• Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get a sense of your practices around consent, and we offer this list as something that you can keep coming back to over time, as values might shift over time as you experience and learn new things!

• We'd suggest that you only pick one or two questions to reflect on at a time, depending on what questions resonate with you at the present moment, and that you give yourself 10-15 minutes at least to think through your answers to the questions. You may also want to ask a friend to do this together with you, so you can hear someone else's responses and/or have some support to articulate and clarify your answer, and/or to write your answers so that you can easily return to them at a future point in time (:

• Another point to note is that the way you practice consent may be different from context to context - saying 'no' as a person for instance is slightly different from saying 'no' to a superior or boss. Depending on your interest and capacity, it could be helpful to respond to these questions both in general as well as in 1 or max 2 other specific contexts.

• When I ask others for consent, how much detail do I provide?

  • • Who, What, When, Where, How, How Much, Why, Alternatives

• When I give others my consent, how much detail is explicitly stated and how much is implied?

• Do I avoid saying “no”? Why?

• When people say “no” to me, how does it make me feel?

• Do I often find myself saying “yes” to people, then retracting it later? Why?

• We use 'facilitator' here in quite a loose way - it can refer to being formally hired or acknowledged as a facilitator in a project, or it can refer to being informally someone who is trying to move things along in a group context. Within an arts collective for instance, where there is likely no clear 'leader' or 'head', everyone is probably facilitating the collective's conversation to some degree.

• As noted in the earlier section, your values may be different from context to context, so it can be worth taking some time to reflect on your consent practices as a facilitator. Apart from applying this lens to the questions above, here are some additional questions that you might find helpful to reflect on the consent practices of the group.

• These questions can also be used in a group setting (e.g. as an activity) for everyone to get on the same page regarding the purpose and scope of the gathering.

• Do we all know that we consented to gathering? How do we know?

• Does the group prioritise asking and getting consent before acting on things? How do we know this?

• Do people in this group feel comfortable saying “no” to each other, or to the group? How do we know this?

• When someone says no, how do we hold space for them as a group?

• How do we keep track of what was asked of us, what we committed to giving and what changed along the way?

• • Paying attention to how you seek consent

    • Over 2-3 days, pay attention to requests and asks that you make of people, be it friends and family (e.g. ‘shall we hang out this weekend?’ ‘can you help me buy…?’) or in work contexts (e.g. meetings) - how much details do you provide? Are there details you tend to miss out? In everyday encounters, we may not tend to articulate all the details of a request since that can make it feel overly formal, but if we can practice noticing what we consciously include or omit, this can help when we do actually need to make clear and specific requests in more sensitive contexts

  • Paying attention to consent cues

    • Over 2-3 days, pay attention to how people respond to the requests and asks that you make of them! Beyond verbal cues, what other cues do you notice that help make it clear whether people are enthusiastically consenting, or grudgingly consenting, or not consenting e.g. body postures, tone of voice etc.? By getting better at observing and naming these cues, we can build our sensitivity towards people’s actual degree of consent.

• Prior to going to an audition / interview (or ‘coffee’)

  • • 🧐 How many details are stated in the audition call / job application? Do they give a clear sense of expectations as well as the corresponding remuneration?

      • If not, these are details that would be worth clarifying in the audition/interview - and their response to questions about these would also be a good indication of whether the details were accidentally omitted, or whether the organisers are deliberately trying to keep things vague to blur boundaries etc.

• When discussing your involvement for a project

  • • 💬 Take some time to ensure that you are clear about the parameters that are asked of you!

      • For instance, in performing arts projects, there is often the expectation that some work will be done outside of the stipulated rehearsal timings, such as having to memorise scripts before a certain point in the project.

      • For more process-based projects and projects in which the material is being devised together as a group, there might be further requests as well for people to engage in additional research and/or more structured reflections outside of scheduled project sessions, so depending on the type of project, it might be worth asking for specifics about the kind(s) of work that you might have to engage in, and the anticipated degree of intensity e.g. sharing 1-2 loose paragraphs about your reflections would be less time-intensive than having to answer a series of 10 structured questions.

    • 💬 Consider if you are comfortable about their terms of hire e.g. welfare and safety policy, insurance coverage, fees and the payment schedule, as well as media coverage?

