When Performances of Pain Re-Traumatise

Performances that deal with traumatic issues may re-traumatise spectators. When these performances of pain are presented to those who have lived experiences that resonate with those on stage, these works may elicit and reinforce suffering, rather than suggest that any change is possible. Instead of assisting in the transformation of distressing circumstances, performing actual experiences of suffering may re-traumatise some spectators, reminding them of anguish. The simple act of remembering trauma can feel too dangerous, as a 72 year old survivor of the genocide in Rwanda said: 'Even when we think about those things that happened, those memories, I don't know why we don't die’.

Thetha Ngikhulume by the Victory Sonqoba Theatre Company

Applied theatre theorist Stephanie Marlin-Curiel (2002) discusses several pieces of testimonial theatre based on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, including Thetha Ngikhulume (Speak So That I May Speak) (1998) by the Victory Sonqoba Theatre Company, and directed by Bongani Linda. Performers were both victims and perpetrators of apartheid from the township of Alexandra, just outside Johannesburg.  

 

Thetha Ngikhulume told testimonies of abuses from the lived experiences of local residents back to the community. Unlike many testimonial performances, this piece was not created by an organisation or formal group, but by a local theatre director in order to voice his concerns, and those of his community. Through Thetha Ngikhulume Linda, the director hoped to provide a vehicle for reconciliation between victims and perpetrators and promote healing in both performers and spectators.

Director, Bongani Linda

In performing their own pain, Victory Sonqoba Theatre Company anticipated that actors would develop strength and support. Psychiatrist Judith Herman, who writes in the field of trauma, argues that healing is a process that encompasses personal responses, and ideally, some form of public recognition. Herman claims that while personal therapy can be vital, political and legal acknowledgement of suffering can assist the process of healing. Yet in order to work towards healing, testimonial performances must transform shame into self-respect and humiliation into dignity. 

Although Thetha Ngikhulume provides an acknowledgement of suffering, allowing those with experiences of trauma to share these events with those who had likewise felt similar suffering, the performance did not manage to foster a sense of strength. Narratives from the first act of the play tell of horror and violence, focusing on anger rather than reconciliation and burgeoning strength. Rather than a performance process that highlights hope and new possibilities, the show re-enacts painful true experiences. As stories gathered within the township are played back to the community this performance has the capacity to allow a communal space of loss and understanding, developing a shared vision of recovery. However, it also has the potential to arouse and agitate serious collective grief. Thetha Ngikhulume relives suffering with those already well-aware of its actuality.

 'Reconciliation' by the Victory Sonqoba Theatre Company

Perhaps more problematically however, Thetha Ngikhulume disturbs the boundary between representation and reality. Performance theorist Peggy Phelan insists that ‘show’ business is not ‘real’ business, and instead works within a fictitious framework to reveal fantasies of the ‘real’ world. Yet Thetha Ngikhulume ceased to be representation and instead stood in for the real as the performance revealed community secrets, telling stories some spectators would have heard for the first time. In this way Thetha Ngikhulume becomes a site for not only reflecting on past pain, but also disclosing fresh information. Rather than being what Richard Schechner calls ‘twice-behaved’ behaviours, these testimonies of pain became once-behaved, not representing, but rather becoming objects of pain themselves. Thetha Ngikhulume was intimate, so close to the events narrated on stage that it became a traumatic event in itself. In fact, part way through its tour of the township the performance had to abruptly end. The director, Linda tells: ‘It became real…. We couldn't differentiate between playing and reality’ (Marlin-Curiel, 2002, p. 276).

Sontag and Representations of Suffering

Perhaps it is not eliminating pain or trauma or acts of gross violation that would make the world beautiful. Perhaps it is that beauty and hope can exist in amongst all this pain that makes life worthwhile.

How do performances deal with traumatic subjects? Performance may create a social space to express and explore painful subjects, using the fictional space of the stage as a way to deal with difficult issues.Issues not usually confronted in a social arena may be tackled through performance. Susan Sontag claims that representations of suffering  ensure that traumas are not forgotten.

