The Art Of Conversation 2011

The Art of Conversation, led by associate artists all-female Pigeon Theatre, returned to greenroom for the second year running to discuss the craft of female conversation.

In 2011 the project was supported by Manchester City Council and marked the centenary of International Women’s Day, celebrating 100 years of women’s achievements. The workshops aimed to get women talking about how we communicate, the difference between ‘speaking’ and ‘conversing’, and how we adapt our conversation to suit different audiences.

Why is it always ‘gossip’ when women talk and ‘banter’ when men talk to each other?
Who says women ‘talk more than men’?
How and why do women communicate differently with different people?

Over the course of eight weekly meetings a group of twenty local but disparate Manchester women, age 18 and over, convened at greenroom to muse, contemplate, ponder and generally natter over tea and biscuits.

Participants met five guest speakers, all successful women who use conversation as a major part of their occupation, including; Teresa Brayshaw, programme coordinator and principal lecturer in performing arts at Leeds Met University, Kerry Leigh a regular comedienne at Manchester’s Frog and Bucket Comedy Club, Rachel Burke-Davies, Capital FM’s traffic and travel reporter for the Rob Ellis Breakfast Show, Cllr. Suzanne Richards Lead Member for Women for Manchester councils’ Longsight Ward and rising star Jackie Hagan, popular Manchester writer, poet and performer.

At the end of eight weeks the participants, guided by The Pigeon’s, created a one off performance to commemorate their time together. This consisted of a performance in greenrooms main theatre space in which the audience ‘eves-dropped’ on some of the stories and confessions the women had shared over the weeks.
There was also an interval full of happenings… meet the mother nature herself as she meanders the room trying to reclaim the derogatory terms used to describe women’s genitalia. Or witness the confessions of four women to the ‘Mistress of The Sisterhood’ and be forgiven their sins as they pledge their apologies at the Shrine of Germaine Greer (conveniently located in a cubicle in the ladies toilets).
Finally, audience members where invited to join a session just like the ones the women had attended for the previous weeks, join the conversation and add their own opinions.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from this project, it’s that listening is the key to communication… make sure you keep an eye out (and an ear open) for events that could be happening around you all evening… we invite you to perfect the art of eves-dropping…”

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