Laboratory on Feedback in Artistic Processes 3

Feedback at the Borders of Language
Susanne Vincenz
48
How can we give and receive feedback if, in a German or English
speaking choreography program for example, 12 students come
from 9 different countries, where there is no common language
or the language skills are extremely different, and the participants
have very different cultural backgrounds? How can voices be heard,
reactions noticed, if it is not so easy to share a common language?
If we agree on the common language spoken by most of
the participants in a feedback session, we thus exclude non-native
speakers – who may have learned the language late or insufficiently
– from the possibility of expressing themselves with the
same complexity or even from participating in the conversation at
all. In addition, the frames of reference are often different because
the participants have neither common references nor shared
visual experiences. At this point, I would also like to emphasise
an awareness for non-verbal responses and translations that are
always part of the feedback process but which we are rarely aware
of.
First of all, feedback can generally be described as a translation
process that is stimulated by a sensory impression. When it comes
to verbal feedback, it is not just a question of which language
we share, but also of how much space we give to the translation
process and to the back and forth between languages. How can
we be precise in our speech and how can we succeed in making
the language boundaries more permeable through questions, gestures
or gaps? The difficulty of translation reveals the understandings
we have already committed to and the preconditions we no
longer see.