Sontag wrote that representations of suffering must not be pure spectacle. She maintains that images of pain must never be removed from an awareness of suffering as a lived reality. Displaying images of suffering as spectacle universalises experiences of the few and trivialises trauma, suggesting ‘perversely, unseriously, that there is no real suffering in the world’ (Regarding the Pain of Others, 2003, p. 99). It is therefore vital to represent suffering as a lived reality, as experiences that are endured by individuals and groups. Sontag concludes that we should ‘let the atrocious images haunt us’, to continually consider ‘what human beings are capable of doing’ (Regarding the Pain of Others 2003, p. 102). Accepting and acknowledging cruelty and depravity is integral to reaching maturity, maintains Sontag.

It may be vital to stage suffering in order to advocate for acknowledgement of particular points of view or events. Representations of pain can ensure that traumatic events are not overlooked by history, and that those who were victimised by events have the power to describe circumstances. Representations of suffering may inspire awareness and acknowledgement in spectators, encouraging them to question their world-views. Sontag’s analysis provides a framework for performance to encourage those who do not have first-hand experiences of the depicted trauma to respond ethically to suffering. While only a minority of people in the world have the ‘dubious privilege’ of choosing to be a spectator, to be able to judge the suffering of others from a safe distance, this must not enable a disconnection from pain.

Spreading the Love: The Bed Tour has begun!

The bed has begun it's tour!

Wanna jump on??

Come and jump in my bed and be part of short films exploring how diverse rAdelaideans LOVE.

Only 2 more to go: 

Sat 26th 9-10am @ Fullarton Market, Fullarton rd

Sat 26th 12:30-1:30pm @ Marion Cultural Centre

This is Why I Like Participatory Performance

Che Guevera said ‘solidarity means running the same risks’

Is Catharsis a lot of Crying?

I am writing about catharsis and crying so much I have to turn the radio off. You know that song 'She Cries'? (I will find the link and put it up). I am crying cos there has been a hole blast right through me with the pain of the song, the story it tells, and all the stories it doesn't tell. It's a gush that rushes through me.

Is this catharsis?

According to Aristotle, not really.
Catharsis, for him (so those who interpret his work say) is the discharge of emotions so that one may be rid of them.
Today, however, I cry out of recognition. I have no desire to rid myself of these emotions. Instead, it is an act of empathy, a desire to open to the world and let it run through my heart. It is no attempt to cleanse my heart (clean! poo-hoo!). It is a desire to let my heart see and be in the world. And some parts of the world can only be honoured through a good cry.

What is Theatre for Development?

Applied theatre is used in the field of development through a group of practices often referred to as theatre for development. These performances frequently work with rural and marginalised communities employing performance, including drama, song, dance and puppetry to convey pertinent health and educational messages (Kamlongera, 2005; Prentki T. , 1998). As a tool for development work, performance may be particularly useful due to performance artists abilities to work with groups of people who are not literate, who do not share a language, or who don’t have access to other types of media. Theatre for development performances often attempt to operate in local languages, and strive for styles, techniques, plots, and characters that are culturally appropriate. This group of performances work towards delivering health and educational messages to those not reached by mainstream initiatives, while cultivating community participation and mobilisation (Chinyowa, 2008b; Kamlongera, 2005; Prentki T. , 1998). Theatre for development may offer a way of looking at how performance can work with communities to create their own approaches to transforming the script of rape.

Theatre for development in practice

Rather than being simply a method of communicating health and educational messages to communities, theatre for development aims to create a forum for people to negotiate their own change. The pedagogical theories of Paulo Friere (2002; 2006a; 2006b) offer a framework for working with communities and have been instrumental in developing concepts of theatre for development. Friere initiates a ‘bottom-up’ approach to education, in which students institute their own solutions to problems. In his most famous text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2006a), Friere separates his work from what he calls the ‘banking’ method of education. The banking method refers to the assumption that students are an empty vessel and the teacher’s ‘task is to ‘fill’ the students’ with knowledge (Friere, 2006a, p. 71). The student is filled up like a bank, a receptacle to be sustained by the teacher. The teacher tells, while the student listens, records, remembers. Knowledge can be possessed or lacking, with the teacher acting as regulator, or depositor of essential information. Meanings are delivered as if they are absolute and unchanging: ‘The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable’ (Friere, 2006a, p. 71). According to Friere, this banking method reflects an oppressive society which clearly delineates ignorance from knowledge, and denies any attempt to transform existing power structures. Knowledge is given value according to who holds it, so that wisdom held by students is not as valuable as that held by teachers. It is the ‘teacher [who] chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it’ (Friere, 2006a, p. 73).

