Drama and Theatre in Urban Contexts

Kathleen Gallagher, Jonothan Neelands, Kathleen Gallagher, Jonothan Neelands

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317849889
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Urban theatre can be described as theatre made with or by those whose lives are marked by the urban landscape and its social limits and possibilities. At the heart of this text lies the question of how theatre can illuminate the urban and how theatre is illuminated by the urban. The city, like a play, is a space where everything adopts multiple meanings. It is an objective thought and a subjective experience, a charged and symbolic thing, as well as a real, material, lived reality.

The chapters in this book illustrate the theatre's uncanny ability to narrate and symbolize the physical and psychic space of the city. Running through all of the pieces presented are the themes of power and of young people's sense of agency within the structures they dwell in and are shaped by. Through drama education and applied theatre practices, the affinity between the urban and its theatres is radically replaced by marginal spaces, boulevards and schools. As Guillermo Gómez-Peña suggests, the theatre has gone to the people to serve their local and immediate need for a means of holding the urban and the self so that both can be interrogated and re-imagined; so that the various dystopias of urban existence can be envisaged as places of urban solidarity and as utopias, at least, of the mind.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance.

‘I made myself’: playmaking as a pedagogy of change with urban youth

Bethany Nelson

Warwick Institute of Education, University of Warwick, UK

This article reflects on outcomes of a playmaking project conducted with 14–20-year-old urban students in the USA. The playmaking experience was part of a larger research project designed to facilitate students’ understandings of the ways in which their own experiences of discrimination are reflected in pervasive inequity at the societal level, and to facilitate the acquisition of skills that would allow them to become agents of social change in those dynamics. Outcomes discussed include the development of community among the class members and its importance to them, the sense of power and agency students reported as a result of participating in the playmaking process and performing their piece, and the effect of the process on their emerging understanding of unequal power dynamics and the role of collective action in fostering social change.

There are gritty realities out there, realities whose power is often grounded in structural relations that are not simply social constructions created by the meanings given by an observer … Structural conditions can never be ‘thought away’, they must be thought ‘through’ in order to be ‘acted away’. (Apple 1995, xiii–xiv)

Schools do not simply reflect the problems of the larger society, they perpetuate them. Schools are designed to create citizens, fill market needs, and generally replicate the socio-economic divisions represented by the student population and in society as a whole (Apple 1995). Consequently, students of colour and the urban poor experience the same oppression and lack of substantial opportunities for advancement in schools that are reflected in wider society (Ladson-Billings 1994; Edelman 1987). They attend schools that are under-resourced and prepare them to fill the same lower socio-economic slots occupied by the members of their communities (Fine and Weis 2003; Apple 1995; Ladson-Billings 1994). Further, ‘young people who are subjugated by oppressive social, economic and cultural forces are denied any real sense of agency and lack a capacity to act on and change their world’ (McInerney 2009, 28).

Educational theorists agree that the development of identity is a critical task of schooling and should disrupt socially imposed constructs around race, class, gender, sexuality, and traditional power roles. By utilising curriculum, pedagogy, and structural dynamics that integrate opportunities for students to think critically, explore multiple perspectives, experiment with a range of identities, and draw connections between the oppression they experience in their lives and larger social dynamics, students in schools will be better prepared to participate in redefining themselves and the society of which they are a part (McInerney 2009; Gallagher 2007; Fine and Weis 2003; Freire 1993).

Further, theorists on culturally relevant teaching agree on the importance of the establishment of community as a necessary factor for facilitating school success for urban students of colour (Macedo and Bartolomé 1999; Nieto 1999; Ladson-Billings 1994). Reflecting a communal orientation characteristic of the home cultures of many urban students generates a sense of belonging for individual students, and allows them to scaffold new learning on familiar group dynamics. This article considers the question: What effects can Playmaking, a form of Applied Theatre/Drama (AT/D), have on the development of communities of learners engaged in a collective struggle against the status quo? What effects might it have on facilitating the development of community among students and between students and teachers, exploring unequal power dynamics, and/or practising various forms of power?

Applied drama and theatre

Bourdieu et al. contend that ‘the dominated are the least capable of controlling their own representation’ (1993, 50) and ‘they are spoken of more than they speak’ (1993, 51).

Applied Theatre and Drama, defined by Nicholson as ‘dramatic activity that primarily exist outside conventional mainstream theatre institutions, and which are specifically intended to benefit individuals, communities and societies’ and characterised as ‘the relationship between theatre practice, social efficacy, and community building’ (2005, 2), seeks to rectify that dynamic. Judith Ackroyd (2000) identifies improving the lives of individuals and creating better societies, whether through process-oriented or performance-based work, as an intended outcome of AT/D. In AT/D, processes of working are embodied and involved, and are intimately connected to the social and cultural contexts in which they take place. They ‘often bring(s) into focus questions of allegiance, identity, and belonging’ (Ackroyd 2000, 13) and invite ‘questions about the contribution we are each making to the process of social change’ (Nicholson 2005, 23).

