We have discovered a number of ways in which the apprentice is allowed to participate and use cultural tools in the community� One of the statements is interesting in a situated learning perspective within a community of practice, formulated beautifully by musician and composer Anders Koppel� He describes what happens when he plays with his son, Benjamin Koppel, who immediately before this quote has explained that he has learned a lot from his father:
But it goes both ways� I have also learnt an awful lot from Benjamin and still do� That is also why, I think, we work together, because we can still learn from each other – it is still
“electric”, so to speak� I am thinking: “Oh, now I am going to work with him, so I’d better do my best”� It is a challenge, a huge challenge, every time we do something together, Benjamin and I … And that is really great�
According to the perspectives of communities of practice, mutual engagement and commitment are one type of outcome, when individuals share a com-mon goal of a task� Mutual engagement creates a climate in which exchange of knowledge and community knowledge building can arise� This is termed mutual learning, which could be an interesting way of interpreting the out-come of the relationship between the two musicians above (Sánchez-Cardona, Sánchez-Lugo, & VŽlez-González 2012, Wenger 1998)� The shared practice of music seems to be an opportunity for mutual learning for both Benjamin and Anders Koppel� However, mutual learning implies symmetry in power-relations among the participants� If we go further into this, we might explore the work-ings in the opportunities for mutual learning in asymmetric power-relations, which emerges from the interview by the formulation “have learnt an awful lot from Benjamin”� This implies that the father, the experienced member of the
community of music, learned from his son, when he grew up as musician and put musical tools to new uses, just as his son learned from him in respect of socialisation and learning the craft�
If we go into this assumption, we might discover more aspects of the workings of mutual learning, when seen as apprenticeship and communities of practice�
A� Koppel mentions the word challenge and we may interpret this challenge as an experience of having a learning possibility when playing with B� Koppel� It might be seen, in the first place, in relation to generations, even though B� Koppel is now an expert in his field� However, one kind of learning opportunity for the experienced musician emerges, when the newcomer, as B� Koppel once was, with his or her individual personality and taste puts the tools of musical culture to uses that are new, sometimes immature, but in any case part of a process of creating meaning and learning (Bruner 1996, Veer & Valsiner 1994, Vygotsky 2004a)� In this case, these new uses can be guided, corrected or even forced into culturally acceptable or conventional ways� They may however also be experienced as a challenge that forces the experienced practitioner to learn� The quote does not indicate under what circumstances the new uses are experienced as a challenge leading to learning, or if the experienced practitioner (A� Koppel) intentionally allows himself to be open and challengeable toward the new uses that his son pre-sents – or if he is curious� However, this is still a unique observation in relation to the perspective on learning in communities of practice outlined above, where the newcomer, the legitimate peripheral participant, is positioned in the role of the learner (Edmonds-Cady & Sosulski 2012, Lave & Wenger 1991)� In the quote, it seems as if learning opportunities also arise the other way round: A� Koppel as the experienced musician can be positioned as a learner by being or letting himself be challenged by the newcomer’s - the apprentice’s - different and therefore poten-tially renewing use of cultural tools� Put into situated learning terms: the appren-tice can provide the master with learning opportunities by putting cultural tools to new uses, if the master is willing to conceive this as “inspirational” or “electric”�
This requires, on the other hand, that the master or culture of the community allows himself/ itself to be challenged by the apprentice or legitimate peripheral participant and creates space for new uses of cultural tools� Or we can transfer this insight to the concept of mutual learning, as a way to practice mutual learn-ing could be to put the individual participants in the learner’s position in turns�
The fact that the word “electrical” is used to characterise the mutual learning opportunities that arise from shared practice, we interpret in the same way as when B� Koppel uses the word “inspiration” in one of the previous quotes� “Elec-trical” and “inspiration” imply energy, renewal, mutual learning (Coto Chotto &
Dirckinck-Holmfeld 2008, Wenger 1998) and a creative climate for mutual
learning in the relationship among generations in the family� More generally, in the situated and socio-cultural learning perspective, we might hypothesise mutual learning opportunities created by putting the community, as well as the apprentice, in an active learner’s position�
But from where does A� Koppel’s particular approach to mutual learning de-rive? An answer may lie in the following quote:
