Dramatizing Data: A Primer

Abstract

Due to the lack of “how-to” pieces in the methods literature, a theatre artist who later became an ethnographer offers this personal primer in playwriting with qualitative data. Ethnodramatic research representation should be chosen not for its novelty but for its appropriateness as a medium for telling a participant’s story credibly, vividly, and persuasively. An overview of such fundamental playwriting principles as plotting, characterization, monologues, dialogue, and staging is given. The author also proposes that collaborative ventures between ethnographers and theatre practitioners should be initiated to heighten the artistic quality of ethnotheatrical presentations.

Exploring Risky Youth Experiences: Popular Theatre as a Participatory, Performative Research Method

“…A postmodern attitude toward "truth" and the production of knowledge has legitimized an abundance of alternative approaches to doing research and new forms of representing research in the social sciences 6 . Amongst these, arts-based researchers have written performative texts, performed their research and used performance to gather participant responses and interpret them (Conrad, 2002;Norris, 2000;Saldaña, 2003). Denzin calls ethnodrama "the single most powerful way for ethnography to recover yet interrogate the meanings of lived experience" (1997, p. 94) and elsewhere calls for research that is pedagogical, political and performative (2003).…”

“…To talk about the Popular Theatre process, I needed to describe instances of our performance. I found an appropriate way of doing this through writing a series of scripted descriptions or "ethnodramatic" vignettes, sixteen in all, depicting salient moments of our work together (Conrad, 2002;Saldaña, 2003). Based on the audio and videotapes we made throughout the process, my journal and field notes, and students" journals, the scripts depict instances of performative interaction, discussion, the devising process, the scenes that students created, the animation of these scenes, responses to our performances and the interview I conducted with students.…”

Forum Theater’s potential as a Research Tool

“…En este caso, el teatro era una forma de divulgar de forma emotiva y encarnada, y con un gran potencial a la hora de interpretar, traducir y difundir resultados de investigación, favoreciendo la vinculación del público con el contenido, como señalan algunas autoras (Gray y Sinding, 2002;Paget, 1993;Rossiter et al, 2008). El reto, como en cualquier intersección disciplinar, residía en encontrar el equilibrio entre el criterio de las investigadoras y el de las artistas, en este caso, para lograr una calidad estética, riqueza intelectual y un resultado emocionalmente evocativo (Saldaña, 2003). Ello requiere trabajar con flexibilidad e interdisciplinariedad, para que las artistas puedan aprehender las necesidades de la divulgación, y las investigadoras estén abiertas a las interpretaciones teatrales (Paget, 1993;Rossiter et al, 2008).…”

Reimagining And Enacting Possibilities For Social Justice In The Academy

“…1; Issue 1 103 emphasizes voice and oral interpretation as a way to explore both particular concepts and the creative minds of audience members. The oral interpretive style that is unique to reader's theater is also a way in which it is possible to blur the boundaries between performance, conversation, dialog, and discussion (Saldaña, 2003). An early version of the reader's theater piece was performed by the authors at the 2011 Bergamo Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice in Dayton, Ohio.…”