Paolo Freire and freedom through education

This banking method of education annuls possibilities for transformation and creativity. It is the same framework that delivers communities ‘’folk’ songs, dances, poems and stories that have already been planned for them’ (Chinyowa, 2008a, p. 18). It presumes that ‘the individual is a spectator, not re-creator’ of the world (Friere, 2006a, p. 75). Instead of simply delivering knowledge, Friere suggests education as the posing of problems, a dialogue between equals in which all are responsible for intellectual and personal growth. Friere’s philosophy engages learners in dialogue that invites them to be become ‘co-investigators’ in building awareness (Friere, 2006a, p. 106). Learning expands into a process of conscientizacao, or a developing of awareness and taking action against of one’s oppressions (Friere, 2006a). In the spirit of Friere’s theories, when considering theatre for development Kennedy Chinyowa (2001; 2007; 2008a; 2008b) writes that the process assumes ‘people are capable of transforming themselves if they are afforded the space to participate in their own development’ (Chinyowa, 2008a, p. 5). Theatre for development is influenced by a Frierean framework and aims to become ‘the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it’ (Friere, 2006a, p. 79). Performance is participatory, awakening people from a passive state of acceptance, into a critical consideration of their realities.

Despite the impact of Friere’s participatory framework upon theories and practices of theatre for development, performance processes may continue to silence women participants. While women may be visible in theatre for development shows, performance theorist Esi Dogbe (2002) argues that they do not necessarily have a voice in the process. In her analysis of theatre for development in Ghana, Dogbe writes that plays may deliver messages of women’s strength and decision-making abilities, yet these same performances do not allow women to become active decision makers in the play-making process. While Ghanaian policies on development aim for the empowerment of women, none of the projects that Dogbe studied explicitly attempted to challenge gender frameworks. Instead, performances target women ‘with messages to work harder, keep their surroundings clean, develop eco-consciousness, and discipline their sexual behaviour’ (Dogbe, 2002, p. 88). As Dogbe puts it, women are ‘simultaneously ‘vocal’ and ‘silenced’, ‘visible’ and invisible’’ in a contradictory approach to participation (Dogbe, 2002, p. 85).

While participation is a key tenant of theatre for development, without a critique of gendered practices, theatre for development cannot offer alternative ways for women to participate. Chinyowa maintains that while ‘community theatre remains in search of social change, it seems to be confronted by ambiguities in terms of the agency, power and representation of its participants’ (Chinyowa, 2008b, p. 11). According to Chinyowa, those working in the field of theatre for development, who are often outsiders to the communities with which they work, can fail to fully observe and understand the cultural norms of target communities. He examines how notions of participation involve more than simply performing plays in local languages, and post-performance discussions (Chinyowa, 2008a). Both Dogbe and Chinyowa warn of the potential of shaping theatre for development projects to suit stakeholder needs, rather than taking into account the specificities of each community. If performance is to prevent the script of rape then it must take as a starting point communities’ own attitudes and configurations of gender and relationships, inviting participants to consider and critique the social implications of these.

Intro to Applied Theatre

Applied theatre is an umbrella term for a group of performance practices in which artists work with individuals and communities to foster social change. The term ‘applied theatre’ may be used to refer to community theatre, political theatre, youth theatre, theatre in prisons, theatre in conflict resolution, playback theatre, psychodrama, dramatherapy, theatre in education, and theatre for development (Prentki, 2009). The term ‘applied’ in applied theatre points to two predominant functions of theatre. Theatre may be ‘applied’ to a community for self-development and exploration, or ‘applied’ to an issue that is addressed through theatre (Ackroyd, 2007). This notion of ‘theatre’ is not a distinct form of art that is understood in the same way in every community and context (Ackroyd, 2007; Prentki, 2009); in fact, applied theatre may deliberately contest and purposefully transgress theatrical traditions (Jackson A. , 2009). Both these notions ‘applied’ and ‘theatre’ therefore point to performances with a similar purpose but different theoretical frameworks and approaches.

