MARCO TEÓRICO

The research involved in the school production project is concerned with human behaviour that is ‘culturally complex’ (Donelan & O’Brien, 2010, p. 3), and thus called for rich, organic, qualitative research. As chaotic and multifaceted as the role of researcher/teacher and producer extraordinaire is, it is firmly to facilitate a positive, creative and authentic educational experience for the students involved. Investigating the experiences of these students as they embark upon writing an organic school production through authentic learning (Lombardi 2007; Mantei and Lisa 2009; Herrington, Reeves, and Oliver 2014) opportunities called for a hybrid of qualitative research methods.

In considering the ‘communicative expression’ (Gergen and Gergen 2003) that is involved within the school production it became evident why I would focus my methodologies around those which have examined artistic expression as modes of communication. Furthermore, the script development for the school production, rather than the actual performance involved in the study has been included as the ‘text’ which is a very significant element of my research. When a presentational form is used to report research it can be argued that it is in fact a ‘text’ (Haseman 2006b).

Within the thesis is the developed script annotated with my observations, including behind the scenes notes. The taped version of the live performance of the finished script is in the appendices and should be viewed to understand an integral element of methodological outcome of the school production project. This live performance of the script, writing, brainstorming sessions, behind the scenes and rehearsals must be viewed to appreciate the enormity of the collective student achievement. Which of the two is richer in content and meaning? This depends upon the reader/viewer, for me the

performance colours between the lines and the words and gives meaning.

Within the body of this thesis annotation of the moments involved in developing the script - including rehearsals, aesthetic decision making and even shoe throwing – have uncovered a unique production process to comment upon the student/human experience. A looking glass is particularly held up to backstage, off-set, in between spaces and in places where the students and teacher worked towards the common goal. To explain these spaces is to give a full insight into how the process was drawn

together. Johnny Saldana asserts in relation to literature that has come from studying backstage and off-set behaviours, ‘Such accounts are rare in the literature’ (Saldanna 2010, 4). These spaces and moments in creative time hold some of the most important moments involved in school productions (Saldanna 2010), this is evidenced throughout the Student Perspectives chapter.

Backstage is where all the action takes place for what needs to happen onstage. This is where the actors and stagehands work together under pressure to achieve a common goal. This is a clear example of extrinsic motivation in education. It’s a place where the informal conversations and interactions occur and lasting bonds are made (Misztal 2002). Montemuro, as quoted in Baker states, “there is so much to see from the vantage point of backstage” (Baker 2013, xii). Friedman asserts that ‘stability of character, skill, credibility, and integrity – and the trust they make possible – are essential for backstage communications’ (Friedman 1994, 105). This unchartered space (backstage) and the moments it holds enhance the learners’ experience, the real world requirements – attributes that Friedman speaks of are developed backstage during production and rehearsal. Grappling with these attributes is seen in the Backstage Chapter.

An awareness of the backstage and the spaces that the creative collective imagination follows, which may be physically back stage or in other spaces where we take the collective imagination (the school bus, at home, in the corridors, while singing in the shower, at 3am when sleep eludes us) each minor moment is a moment in time that accumulates to make the whole. The reflection of these moments, shared and synthesised, allowing the students to embark on more than what might be the conceived product. The realisation that all students have something to offer to the overall project, however small or seemingly insignificant, has me acutely positioned as the auto ethnographer within the

ethnodrama/theatre of the school production.

Although I did not use Action Research within my methodology it must be said that it ‘solves real problems’ (O'Toole 2006, 50). I wanted ‘to create spaces where those who have structurally been denied a voice’ (Langhout and Thomas 2010, 67) (when it comes to the content and aesthetic decision-making around the school production) could engage, express and experience ownership of their school production. For me, (the teacher) it was ‘about change and intervention’ (O'Toole 2006, 51) in an area that didn’t feel right for me. As the teacher/researcher I decided to use the model of ethnodrama to investigate the problems I saw within the running of the school production and the culture surrounding the school production in one Australian secondary school.

