Ethnodramatherapy

Integrating Research, Therapy, Theatre and Social Activism into One Method

Stephen Snow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000467307
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Storytelling

Ethnodramatherapy explores the integration of the performance ethnography method, known as ethnodrama, with the principles and practices of drama therapy to establish a sound theoretical formulation for ethnodramatherapy, and considers its use as art, as therapy, as research and as a vehicle for social justice.

The book begins by defining ethnodramatherapy – an original synthesis created by the author through deep study and practice of Mienczakowski's enthnodrama, combined with 35 years of his own practice and research in drama therapy, creative arts therapies and therapeutic theatre. The book describes the origins of ethnodramatherapy, along with its evolution and method. It then delves into applications of the practice highlighted by five case studies with different audiences in different settings. Subjects include adults with developmental disabilities, female adolescents in youth protection, caregivers for loved ones with mental illnesses and Chinese students exploring controversial issues of oppression in China. Complex ethical issues are reviewed and suggestions are made on how to deal with some of the challenging ethical situations that are likely to arise in the ethnodramatherapy process. What emerges is a powerful tool that harnesses theatrical art, ethnographic research and the clinical techniques of drama therapy to create a potential for emancipatory experience for both performers and audiences.

This exciting and dynamic synthesis of drama therapy, performance ethnography, theatrical art and social activism will be of interest to the whole community of theatre practitioners and scholars who use theatre to effect individual and social change, including the disciplines of applied theatre, theatre education, experimental theatre, performance studies, and, of course, drama therapy, psychodrama and the other creative arts therapies.

Part I Background and Development

1 The Concept of Ethnodramatherapy and Its Origin

DOI: 10.4324/9781003083818-2

Despite Victor Turner’s (1986) initial call for research that also participated in performance, the worlds of theatre and research at that time were too far apart for a viable elision between the aesthetic assumptions of performance and the methodological and theoretical ambitions of research to truly take place.

(Jim Mienczakowski, 2001)

Big Word, Big Concept

Ethnodramatherapy. It is a big word. It is made up of seventeen letters. Some might say it is an overwrought, fancy-dancy neologism. As the inventor of this term, I feel a big responsibility to clarify its meaning and to answer the central question: is it an authentic concept? This is the essential purpose of this book.

Ethnodramatherapy is a big concept. There are several different ways to review the word as it relates to the overall construct. The first of these derives from the tripartite construction of the word. It could be called the triangulated perspective (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 The Triangulated Perspective

The term is made up of three separate words derived from Greek: ethno, drama and therapy. To begin with ethno is not just used as a prefix, as in ethnobotany or ethnomusicology or ethnopsychiatry. Ethno is derived from the Greek word ethnos, which means a nation, a people (Oxford Dictionary of English, 2005, p. 595). It implies a group with a common language and shared traditions. In this way, it relates specifically to disciplines like ethnology or ethnography – the study or portrait of a people – the latter being a method of research, quintessentially relevant to the concept and practice of ethnodramatherapy. The second noun, drama, is derived from the Greek verb dram, indicating “to do,” or “to act” (Oxford Dictionary, p. 527). It reflects Aristotle’s succinct definition of tragic drama as “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude” (Aristotle, 1961, p. 7). It refers precisely to the performance of a such dramatic action. The third component, therapy, is also derived from a Greek word, therapeia, fundamentally meaning a “healing” process (Oxford Dictionary, p. 1830). Although outside the scope of this study, the alignment of healing and the Greek Theatre has been well established (Hartigan, 2009).

Putting all these words, together, what do we get? Ethnodramatherapy is “the preparation and performance of a play based on the study of the actions and thoughts of a group of people, with deeply shared common experience, which aims to have a therapeutic effect on the individuals in the group.” This is a pretty good summation of the ethnodramatherapy process from the triangulated view. It is also a good umbrella formula for the chapters that follow in the Applications section of this book.

The second point of view could be called the “binary perspective.” It defines ethnodramatherapy as the integration of two things: ethnodrama and drama therapy. It constitutes, therefore, the synthesis of a performance-based research process, ethnodrama, and a theatre or drama-based therapy process, drama therapy. In terms of a scholarly conceptualization of ethnodramatherapy, this way of looking at the intellectual invention of the method is probably the most accurate. It immediately recognizes the immense significance of Dr. Jim Mienczakowski’s ethnodrama approach (Mienczakowski, 1995a, 1995b, 1997, 2001) and my great debt to him. Mienczakowski is the creator of the performance-based method of ethnographic research, known as ethnodrama. He formulated this approach in Australia, in the 1990s, as a participant in the emerging discipline of performance ethnography, or what Denzin (2003) describes as a new movement towards “a performance-centered pedagogy [that] uses performance as a method of investigation, as a way of doing ethnography, and as a method of understanding, a way of collaboratively engaging the meanings of experience” (p. 31). Mienczakowski was very much part of this movement, as is witnessed in his statement in the epigraph at the beginning of this chapter. So, it completely makes sense that he would advocate that his own method of “the ethnographic construction of dramatic scripts, validated by contributors, peers, and informed others, is potentially able to achieve vraisemblance and cultural ingress as effectively, if not more effectively, than some traditional means of research reporting” (1995b, pp. 365–366). Much more about this, later.

Drama therapy has been my professional discipline for 35 years. I will describe some of my work in this domain, in the third section of this chapter. One of the most commonly used and succinct definitions of drama therapy is “the intentional and systematic use of drama/theatre processes to achieve psychological growth and change. The tools are derived from theatre, the goals are rooted in psychotherapy” (Emunah, 1994, p. 3). Drama therapy is, itself, a synthesis, combining the many media of dramatic art with the principles and practices of psychotherapy.

