Playful Learning Conference 26: The Bark Choir
It's nearing the end of July already. Goodness. Where does the time go? Spent between doing lots of busy stuff and spending too much time watching nonsense YouTube videos, is my honest reflection. It's something I'm working on weaning myself off.
Anyway, what it apparently hasn't been spent doing is writing posts for the blog, which I am now officially behind on. Sitting down (standing up, actually - thanks UoE occupational health) and scanning over my "to write" folder of blog posts, I start to reflect on the Playful Learning Conference earlier this month, and one experience in particular.
To explain this fully, I have to go back to the 2025 conference, when some conference pals and I went exploring and found the gorgeous Meeting House. Designed by Basil Spence and completed in 1966, downstairs is a relatively nondescript meeting space - but upstairs is a gorgeous, intimate-feeling non-sectarian chapel - part brick, part coloured glass panes, part concrete1. Feeling like we were sneaking around places we weren't allowed to be (which no doubt added to the feeling of 'play'), we 'snuck' into the chapel and shared a beautiful hour or so lying on the floor staring at the painted ceiling, singing along to my new friend C-J Foster's wonderful piano playing. I do not often feel so much like my whole, full self as I did during that experience. As a non-religious person, it was as close to a spiritual moment as I have had in a long time, creating a sense of not just pleasure, but real shared joy. I think about it often.
This year, C-J turned our singing into a deliberate conference session, inviting anyone from the conference to join her "bark choir", open to anyone regardless of ability or experience to come and sing, speak, bark, engage however they wanted. This was not a space for passionate singers only - this was a space for everyone. The session was well attended, especially considering food was being served elsewhere at the same time (if you've been to a conference before you understand the free food stampede). People joined in, they sang, they sat and watched, laughed, sighed, barked, drank; they came, stayed a while, drifted away, drifted back. To me at least, there was very little of the pressure that can sometimes be prevalent in singing in public, or indeed, singing in general. It was a very different experience to the intimacy of the year before, but still a genuine joy to be a part of. At a conference where everyone is exploring ways of introducing play into learning and teaching contexts, there is a lot to be said for sessions or activities which don't attempt to do anything other than let the participants play. Indeed - I'd argue that if we all did that and went away and reflected on the experience, we might learn more than in more directed sessions. Anyway, I digress.
At the conference closing ceremony the next day, the folk in charge asked C-J at the last minute to lead the whole conference in "a bit of a sing-song". What was interesting to me was just how different an experience this felt to the night (and year) before. I did not feel comfortable, invited, or permitted to play; I didn't really want to participate. I didn't understand why we were being asked to sing at a time that it didn't feel, to me, relevant to what we were doing. But why? Four things immediately spring to mind:
The space
The Meeting House was a private space where conference participants could play together, separate from the rest of the comings and going on the University of Sussex campus. The closing ceremony, on the other hand, was outside; there were many other groups of people around. I certainly felt more self-conscious doing it outside than I did the night before.
The invitation
For the session itself, people were invited to join in, but taking part was not mandatory. The brief and expectations were clearly set: you didn't have to know how to sing, you didn't even have to sing - you could just come and take part in your way. This was not the case in the closing ceremony, where we were not told until right before it happened that we would be singing. This made me less inclined to do it (although, I acknowledge, this perhaps links with a slightly childish propensity of mine to knee-jerkingly want to not do something I have been told to do). Similarly, for the choir session, it was made overtly clear you could leave whenever you wanted to. This was not explicitly the case during the ceremony. This also led to me feeling not only self-conscious, but conscious of other peoples' affective response - would they be feeling embarrassed, self-aware, self-conscious? - which in turn affected my enjoyment and, consequently, my engagement.
The timing
The session itself also took place concurrent to the social event of playing board games and eating dinner. These social events potentially framed the session as another social-style event, as opposed to the more 'formal' closing ceremony. I wonder if this made it feel more accessible - did it feel like it was a conference activity, rather than a conference session? What did that do to the dynamic? In contrast, the closing ceremony happened in isolation, which led to me feeling less like a willing participant - not so much player, as someone who had been told to do X and Y time.
Ownership
I would be lying if I said that because of my 2025 experience, I didn't feel some sense of direct connection to the choir session. I wonder, perhaps there were feelings that something I cared about was being co-opted into a different space, which made me less comfortable (indeed, perhaps even antagonistic) to the alternate 'version' of singing together.
There are more comparisons to be made, I'm sure, and to be clear: this isn't a criticism of the folk leading the closing ceremony. But the desire to recreate a hugely joyful experience for an even wider audience, particularly when wrapped up in the excitement of the event, is totally understandable. It is also understandable that, because of the nature of the conference and the activities undertaken prior, assumptions might be made about people's propensity, willingness or ability to engage in some forms of play. The bark choir session felt like a genuine, open, joyful experience that understood and invited playfulness; the singing part of the closing ceremony was well-meaning, but did not. It did not consider the conditions necessary to play and be playful and as a result, made me feel uncomfortable in a way that was quite challenging. It's not very Margot of me, but the experience made me cringe, despite attempts to connect with the openness that I am perpetually striving to cultivate.
Which is a reminder - I too was complicit in this. What was to stop me putting a little more effort into feeling more open and embracing play a bit more? Perhaps the answer, is that I could have done, but was not equipped by the situation to. As I have written about before, play is a negotiation between players; the choice to not-choose-not-play, as Bernie De Koven would put it, is up to us, but is not always possible when the invitation or scaffolding doesn't feel genuine2. Genuine, and deep - for it is the foundations on which an invitation is built that real playfulness is invoked, and real, playful play can occur.
It's unrealistic to expect that every play experience will be a deeply joyful one. But the contrast between the two sessions is a reminder that subtle changes in context and presentation can have massive impact on the successful invocation of, and invitation to, play. When we invite people to play, we must not - accidentally or otherwise - make assumptions about their willingness to engage. All we can do is provide space, and let people find their own way there, without it feeling forced.
All of that from lying on the floor, staring at a painted ceiling, singing Elton John. Who knew?