      • If not, it is entirely reasonable to check how flexible certain terms are!

        • For instance, if they propose to pay your fees only at the end of the project and you anticipate that this might affect your cash flow, even if they don't highlight upfront that the payment schedule is negotiable, it's worth asking if it's possible for a certain percentage of your fees to be paid upfront, and/or for a certain percentage to be paid at key milestones of the project. This is especially so if it is a project that spans a longer time and/or involves larger sums of fees (whatever that means to you).

      • It's also worth asking how open the project is to re-negotiating terms along the way if circumstances change for you, such as if you need a cash advance instead of being paid in full only at the end of the project.

      • There may be a few blanket terms around certain aspects of the role, such as media coverage for the performance or the exhibition. Where details around these are fuzzy just because the project and planning are not at that stage yet, do consider asking for these aspects to be revisited at a specific milestone of the project.

• Over the course of the project

  • • 🌈💖 Where requests are made of you during the project that you are unsure or uncomfortable about, remember that there are many possibilities between an enthusiastic ‘yes’ and an outright ‘no’. For instance, ‘no, but’ is a helpful way to negotiate consent and keep the conversation going, where you could say ‘no’ to what is being asked of you, but offer other possibilities to address the issue!

• When posting audition calls or job applications, or when approaching people to come onboard for a project

  • • 💬 Be clear about the parameters for the project, including:

      • the role you are seeking and its scope of responsibilities;

      • the schedule and timeline, highlighting which commitments might be fixed and which might be negotiable e.g. the performance venue has been booked for X date to Y date, but the dates of the 10 rehearsal sessions are negotiable;

      • fees and payment schedule;

      • as well as other details that might be immediately relevant to the project such as (the extent of) insurance coverage, welfare benefits and/or reimbursements.

    • If there are decisions that are still up in the air, do also flag it out, especially in terms of how this might affect the project and people's work. For instance, if you are approaching someone for a new collaboration that has no funding sources yet, be upfront about this conversation with them being an exploratory one.

    • 💬 Be explicit that even if people say yes to coming onboard the project, there is the option to change their minds, or to say ‘no’ to new requests that are made during the project.

    • It could also be helpful to set a ‘no, but’ invitation for the project - that is, asking that if people say no to something, as much as possible, it would be best if they can follow up with an alternative suggestion of what they can do instead!

    • 🤔 At the same time, do take the time, even briefly, to discuss what might be feasible backup plans if someone changes their mind at a later date about a pre-stated key parameter of the project - in such a situation, is the parameter negotiable to change? Or would it make more sense for the person to leave the project?

      • If it’s the latter, what kind of exit arrangement would work for both the person and the team? For The Library of Care, we agreed on the following exit clause:

Exiting the Project

This Agreement can be terminated by either the Lead Applicant or the Project Co-Director & Resource Creator as long as there is notice of at least (7) days given to the other party in the form of a written documentation. This has to be followed by a conversation between the Lead Applicant and the Project Co-Director & Resource Creator (the “Exit Conversation”) so as to address handover issues within the Project.

In the event of this Agreement being terminated, fees will be paid for work done, less an inconvenience fee that will be jointly decided by both parties during the Exit Conversation.

• Over the course of the project

  • • 🎉 Celebrate the ‘no’s! Whenever people draw boundaries with you or express their uncertainty about a direction, say thank you / express your appreciation! This helps to emphasise that you do take people’s boundaries and consent seriously.

      • To be clear though, this is for interpersonal contexts! If the 'no' is coming from an individual representing an organisation or funding body, the context is immediately different from that of an individual drawing boundaries for their own wellbeing and safety.

    • ❓ Follow up by staying curious to the ‘no’ - ask where the ‘no’ is coming from!

      • You could also ask if that person (or other people in the project!) have other suggestions to address the concern/fear/anxiety that they are raising (a la the ‘no, but’).

      • At the same time, do explicitly acknowledge that it is valuable in of itself that people highlight their hesitation, as this helps to support the rigor of the process and the project!

    • 🔠 Whenever a new decision is being asked of people, especially if it’s a major decision, make sure that you articulate possibilities and backup plans for if someone says 'no', so that people don't feel obliged to say 'yes' simply because there doesn't seem to be any other option.

