[a] Title of symposium: Managing with Passion: A Dialogue in Tango & Art
[b] complete names and contact information for all participants,
Organizer:
Paul Shrivastava, Ph.D
Howard I. Scott Chair & Professor of Management
BucknellUniversity, Management Department, Taylor 305
Lewisburg, PA17837
Tel: 610-737-7333, email:
Participants:
Painting the dance:
Nancy J. Adler
McGillUniversity
Desautels Faculty of Management
1001 rue Sherbrooke ouest
Montreal, Quebec, CanadaH3A 1G5
Tel 514-398-4031; fax: 1-514-398-3876
Sec Darlene Fowler tel: 514-398-4028;
Dancers:
Michelle L. Buck
Clinical Associate Professor of Management and Organizations
Director of Leadership Initiatives Associate Director of Executive Education
Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University
847-467-7048
Michelle Cooper
Artist
1314 Doe Trail Road
Allentown, PA18104
Tel: 610-398-0503; Email:
Terence Clarke and Beatrice Bowles
Writing/Film
756A Bay Street
San Francisco, CA94109
Phone: 415-990-8135
E: Website:
Barbara Durr
International Communications
Care International
404 979 9101 (office)
404 545 3741 (cell)
Igor Polk and Alla Shatsova
2108 Oak Creek Pl.
Hayward, CA94541
510-582-8711; 510-610-8711 (cell) email:
Commentators:
Nancy Adler (contact info above)
Michelle Buck (contact info above)
Barbara Durr (contact info above)
Alfonso Montuori, Ph.D.
Department Chair,Professor
Transformative Leadership, Transformative Studies
California Institute of Integral Studies
1453 Mission St.San Francisco, CA94103
cell: 415.871.9979, fax: 415.398.6964
Christine Nielsen
Professor of International Business and Strategy
Yale Gordon Chair of Distinguished Teaching
University of Baltimore
Email:
Professor Arja Ropo
University of Tampere, Finland
Department of Management Studies
FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Finland
tel: +358-3-35517618
Erika Sauer
Dr. (Economics and Business Administration)
Development Director
Department of Management Studies
FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Finland
Tel: +358-3-35517618; Mobile: +358-40-5466707
[c] 250-word overview of the symposium (for the program),
All the questions that organizational scholars have asked deal with making organizations more rational, productive, and humane, in an instrumental way. They have ignored aesthetic inquiry, sensory embodied and tacit knowledge that can make organizations more passionate, artistic, beautiful and happy. In our age of reason, “passion” is suspect, denounced as being dangerous, irrational, crazy and extremist. Yet, ironically, no great human feat was ever accomplished without passion. And, great leaders, successful entrepreneurs, and politicians have always been passionate about their causes and companies.
Passion refers to holistic and intense intellectual, physical, and emotional engagement of goals.This symposium is designed for audiences to witness and experience passion in an embodied way, and explore its relevance to managing and organizing. We will use Argentine Tango and Visual Arts to achieve an embodied understanding ofpassion, and for learning managerial skills of improvisation, leader/followership, teamwork, and communication. Through aesthetics of physical space, music, painting, and dance we hope to conveypassion as a form of knowing about managerial and leadership issues.
Participantsand commentators will engagethe audience on passion in organizations, including the role of arts-based processes for supporting that passion, parallels between the questions that great artists ask and the questions that good leaders, entrepreneurs and managers need to ask today. They willprovoke a discussion on asking differentquestions about organizations and organizing. Audience can explore relationships between Tango/painting and organizationally relevant inquiry. We will offer a 30-minute beginner lesson in Tango. Tango dancers are invited to contact the organizer for a possible role in the dance.
[d] Synopsis of Presentations
There are no formal speeches or presentation. There will a brief introduction to the symposium by Paul Shrivastava (see attachment) and Nancy Adler.
[e] an overview of issues and questions to be discussed among panelists
This symposium is designed as an “experience” and “discussion”, and not as a set of formal presentations. The dance, painting performance, and beginners’ lessonsare the experiential components. They are interspersed with an introduction and informal discussion with the audience. To seed the discussion, Nancy Adler, Michelle Buck, Barbara Durr,Alfonso Montouri, Christine Neilsen, Arja Ropo and Erika Sauerwill comment on what they experienced, what they felt, the role of passion at work and in life, the dangers of passion, how Tango and painting express passion. Additional questions for exploration with the audience include,
Asking really different questions - Now that we can do anything, what do we want to do?
What does it mean to lead with passion and aesthetics?
What human challenges should organizations and managers be impassioned about?
What is the role of passion in entrepreneurship and management?
Who and where are passionate managers and leaders and what makes them effective?
How can aesthetic inquiry engage organizational studies?
How can managerial skills be cultivated with embodied learning using activities such as dance, music, theater, painting, and sports?
What are the linkages between performance aesthetics and conventional modes of organizational inquiry?
How can managers inspire and impassion instead of merely motivate performance?
The discussion part of the symposium is premised on the notion that the audience has as much to offer as the participants. So it will be an interactive discussion aimed at reaching a deeper appreciation of passion and organizing. Commentators will not make formal presentations, but instead seed the interactive discussion with their brief remarks.
[f] a description of the symposium's format and time
The session will try to spatially simulate a Buenos Aires Milonga(a Tango Dance party). There will be Café style seating, with mood lighting, and appropriate art work. Nancy Adlers paintings will be displayed on the walls and a powerpoint of these paintings with Tango music in the background will greet audience as they walk in. The introductory presentation will be in walk-around chat style for 15 minutes. Paul Shrivastava and Nancy J. Adler will introducethe symposium. Paul will cover concepts of passion, embodied learning, Argentine Tango and ways of mindfully watching the dance performance. Nancy will introduce painting as a form of “passional dance.”
This will be followed by a Tango dance performance by three or four couples for 15 minutes. They will dance to four classic tangoes by well known orchestras (Juan D’Arienzo, Carlos Di Sarli, Fransisco Canaro, and The Gotan Project). During the performance, Adler will “paint the dance”, with the painting projected onto a large screen.
Our hope is that participants will experience passion in an embodied way. They will also see how Tango and art can serve as vehicles for learning management and leadership skills. After the performance, commentators will initiate the conversation between participants and the audience about passion and organizations for 30 minutes. This will be followed by a Tango “beginners lesson” for 30 minutes. We can accommodate up to 25 couples in a group lesson, and run 3 parallel groups provided appropriate space is made available Total time 90 minutes.
For the main session we need a room with Café style seating, mood lighting. We need to hang some artwork on the walls. We need a table for Nancy to do the painting. Camera to capture the painting and painter, plus projector and screen for projecting the painting in progress. It would be ideal (and authentic) if participants could be served a glass of Argentine wine. We need a sound system that we can plug an iPod for our music. Beginner dance class can be expanded to more people if additional rooms with hard floors are available.
[g] Organizer’s statement: I have received signed statements from all intended participants agreeing to participate in the entire symposium.