The task of collective script development, rewriting and research was considered as ethnodrama and commented upon within the context of creativity, connectedness and experience, by myself and participants (Knowles and Cole 2007). The strategies employed in this process was that of a social network study, which included a series of nodes and connections to help explain the steps which inform the way we see the intricacies of the creative exploration of students interlinked with teachers,

peers, audience members, parents, extended community and the self-view of the participants within the social network.

Ethnodrama offered a research method in which to observe the making and the voices of the

participants and ethnotheatre in understanding the end product or the theatre show that comes from a school production. My background in the Performing Arts, writing, directing and performing has become second nature to me. I wanted to understand the school production, which in comparison to my experience with Performance Art was starkly extraneous. Constructing an ethnodrama script with the participants made good sense. The research focuses upon the performance or the sum of the school production being rich in aesthetic and entertainment value (Saldanna 2005, 14) more so than what we might ordinarily expect an ethnodrama to look like.

While ethnodramas are the performances that come from research, the school production project required some experimentation and development of the methodology. O’Neill asserts, ‘the self- reflexivity inherent in the ethnographic process, along-side the crisis in ethnography and the ‘linguistic’ and ‘cultural turn’ in socio-cultural theory has led to demands for experimentation’ (O'Neill et al. 2002, 3). The off-centred ethno-drama hybrid methodology used in this school production research project is precisely experimentation. The ‘off-centred’ can be explained by the participants making the performance script with me, while I am positioned as teacher, and auto- ethnographer. What is the overall mien of this project based on the off-centred ethno-drama? It is personified by student participants with a voice (Kazubowski-Houston 2010, Jackson and Mazzei 2008), collective writing with peers, opportunities for embodied practical experimentation and a researcher, who observes, documents, becomes involved and teaches.

The research deals with everything that the production demands of the teacher/administrator, teacher/director, teacher/producer, teacher/set designer, teacher/costume designer and teacher/tech designer as an embedded researcher (Gunter, Hall, and Mills 2014). The autoethnography exaplins how this teacher is positioned and is further explored within the Journal chapter where we see aspects of my world, where I need to challenge my assumptions and dislocate myself as the abject to

understand the viewpoint of those surrounding me (Cole 2007). I wanted to be able to foster a sense of creativity through initiative, inspired by fertile imagination and naviagted by emotional

intelligence. I also wanted students to be able to critically reflect through a real sense of freedom of action and thought, which promotes autonomy (Greenwood 2012).

However, when it came to anthropology and the study of the human being in the process; and what it is that the participants’ learn and develop from this particular model of school production, I realised that ethnodrama as I understood it would not be sufficient in understanding the students’ experiences. Ethnodrama would allow me to make a performance that reflects upon the participants’ understanding of the process and what they were learning. Ethnodrama became a model for me to develop

performance and to measure learning. Not only was, what the participants learnt, but how they learn of interest. It provided insight into how they think about their worlds. It allowed them to voice their understandings of their worlds through performance and performance texts and to make their own performance. This is not necessarily the sum of an ethnodrama but rather an imagined script imprinted with the participants’ ideas, cultural understanding, age-based references, performance understanding and dreams (Gilbert 2000, Jackson and Mazzei 2008). It allowed for the here and now to be explored through the development of performative, aesthetic text that was then performed - not labelled as an ethnodrama, but as a school production.

The methodology of ethnodrama did not exactly offer the solution to understanding the participants. Instead, the writing workshop – where embodied participants (rather than passive readers of a

prescribed script) developed their own script through workshops that built characters and scenarios for the stage – became the site for mimesis (Mienczakowski 1995, 371). The ethnodrama was never about what it means to be in a school production – this required too much of my voice. In understanding what it meant to be in a school production and perform an original script rewritten by the participants, I was positioned to make observations both as the autoethnographer and teacher of these participants.

