1st Workshop

Follow my hand

Title of the activity:Follow my hand

Date and place: 07.06.2024 - Sigulda, Latvia

Duration: 1 hour

Aim of the activity:To develop trust, empathy, and nonverbal communication skills though dance, imagination and creativity. Also to reflect on the roles of leaders and followers - cooperation , trust and understanding of each other and caring.

Participants info: 20 young people aged 16-24 participants in this activity. Some of them were participants with fewer opportunities, specifically with social obstacles and ethnic and linguistic minority representatives.

Description of the activity:

At first as warm-up, we gathered in a group and participants were instructed to follow movements of the facilitator and repeat it. In that way we tried to break the ice between participants with funny moments. After that the participants were instructed on the "follow my hand" activity. Before the facilitator would explain the concept of the activity and small discussion was organised on the topic of: What is movement? How much do we trust others to guide us to move around? Should we trust fully leaders?

After that participants were randomly divided into groups of three according to hurricane energiser. In groups they divided roles of leader and followers.They had to stay close with their face to the palm of their partner and synchronise with the movement. How the palm will move the followers should move accordingly. In each 5 minutes group members were switching roles between each other. After that all participants gathered in a group and organised debriefing through simple questions: Which was more comfortable for you to be leader or follower? What personal qualities should leaders have to successfully manage given activity? What about followers? This exercise gave an important lesson that not only the follower should be really attentive and try to keep up, but also the leader should be caring and full of attention to the follower, to be not too fast or unpredictable, as well as be careful of the surroundings and protect the follower as they don't see that much around while following leader.

After debriefing we also experimented and tried the same activity with objects instead of a palm. The object was the clothing of the follower. This exercise was part of a block connected with building bonds with an object in a scene. Before there were several exercises, the participants managed to find more emotions and imagine an improvisational abstract story in this "follow my hand" modification. This tickled their imagination as communication with people is quite ordinary, whereas a flying scarf etc. is something from a fantasy world.