Turning Places into Spaces

In his book, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Yi-Fu Tuan explores the concept of turning places into spaces. I find this helpful for thinking about and acting in my work. Turning places into spaces is part of what we aspire to do as successful musicians and teachers; we work with often mundane places, and transform them into liminal spaces – spaces that are special, unique, exciting, dynamic, and in which anything feels possible.

As a drummer in a rock band, I will often feel pretty nonplussed when arriving at a venue in the late afternoon to load in the band’s gear. The place might be a huge room above a bar, with nondescript, bare floors and walls (maybe featuring some sorry-looking, poorly hung tiny posters advertising the gig I’m about to play), stark neon house lights or dim bulbs; the stage looks decrepit, covered in dents, scrapes and scratches, with a moth-eaten, stained, sticky old carpet for the drums. But then, returning to the venue later, after a sound-check and quick visit to a nearby affordable eatery, once the venue doors are open and punters have filed in and are hanging about excitedly, brimming with enthusiasm for the show, then the venue is – in Tuan’s understanding – in the process of being transformed from an ordinary place into an extraordinary space. I get a similar feeling, turning up at a theatre an hour before the doors open for the matinée show. I arrive there in time for some lunch and to get a good parking spot before the punters fill the lot out back. I enter through the cracked front door and cross the vacant, carpeted foyer with no one yet selling programs or ice cream, head to the musicians’ dressing room, change into blacks, and settle into the pit to warm up. I can see and hear from behind the drums that the auditorium is deserted. It’s big, empty, and still. I emerge from my practice routine short while later and take off my headphones to greet fellow band members before the start of the show. By now, the auditorium above us is buzzing with eager anticipation, as the audience hopes for a truly special performance. The band rises to the occasion with the cast, lighting crew, sound team, and stage managers – we all feed off the electricity coming from the audience and one another, and we give back everything we can to make this a marvelous success! Throughout the show, the previously vacant theatre place is transformed into a space truly removed from the normal, the ordinary, and the dull.

Classrooms are like this too. There’s a room I’ve lectured in almost daily for the past eight years. Room 306. An uninspiring, rectangular room with chairs, a whiteboard, a computer-stand, and horribly unpredictable air conditioning, room 306 is a grindingly dreary place, that becomes a liminal, transformational space full of informed, heated debate. A room full of silence and uncertainty at the start of semester, even when filled with students, will, by halfway through the term, light up the moment the class walks in, becoming alive with impassioned conversations about gendering in popular music, about appropriation of image and style, about who has any right to claim authenticity in their music, and how we can live ethical, musical lives in the complex political world we inhabit. Room 306 is one of my very favorite places to be. On a grey winter morning, it can also be wholly unwelcoming. I’ll get in there before class to set up the room, and maybe sigh with tiredness and a little trepidation at the thought of having to enliven this empty place with some wisdom, knowledge, and hopefully a little inspiration. But then once the room fills with students’ experiences, perspectives, analyses, inquisitiveness, and presence, that’s when the place becomes liminal space. The potential in the room is palpable. I don’t have to do much at all in the best lessons: just turn with some provocations, and leave the rest to the class. I create the best space there when I am thoroughly prepared for class. I take my foot off the gas the moment I walk in, and give over the room to the students, curating our co-created space by steering a debate, offering a perspective, and ensuring the students all get a chance to take part.

The place-into-space idea is incredibly straightforward, and maybe doesn’t tell us much that we don’t already know. But it helps me aspire to be the best I can be, and to do the very most (which is often the least) that I can. I know what an empty, expectant place can feel like – the weight of responsibility it can unwittingly rest on my shoulders – and the possibilities that simmer beneath its surface, ready to resonate in the room: I feel the latent energy in a group of students, and in the audience who are ready and willing to be wowed if everyone in the band pulls together to make the show work. I know the musicians and educators reading this are old hands at making trivial places into wildly creative, wonderful spaces that allow students, audiences, bandmates, and peers to flourish. May we, then, always imagine spaces where we see the least and most inspiring of places. May our teaching and musical spaces always be liminal and transformative.

Gareth Dylan Smith is Manager of Program Effectiveness at Little Kids Rock, and Visiting Research Professor in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University