To have a well-known composer as a father - this is the first component of a “backpack”, you could say, but from there on onwards you still create your own way� You are alone, ba-sically, just like all people are when you create your own pathways in life – and then you get a network of friends and family and all that, but there is only you yourself, whatever your social background and heritage, to keep up the steam, so to speak� Nobody does it for you�
As a member of a musical family, A� Koppel implies an experience of expectation within the field of music: After the first socialisation, learning the craft, techniques and logics of music (the backpack), an important task is to create one’s own voice in the choir, so to speak, one’s own contribution to the community in a wider sense�
In other words, a learning task embedded in the quote above is to elaborate and get to know one’s own uniqueness and to express this uniqueness� If the two quotes of mutual learning are seen in relation to each other, it seems as if this particular family provides learning opportunities to elaborate, create and express one’s own uniqueness by alternately putting oneself in the learner’s position� If A� Koppel puts himself in a learner’s position in relation to B� Koppel, it also provides B� Koppel with an opportunity to compare his own use of musical tools with A� Koppel’s, finding out what is similar and what is different� This will involve an opportu-nity to learn and refine what is unique and what is in common with others in the community� By means of alternately putting themselves in the learner’s position, both parties benefit from learning opportunities where the relationship between uniqueness and the community is conveyed while participating in musical practice�
Within a mutual learning aspect of a situated learning perspective, what Kop-pel says above can be interpreted as appreciative and supportive, as a father is expected to be towards his son� There are, however, other sides to learning portunities in receiving newcomers into a community of practice� Learning op-portunities might also involve opop-portunities or demands to unlearn previous habits, worldviews in order to become legitimate peripheral participants at all in an artistic community of practice� Barba is an example of a different way of receiving newcomers in his theatre company:
In the beginning, I put very strong rules, […] and this was in order to make them grow�
Rules, or principles, were made in order to cleanse them of the mentality from outside�
For me, what is the enemy of creativity? It’s what we’ve been learning at school and in the family�
One interpretation of this quote could be in light of situated learning, seeing Barba as “the master” in the old-fashioned sense, the master who sets the rules (Lave & Wenger 1991), who does not accept uses of cultural tools other than his own and in this way enforces his own logics and cultural practices on newcomers as a condition of participation� In this apprentice perspective, the quote could be interpreted as an uncompromising line of teaching the young actors, where the ideas of the newcomers are not taken seriously or as an opportunity for mutual learning, at least not before they have socialised and submitted to the ideals and artistic values of the company� In a situated learning perspective, it might appear that there is very little room for negotiation of meaning, as this way of socialis-ing newcomers seems to be devised in order to uphold a stable cultural practice within the community of the theatre�
However, the way in which traits from the outside world, from school and family, are interpreted as an enemy of the art and creativity of the art and must be “cleansed off”, might indicate a different interpretation than that of the au-thoritative master� As Sennett argues, an apprentice submitting to the authority of a master can also indicate an acknowledgement that the master possesses and enacts greater knowledge than oneself� The authority so to speak personifies an ideal and a purpose for learning: “I might become like this one day” (Sennett 2008, p� 60)� In order to understand the learning possibilities provided by the culture of Odin Teatret, it may be necessary to operate with unlearning as a learn-ing opportunity� In the case of Odin Teatret, the newcomers have to unlearn the non-excessive, compliant and conforming learning habits that they have learned in schools and families� Barba experiences that the newcomers enter the theatre with learning habits and strategies of conforming, uniforming and non-excessive behaviour, which he explains in other parts of the interview� In the artistic ex-pressions in Odin Teatret, however, the opposite is wanted: excess, individuality, strong expression� Paradoxically, the group aims at conforming its members into non-conformity, creativity and rigorous artistic expression, traits that the new-comers have very likely been previously corrected for in families and schools�
We will see in the following pages, maybe, a little more of the traits that Barba wants to “wash off” his students in order to create a unique, artistic expression within theatre: in a socio-cultural understanding of learning, what is it that Barba opposes in his students, what do they bring that he seeks to make them unlearn?