to frame it would be to ask participants to name the elements that make the system which they are investigating. Each keyword goes in a folded paper, and those are put in a bowl or small box.
Anyone can start by taking one paper from the bowl and rolling the dice. The dice number indicates how many minutes the person can talk, having this keyword as a reference. After the time is gone, if someone wishes to reply s/he can take the dice and roll it, so the time for the reply is defined. Or someone can get a new keyword from the bowl and repeat the procedure.
Variations & extensions
Instead of having keywords with a content-oriented focus, the participants can write down qualities of approaching it – keywords that indicate a certain attitude to the conversation (for example: transforming, conserving, (re)defining, broadening, differentiating, questioning…).
So when one takes a keyword or quality, the person should continue the conversation thread having the keyword‘s quality of approach in mind. This way, the participants are training mobility in thought, and possibly being led to perspectives that they would not have taken on the contents discussed.
Another variation of it is that each participant takes one of those quality-keywords and keeps it for the whole process, being the person responsible for this quality of approaching during the conversation. In this case, only the time, which is specified through rolling the dice, would be separating the speeches.
Combine with
Sources
I witnessed this method 2016 in Vienna, during a presentation of the artistic research project „Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line“. In the project‘s publication of the same name, this method is attributed to the choreographer Lilia Mestre and her research project “ScoreScapes”.
The variations presented here were formulated by myself.