It falls under the wider rubric of creative arts therapies, sometimes, in Europe, especially, designated as expressive arts therapies, or simply as the arts therapies (Jones, 2005). Whereas ethnodrama was developed by one person (although, in Chapter 9, we will look at how Moreno first coined the term in the 1950s), drama therapy was created collectively, over many years by many separate individuals (Jennings, 1992; Jennings et al., 1994; Jones, 1996, 2007, 2010; Johnson & Emunah, 2009, 2020; Landy, 1986, 1993, 2008; Lewis & Johnson, 2000). It is practiced, today, worldwide, in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. There are graduate training programs in many countries.

Ethnodramatherapy (henceforth to be abbreviated as EDT) is, then, the dynamic fusion of the performance ethnography method, known as ethnodrama, with the praxis of drama therapy. It is the substantial merger of two disciplines. Although, as will be shown, it also represents a synthesis of research, therapy, theatre and social activism.

My First Encounter with Ethnodrama

In 2002, my Drama Therapy graduate student, Ron Scott, handed in a research proposal, “The Place of Performance in Qualitative Research.” It was largely based on Mienczakowski’s ethnodrama. I had never even heard of the term before. My eyes opened wide as I read through my student’s text. The method seemed extraordinarily familiar to me. Mienczakowski was talking about the “performance of ethnography.” In my doctoral program in performance studies at New York University, I had studied with the famous anthropologist Victor Turner who had devised his own approach called “performing ethnography.” As he and his wife Edith had written in The Drama Review (1982): “For several years, as teachers of anthropology, we have been experimenting with the performance of ethnography to aid students’ understanding of how people in other cultures experience the richness of their social existence” (p. 33). Saldana (2011) mentions how Turner coined the term, “Ethnodramatics” and goes on to explain how valuable this approach has been to his own work in ethnodrama (pp. 47–61). For myself, I was fascinated with Turner’s approach and was fortunate to have several lectures and workshops with him during my studies at NYU. I especially remember Turner’s phrase, “to put experiential flesh on these cognitive bones” (1982, p. 41) as a justification for the performance of ethnography. Mienczakowski, in his own writing, cites “Victor Turner’s (1986) initial call for research that also participated in performance” (2001, p. 468) (see the rest of the quote in the epigraph at beginning of this chapter). Saldana quotes Turner from Turner’s book, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, honing in on this harbinger of ethnodrama: “I’ve long thought that teaching and learning anthropology should be more fun than they often are. Perhaps we should not merely read and comment on ethnographies, but actually perform them” (1982, p. 89). Turner’s ideas and perspective were a major part of my training in performance studies.

I am very grateful to my former student for “introducing” me to Mienczakowski and ethnodrama. From that point on, I plunged into the world of ethnodrama, reading all of Mienczakowski’s work, including his doctoral dissertation, as well as the work of Canadian sociologist Ross Gray and his collaborators (Gray and Sinding, 2002; Gray et al., 2003). Later, the writings of Johnny Saldana (1998, 2005, 2011), the major American interpreter of Mienczakowski, became very valuable for my grounding in ethnodrama.

As the development of ethnodramatherapy is profoundly intertwined with my own personal life journey, I hope the reader will allow me to indulge in a little more autobiographical framing, here, in order to elucidate the origins of my method.

Two Formats for Living History Performance

Two other factors enhanced my immediate grasp of this performance ethnography approach. In 1984 and 1985, I had done field work for my doctoral dissertation on the performance of “Living History” at the “Living Museum” of Plimoth Plantation. The embodied approach to first-person interpretation where costumed enactors speak in a 17th-century English accent, saying “I did this or that,” was used at this site, also, as a way of putting “experiential flesh on cognitive bones.” In this case, the bones of ethnohistory. I utilized the Turners’ perspective to analyze the performance of ethnohistory that was taking place at Plimoth. Eventually, I published my thesis as a book, Performing the Pilgrims: A Study of Ethnohistorical Role-Playing at Plimoth Plantation (Snow, 1993). This whole experience, from field work to analysis, gave me a great familiarity with the concept and practice of performing ethnography (see Figure 1.3).

There was one other significant factor which made the ethnodrama approach, so easily accessible to my understanding and use. It was actually a major turning point in my life. During the year 1985, when I was writing my dissertation on a fellowship, I took a part-time job at Wartburg Lutheran Home for the Aging, a nursing home in Brooklyn, New York, in their recreation department. I began doing plays with a unique method of therapeutic theatre, called “Living History Theatre.” It was an amalgamation of oral history, ethnography and the psychological process of life review (Charnow et al., 1988). I got trained in the method by its creators. I had studied a little drama therapy as part of my performance studies coursework at NYU. I was combining that with what I knew of performance ethnography and, at the same time, studying the well-known gerontological therapy technique, the “Life Review” process (Butler, 1963). My first piece was actually entitled “The Life Revue.” It re-created scenes from the actual life stories of the seniors’ own developmental process. As I wrote about it, “life stories of residents of a nursing home are evoked, sensitively processed in a small group therapy context, and finally transformed into theatrical scenes. These scenes are, then, constructed into ‘Living History’ plays which are taken on tour and shared with audiences” (Snow, 1986, p. 1).

If anything laid the groundwork for my development of EDT, it was this early work in living history theatre. I interviewed the residents at Wartburg about their personal experiences of growing up; I processed these experiences through drama therapy and psychodrama; I directed the plays; and I drove the bus that took them on the “tour” of the plays to schools, colleges, psychiatric hospitals, senior centers and other nursing homes. An example of the creation of one scene that embodies this whole process is t...