This paper discusses the outcomes of a research project utilising AT/D with at-risk urban high school students of colour in Chelsea, MA, in which questions of identity, belonging, unequal power dynamics, and the power to imagine and create a better society were explored through playmaking.

Methods

This study was the third component of a three-year research initiative designed to explore students’ understandings of power, the role of unequal power dynamics in shaping both their lives and society at large, and the possibility of utilising AT/D strategies to facilitate students’ identity and skills development as agents of change in these dynamics. The research questions guiding this component of the study were:

• What are the effects of playmaking on facilitating students’ understandings of unequal power dynamics, as reflected in cultural hegemony and unequal distribution of resources in their lives?

• What are the effects of using playmaking structures to facilitate students’ identity formation as change agents in the issues that affect their lives?

• How can students acquire advocacy skills through participation in a playmaking experience?

(For the purposes of this paper, playmaking refers to the use of a variety of drama/theatre techniques to develop original performance work with students which emphasises the exploration of their ideas with the goal of developing their voices and visions of the world and bringing them to a broader audience.)

This was a qualitative study using situated ethnography as a primary form of data collection followed by participant interviews. This structure generated information-rich case studies in a social constructivist frame, with the goal of ‘deeply understanding specific cases within a particular context’ (Patton 2002, 546). The social constructivist perspective emphasises ‘the social world … as socially, politically, and psychologically constructed’ and offers ‘perspective and encourage(s) dialogue among perspectives rather than aiming at singular truth and linear prediction’ (Patton 2002, 546). The design of this project also touches on aspects of Critical Change Theory (Brenner 2006; Patton 2002), in which qualitative inquiry is ‘a form of critical analysis aimed at social and political change’, approaching fieldwork and analysis with ‘an explicit agenda of elucidating power, economic, and social inequalities’ (Patton 2002, 548).

Triangulation was provided by the presence of an outside ethnographer familiar with AT/D, who had provided ethnography for the two previous components of the study. The classroom teacher also provided feedback and reflection in regular meetings, and a review and vetting of preliminary findings was conducted with 19 of the 24 student participants.

The project

The study was conducted with a Drama 2 class of 24 students at Chelsea High School, an urban high school outside Boston, MA. This group was selected because, though only three of the students had participated in a drama class before and only one had participated in productions, the positive energy, creativity, and thoughtfulness of the group suggested that they would have a wealth of ideas for the playmaking piece. The group was mixed by age (nine freshmen, three sophomores, five juniors, and seven seniors, ranging in age from 14 to 20 years) and race/ethnicity (three African American students, 18 Latino/a students from a variety of cultures, and three White students). Three of the students were recent immigrants and spoke limited English, and a third of the students had Individualised Education Plans, indicating a range of learning issues for which specific accommodations must be made. When the project began, in March 2009, there were 11 girls and 13 boys in the group. By the time they performed the finished piece, in May 2009, two of the boys were no longer in the school.

The playmaking experience was initially designed to address the research questions guiding the study by uncovering and facilitating students’ understandings of the ways in which their own experiences of discrimination are reflected in pervasive systemic inequities at the societal level (Apple 1995, xv) and to facilitate the acquisition of skills that would allow them to become agents of social change (Freire 1993). A second element involved exploring change agents from the past who, through collective action, provided a foundation of social change on which we, as a country, now stand. With a working title of ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’, I started with the question, ‘If you could change one thing about the world that would make your life better, what would it be?’ Six students wrote about the need for equal access to money and jobs and eight wrote about the need to eliminate meanness and violence from their community and from society. As a group, we decided to pursue the connection between resources and meanness/violence as the focus of the piece.

Utilising a variety of strategies, including improvisation, group and individual monologue creation, scene work, movement, games, and music, the students developed an original performance piece that incorporated music, text, image, and video to communicate the roles money and violence play in their lives. During this phase, the students explored a range of ideas, including family dynamics, school and peer interactions, social problems ranging from the drug trade to child abuse, joblessness, and the connection between wealth and power. The design of the process was formative; I developed exercises and prompts in response to the work they were creating, with the goal of moving their understandings forward and further exploring areas of the topic in which they demonstrated interest and knowledge about unequal power dynamics. I created the script from their words, scenes, and movement pieces (adding only two lines to bridge some scenes together) and Amy, the drama teacher, directed the play for performance. The development process lasted five weeks, followed by three weeks of rehearsal and a performance for a mixed audience of Chelsea High School students and teachers, several parents and family members of participating students, White students from an upper middle-class private school in the area, and undergraduate and graduate students from an area college. The composition of the audience was somewhat random. My concern was to ensure an audience of mixed races and a variety of socio-economic levels interested in what the students had to say.