The ethnographic script produced was an authentic school production script which simultaneously held within it, the voice of each participant. By authentic I mean that the students made the script in an authentic manner. This script is the participants’ voice about their worlds through the medium of performance. There was no effort in ensuring the performance would be entertaining, with students voicing their ideas and connections to their worlds through the performance making process. This was me ‘thinking like an artist’ (Saldana as cited in Ackroyd and O'Toole 2010, 59) I wanted students to fashion their own script rather than responding to research questions to make a performance.

Positioned as the researcher I was able to make very conscious decisions about how the students were stimulated to make the work that they did, what the processes involved were. I wanted them to focus their understandings of their worlds and to understand where their worlds intersected with the

Shakespearean script. The completed script has been included within the body of the thesis as it serves as an artefact and example of the creative collaboration that was the ethnodrama. Unlike the

conventional ethnodrama scripts, the participants wrote down their ideas and thoughts about their worlds, in a collectively imagined and conceived script.

Throughout the research project I questioned what an ethnodrama was and its relevance to this particular process of creating an authentic school production. The significance of using the ‘research participants’ actual words’ (Sandoval and Carolyn 2014, 522) relates to a model of ethnodrama as it catches the students’ ideas, imagination and understanding about the mis-en-scene. This process allows them to imagine and embody their ideas, rather than simply assuming a character through

limited information. The performance was not intended ‘for knowledge transfer’ (Rossiter and Godderis 2011, 676) alone, rather as an all-encompassing performance that pointed the profile at a 45 degree angle upon the stage and illuminated the intricacies of all the traffic and backstage

complexities as well as the learning possibilities and the dynamics involved.

This script re-sounded the participants’ voices. My understanding of this is embedded in the feminist theories of Grosz (1994), that performance offers us a language beyond the two dimensional

dichotomy of the written word. Ethnodrama as qualitative research ‘comes from the experiences and understandings of the population being researched’ (Haseman 2006a, 3). An ethnodrama script is the researcher’s version and selection of material. My research called for the participants’ voices to be directly engaged. Where the researcher’s script in an ethnodrama interprets what the participants’ experience is, this script is the culmination of the participants’ experiences.

The idea of making a performance about making a performance – seemed to be bordering on the absurd, and I had to question my practice at this stage to plan my action and consider the outcomes. Initially I questioned, will it still be an ethnodrama? I was sure I would still have a Drama. Ethno refers to the people studied in the Drama. I was sure this was still happening. I wasn’t dramatising data (Saldanna 2003). I was collecting data from the dramatisation and the process of getting to the theatre. So where did my methodology fit? Analysis of the participating students fell somewhere between Ethnodrama and Ethnotheatre, while analysis of myself as the teacher used Auto ethnography. The following hybrid was adopted:

1. Ethnodrama in the workshopping and rehearsal process.

2. Autoethnography to comment upon the student researcher’s position within the research, which shall include the teachers’ task of ‘thick descriptions’ (Geertz 1973, cited in Jenkins 2003, p. 184), from production.

This combination delineates an otherwise organic project. The recent study entitled, 'Risky Business: A cross-disciplinary investigation of creative arts as an intervention activity for young people at risk in urban and rural Victoria' (Donelan & O’Brien, 2002-2005, p. 3), is a good example of a

collaborative work that focussed on the benefits of creative arts on young people albeit ‘at risk’. The Risky Business (Denzin and Lincoln 2000; Janesick 2000) similarly used such a conceptual

framework involving, ‘Field-based data collection, emergent analysis, grounded theory and stakeholder input’ (Denzin 1997, 3).

School production through teacher researcher lenses & student experience 44

In this project, digital data, including video footage, photographs and emails were used to document the process (Atkinson et al. 2007). Data and anecdotal evidence was also recorded manually in journal format and using tools such as One Note, where my thoughts could be recorded visually and or audibly. This thorough documentation meant the process was incredibly arduous when transcribing. ‘Ethical dilemmas about how much information to disclose’ (Miller et al. 2012, 2) became a

consideration with the vast volume of data at hand. To document all data would be to explain every stroke in an intricate painting. In following this analogy I have focussed upon the texture (individual experiences and the collective experience), colour (areas of production involvement), contrast (various participants) and brush stroke (collective imagination) to read the picture that was painted as artistically sound, just as Saldana is, ‘adamant when he declares that ethnodrama should be

aesthetically pleasing and sound’ (Saldanna 2005, 14).