      • For instance, if you have to suddenly shift from performing in a theatre venue to performing over Zoom due to new safety regulations, a new and fairly major 'ask' might be to request performers to consent to using their own rooms/homes for the performance, as well as to be their own 'stage manager' and manage the set up of the space for the performance. In this scenario, when posing this 'ask', it would be helpful to also share realistic options that can be taken if the performer expresses their discomfort or says an outright 'no', such as borrowing someone else's room, doing a short-term rental and so on.

      • Remember, if consent is not freely given e.g. because there doesn't seem to be the possibility to say no, it's not true consent!

    • ⌛ Do also make sure there is time for people to ask questions in such situations - ideally, there should be the option to verbally ask OR write down questions as a group about the decision, but also the option for people to communicate individually with you in-person, over Zoom, or over email/text.

      • This is particularly important to ensure that just because the majority might be okay with a certain decision (and perhaps even quite vocally loud about their 'yes'), there is still sufficient space and privacy for an individual to say no.

    • 📺 Make sure that there is a specific conversation around media coverage - depending on the themes of the project and people's positionality in it, not everyone might be comfortable having certain media outlets covering the project, or for their involvement in the project to be publicised. This is especially important for projects involving people from marginalised communities and/or that touch on more sensitive or controversial themes.

• 🗃️ Depending on the complexity and scale of the project, as well as the total number of people involved and the communities they come from (for instance, if the project also involves working with student/public volunteers and/or participants from marginalised communities), it might be helpful to explicitly have someone to check for and track consent.

  • In the current context, some of the work of checking for consent is perhaps taken on by the figure of the director or the producer, while other parts of the work of tracking consent is informally taken on by the producer or the stage manager who is collecting and collating image release forms and similar materials.

  • However, if there are sufficient resources, having someone in a project who is explicitly thinking of how consent is sought and given (and who is remunerated for this additional labour!) would greatly support a healthy culture of consent in a project.

• 🕒 Always plan extra buffer time in the project - when people know that there is a time crunch to decision-making, people often feel obliged to just say yes or go with the flow, so ensuring that there is a good amount of time to think and reflect on big decisions is also key to supporting informed consent!

• Similarly, it can help to plan your schedule such that you are able to sustain a reasonable capacity during crunch time, so if people need more support to process thoughts or decisions, you have sufficient capacity to be a listening ear and/or to hold space for their concerns!

• Repeated requests can be a form of pressure for people to say yes!

  • • If you find yourself asking someone slight variations of a particular request while negotiating their involvement in a project e.g. can you work on the weekend / no / can you be available to respond to calls on the weekend / no / can you respond to emails and messages on the weekend, recognise that you may be coming across as not respecting someone’s boundaries even if your point is to negotiate a middle ground.

    • In such a case, it’s probably a good idea to take a step back, spend a bit more time articulating to the person why you are making such a request, and then invite the person to propose what might be a reasonable compromise. If there isn’t, and it’s a non-negotiable parameter, then again, this is a good sign that the person might not be a good fit for the project this time.

    • On the flip side, if you find yourself having to re-state your boundaries several times, which can be very frustrating and tiring, do consider if this feels more like a red flag for future boundary violations, or if this might be due to misaligned communications - if it’s the latter, it’s probably helpful to find an suitable occasion sooner rather than later to raise this concern

• 👩🏻🧑🧔🏾👧🏼 This concept applies to working with audiences as well, be it peers, reviewers, or a general public, and be it for a work-in-progress showing or a final performance!

  • How open and transparent are you about:

    • the content of the piece - do you need to provide some content warnings?

    • the structure of the session - is it that audiences will watch the piece first and then the team will share more about the piece after? or will it be the case that the team shares a bit about the project first and then audiences can experience the piece with that framing in mind?

    • the degree of feedback you can take in - e.g. having audiences at a preview the night before the show opens would result in very different expectations and type of feedback than if it was a work-in-progress with 3 months to opening

  • For work-in-progresses, do you take the time and effort further down the road to communicate back with the audiences how their feedback has been factored in?

    • This being said, not every audience has a desire to be kept updated about a project's progress, so it might also be worth asking audiences their preference about this!