I then conducted filmed interviews with the 15 participants who were available and willing. The interview questions invited the participants to reflect on their personal experiences of the project (What will stick in your mind from this experience? Why?), as well as exploring the learning objectives (Name one thing you think you’ve learned from this experience. About the world? About power?) and their perspectives on collective action (Why do you think people protest/picket/do collective action?).

Initial outcomes

… it was about life … all of our lives, and I felt like, I felt like every piece that was put into it, it changed every single one of us and the people that we performed it for. So their lives were affected and changed because of it from our experiences, which was our life that we were performing. (Katzia, grade 9)

If you put your minds together and people work together, you can make anything happen. You can get things poppin’! (Brian, grade 12)

From a teaching and learning perspective, this project was a success. The students bonded, with each other and with the adults involved, through the process of sharing their stories and developing the play, everyone was present for the performance (often an issue when working with graduated seniors and fledgling performers, according to Amy), they performed with energy and commitment, knew their lines, and were obviously proud of the outcome. Several students invited family members to attend the performance which took place during the school day – often a challenge for working parents – and they attended. Students introduced the show and moderated the brief talkback at the end. The students were flush with pride in their accomplishment. Though these are not the research outcomes of the study, it seems important to acknowledge and celebrate the human outcomes for these particular urban students; they were great.

A full discussion of the research outcomes of the playmaking experience are beyond the scope of this paper, but there are three aspects that bear close examination here as they pertain to the research questions guiding this project: the development of community among the class members and its importance to them, the sense of power and agency students reported as a result of participating in the playmaking process and performing their piece, and the effect of the process on their emerging understanding of unequal power dynamics and the role of collective action in fostering social change. Further, there were several unexpected moments in the development phase of the project which determined its final form and speak directly to the three outcomes mentioned above. These will be considered in some detail.

Applied theatre and community

… community… like freedom, it has to be achieved by persons offered the space in which to discover what they recognize together and appreciate in common; they have to find ways to make intersubjective sense. (Greene 1995, 39)

I don’t know, in this world in these days it’s kinda’ hard to, like, interact with other people, because we’re all so different. So when we come together as one and we are different ages, um, different class grades, races, ethnicities. It’s kinda’ like a beautiful thing. (Katzia, grade 9)

Applied Theatre and Drama facilitate the development of community (Gallagher 2007; Cahill 2002; Nelson, Colby, and McIlrath 2001; Wagner 1998; Manley and O’Neill 1997; Neelands and Goode 1990) in a world in which community is increasingly difficult to find and maintain. Though humans have a deep need for community, what Hannah Arendt calls an intangible ‘web of human relationships’, the unseen in-between that connects people by what they have in common (1958, 57), and Zygmunt Bauman (2001) calls ‘the search for common humanity’, it is elusive in contemporary society. Bauman discusses the range of challenges to finding, building and maintaining community.

Bauman (2001) identifies the focus on individualisation as a central component of the problem. ‘Troubles are supposed to be suffered and coped with alone and are singularly unfit for cumulation into a community of interests which seeks collective solutions to individual troubles’ (2001, 86). Bauman challenges the value of community today, addressing at length a current conception of community as restrictive, controlling, and lacking in the unconditional support present in the past (2001, 10). And, according to Bauman, ‘Ghetto life does not sediment community … Sharing stigma and public humiliation does not make the sufferers into brothers; it feeds mutual derision, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Drama and theatre in urban contexts
• 1. ‘I made myself’: playmaking as a pedagogy of change with urban youth
• 2. Preventing violent extremism and ‘Not in My Name’: theatrical representation, artistic responsibility and shared vulnerability
• 3. Meddling with ‘drama class’, muddling ‘urban’: imagining aspects of the urban feminine self through an experimental theatre process with youth
• 4. ‘Is that what you really want?’: a case study of intracultural ensemble-building within the paradoxes of ‘urbanicity’
• 5. The stage and the city: narrative, identity and place in Dermot Bolger’s The Ballymun Trilogy (2004–2008)
• 6. Back on whose track? Reframing ideologies of inclusion and misrecognition in a participatory theatre project with young people in London
• 7. Mythogeography works: performing multiplicity on Queen Street
• 8. Situation Venice: towards a performative ‘ex-planation’ of a city
• Appendix I: Abstracts in Spanish and French
• Index