Stimulus, Research, and Generating Material

Every devised piece needs raw material, and getting started can be the hardest part. This lesson focuses on the front end of devising: choosing and interrogating a stimulus, doing productive research, and using generative techniques to produce a rich body of material the group can later shape.

Choosing and interrogating a stimulus

A stimulus is the spark that launches a project. It might be an object, an image or artwork, a piece of music, a text (poem, headline, quotation), a theme or issue, a place, a personal experience, or a question. A strong stimulus is rich enough to sustain exploration and open enough to allow many responses. Rather than deciding immediately what the piece will "be about," effective groups interrogate the stimulus: brainstorming associations, asking questions of it