‘Why be interested?’ Aesthetics, applied theatre and drama education

Haseman, Brad; Winston, Joe

doi:10.1080/13569783.2010.512182

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…This is complementary to one of the philosophies that underpin drama education, that being the role of objective, subjective and informed understandings. Like drama, the constructivist researcher experiences a process similar to Bolton’s (1984) “unselfing”, which is also discussed by Haseman (2010) in a drama education context. Subjective understandings are deeply valued as they are considered the nexus of intelligence and emotion (Misson, 1996).…”

Section: Developing a Methodology For Drama Performance Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 98%

Stories told and performed: a methodology for researching drama assessment in schools

Jacobs

2019

QRJ

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Purpose A methodology that combined ethnographies, including the ethnography of performance with narrative inquiry was used in a research project investigating the assessment of senior secondary Drama performance in Australia. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach After a temporal change in the research approach, it was decided that the research method needed to capture the Drama performance assessment phenomenon as it was lived and experienced. Findings As a result, methodological choices shifted from procedural documentation and document analysis to ethnographic observations that were able to capture the more nuanced aspects of the relationship between Drama performance and assessment, embracing tacit learning, agendas, cultures, experiences and understandings. Originality/value This paper reflects on the methodological dilemmas and choices made when studying artistic and aesthetic texts in the classroom, and poses considerations for future researchers conducting inquiries in aesthetically rich learning environments.

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Section: Developing a Methodology For Drama Performance Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 98%

Stories told and performed: a methodology for researching drama assessment in schools

Jacobs

2019

QRJ

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“…In the end, works of art are the only media of complete and unhindered communication between man and man [sic] that can occur in a world full of gulfs and walls that limit community of experience. (Dewey 1934, p. 109) At the beginning of the last decade, applied theatre enjoyed an "aesthetic turn" (Haseman and Winston 2010), as signalled by James Thompson's (2009) influential work Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect, which shifted focus away from the social utility of the work (for example, in education or community building) and toward its affective and aesthetic qualities (White 2015). Within this, there is an acknowledgement that the instrumentalism of applied theatre is inherently bound together with its aesthetic power.…”

Section: Pragmatist Aesthetics In Prison Theatrementioning

confidence: 99%

Prison Theatre and an Embodied Aesthetics of Liberation: Exploring the Potentials and Limits

Woodland

2021

Humanities

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Prison theatre practitioners and scholars often describe the sense of imaginative freedom or “escape” that theatre and drama can facilitate for incarcerated actors, in contrast to the strict regimes of the institution. Despite this, the concept of freedom or liberation is rarely interrogated, being presented instead as a given—a natural by-product of creative practice. Drawing from John Dewey’s (1934) pragmatist aesthetics and the liberatory pedagogies of Bell Hooks (2000) and Paulo Freire (1996), I propose an embodied aesthetics of liberation in prison theatre that adds depth and complexity to claims for freedom through creativity. Reflecting on over twenty years of prison theatre practice and research, I propose that the initial “acts of escape” performed through engaging the imagination are merely the first threshold toward more meaningful forms of freedom. I frame these as the following three intersecting domains: “Acts of unbinding”, which represents the personal liberation afforded by experiences with theatre in prison; “acts of love”, which expresses how the theatre ensemble might represent a “beloved community” (hooks); and “acts of liberation”, which articulates how these experiences of self-and-world creation may ripple out to impact audiences and communities. An aesthetics of liberation in prison theatre can, therefore, be conceived as an embodied movement towards personal and social renewal; an approach that deepens our understanding of its oft-cited humanising potential, and its limits.

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“…A recent surge of interest in applied theatre aesthetics has invited us to consider the ways in which politics, participation and process inform our understanding of the aesthetic in this wide and often-contested field. Although scholars in the field of drama in education have consistently explored the aesthetic dimensions of how drama engages and educates, Haseman and Winston (2010) suggest that the broader field of applied theatre scholarship has previously neglected the aesthetic, being more focused on the instrumental aspects of the work. They argue that this may be due partly to classicist Kantian versions of aesthetics not reflecting the embodied, participatory and democratic practices of applied theatre and its 'gritty' contexts (2010: 465).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The art of living in prison: A pragmatist aesthetic approach to participatory drama with women prisoners

Woodland

2016

Applied Theatre Research

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Across the fields of applied theatre and prison theatre, there appears to be little analysis of aesthetics and aesthetic engagement for participants in prison-based participatory practices. This article presents a pragmatist aesthetic frame that I developed to analyse the experience of a drama programme I ran in a women's prison. This frame evolved alongside the practice, drawing largely from John Dewey's (1934) Art as Experience and a selection of contemporary scholars who, influenced by Dewey, work in the areas of aesthetics, ethics and education-most notably Richard Shusterman (2000, 2008) and David Granger (2006). I also incorporated narrative within this frame as an interpretive and expressive structure for experience, and a key element within my applied theatre practice. I began to conceive aesthetics in terms of an 'art of living', identifying a 'poetics of renewal' that informed the selfand world-creation of participants in the drama. I share this theoretical framework as a possible way to integrate the instrumental and the aesthetic in applied theatre theory and practice, specifically in a prison context. KEYWORDS aesthetics applied theatre participatory drama prison theatre somaesthetics women prisoners

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‘Why be interested?’ Aesthetics, applied theatre and drama education

Cited by 9 publications

References 3 publications

Stories told and performed: a methodology for researching drama assessment in schools

Stories told and performed: a methodology for researching drama assessment in schools

Prison Theatre and an Embodied Aesthetics of Liberation: Exploring the Potentials and Limits

The art of living in prison: A pragmatist aesthetic approach to participatory drama with women prisoners

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