Saldana observes several Ethnodrama research projects in ‘Performing research: Tensions, triumphs and trade-offs of Ethnodrama’, which is a unique look at several projects that have successfully employed ethnography as a methodology for research in Drama and Performance (Ackroyd & O’Toole, 2010). It has informed my understanding of the possibilities in Ethnodrama. Saldana comments that this text, ‘critically examines some of the rather grand claims made by theorists and scholars of ethnodrama, particularly when it comes to the questionable power of the art form to initiate social change’ (Saldanna 2010, 3).

These projects, and particularly that of Sallis’ work into Boys in Drama education, influenced my methodology. Even though his project differed to the school production it allowed me a model of data collection in so far that it was in a school and involved drama education. At one point Sallis states, ‘the boys began to take me into their confidence’ (Sallis 2008, 8). This privileged position that he explains became an accepted state for me as researcher and co-script writer and thus co-ethnographer. While the ethnographic script that came from the research paints one picture, the Autoethnography that supports this offers insights into what Sallis eludes.

The ethnography is supported by the self-reflexive method of Autoethnography. Autoethnographic performance involves, ‘reflexivity, in which the researcher pauses for a moment to think about how his or her presence, standpoint, or characteristics might have influenced the outcome of the process’ (Wall 2006, 184). It was clear that when I grappled with the students’ rejection of working on an original script, I was in this moment of pausing and rethinking what it was I would do. Choosing a Shakespearean script was an outcome of this reflexivity. This can be seen in the Journal chapter. ‘Critical ethnography becomes the “doing” or the “performance” of the critical theory (Madison 2005, 15), and the autoethnographic performance is exactly the outcome of the thoughts, ideas, images, nuances, and workshops of the subjects.

This self-reflective Autoethnography allowed me to understand what I contributed to the participant owned ethnodrama script. My journal, which openly offers my moments of insanity along with triumph, is presented as a documentation of my ‘hot cognition’, reflection and analysis. This was important for the methodology in so far as it gave me a voice, where, as altruistic researcher, I had given the voice to the participants. This further step in analysis is an effort to further ‘interrogate’ (Sallis 2008, 9) my application to the ethnodrama methodology. The processes and intricacies involved in hearing the moments of clarity, connection and imaginations of each participant, along with the processes and methods used to organise the project, ensuring a rich educational experience for participants (Potrac, Gilbert, and Denison 2012).

Process

In practical terms participants discussed, workshopped and co-wrote a script with me. The script was collectively edited and fine-tuned and brought to life through rehearsals, this process of editing continued while the script was inhabited and played upon the stage during rehearsals and shows. Participants performed and ran technical aspects (including digital applications) of the production, depending on their areas of interest. Participants made aesthetic decisions regarding their work. For example, how it was staged, lit and enhanced by costume, mood, sound etc. The production was performed to the participants’ school and wider community.

The audience became an important consideration in the ethnodrama. The expected audience was no different to that of any other Clarity College performance. It would be held in the school’s theatre situated in a rural setting, a small city approximately 100 kilometres west of Melbourne. It was anticipated that the general public and extended community would be in attendance. The fact that the participants’ peers made up part of the audience had an motivating effect on the participants’

experience. Ellis asserts, ‘an individual is best situated to describe his or her own experience more accurately than anyone else’ (Ellis, cited in Wall 2006, 148).

In line with this thinking, participants’ were encouraged to articulate their views of their performance and how they had perceived their peers’ feedback. Carolyn Ellis writes, ‘In autoethnographic work, I look at validity in terms of what happens to readers as well as to research participants and researchers