Applied theatre from the Centre of Applied Theatre Research

In writing about contemporary discourse on applied theatre, Judith Ackroyd (2000; 2007) however, wonders if ‘the term is actually worth having’ (Ackroyd, 2007, p. 7). While she had previously embraced this term (Ackroyd, 2000), Ackroyd more recently argues that the discourse on applied theatre has created a hierarchy of performance approaches (Ackroyd, 2007). Ackroyd maintains that applied theatre must not be considered as an ideology or a method. Instead, as a range of separate and overlapping art forms that seek social transformation, these performances must continually reflect upon their purpose and engagement (Ackroyd, 2000). My interest lies in the potential of each form to work with communities to reconfigure gender and negotiate ethical relationships. Like Ackroyd, I am not merely interested in the efficacy of applied theatre performances in reaching their purported goals (Ackroyd, 2007); I am also interested in examining and critiquing these goals, asking if they have the potential to transform the script of rape.


Effect or Affect?
Applied Theatre has traditionally focused on social efficacy over aesthetic experience (Prentki T. , 1998; Thompson, 2009). Discourse on applied theatre promotes performances as working towards positive social change and personal growth; performances aim to assist people reflect upon and change their lives, to work through trauma, engage in learning, and depict ‘something of the truth of the lives of those involved’ (Thompson, 2009, p. 116). Performance theorist and director of DramaAidE (Drama Aids Education), Lyn Dalrymple tells that in the context of South Africa, the impact of applied theatre is primarily seen in terms of ‘the effect an activity or experience has had on its target audience’ (Dalrymple, 2006, p. 202; italics in original). In working on applied theatre projects that attempt to prevent the rise of HIV infections through raising awareness of the issue, Dalrymple cites the difficulty of evaluating the goals of applied theatre, and of attributing these changes to the project itself (Dalrymple, 2006). It may however be problematic to simply see applied theatre performances in terms of their social impact; evaluation is notoriously imprecise, and this perspective homogenises the types of performances that are endorsed (Ackroyd, 2000).

What about the affect of applied theatre?

James Thompson in Applied Theatre and the End of Effect (2009) argues for a methodological shift that considers the affect, rather than the effect of performance. Performance may be educational and informational, or offer ways for communities to differently negotiate their social realties. However, according to Thompson, these are not the primary attributes of performance, and he quotes Claire Colebrook who argues ‘what makes it art is not content but its affect’ (Colebrook in Thompson, 2009). This viewpoint acknowledges that performance is not merely a bundle of meanings, but a force which generates individual impressions and creative force. In suggesting a move away from a focus on efficacy, Thompson is not proposing that applied theatre become politically insignificant. Instead, he claims that ‘the aesthetic intensity is in itself the propellant of political action’ (Thompson, 2009, p. 128). In Thompson’s opinion, critique of applied theatre must move to acknowledging how aesthetic experiences of performance invite intellectual engagement (Thompson, 2009, p. 130).


Richard Schechner's Efficacy-Entertainment Braid
While Brecht and Schechner make clear distinctions between entertainment and efficacy (Schechner, 1988), Thompson does not write these functions as dichotomous, but argues instead for a discourse that acknowledges their continual interweaving. Schechner arranges entertainment and efficacy into a braid, and outlines how historically, performance has oscillated between these two extremities (Schechner, 1988). Schechner writes that at ‘any historical moment there is movement from one pole to the other as the efficacy-entertainment braid tightens and loosens’ (Schechner, 1988, p. 136). Yet for Thompson the concept of affect ‘tries to turn a braid into a mesh of felt responses’ that disrupts the opposition between efficacy and entertainment (Thompson, 2009, p. 130). Performance is promoted as having sensory, experiential, and expansive affects that promote engagement. Thompson argues that applied theatre performances must be appraised for both sensation and meaning, so ‘the joy – the buzz of the participatory arts is inseparable from the total impact of the event’ (Thompson, 2009, p. 131). In my analysis of performance as a way to prevent rape I wish to explore how the experience of performance itself may be transformative, rather than investigating transformation as some future social change.

Performance as a Ritual

In order to look for potentials for performance to prevent rape, I examine 2 broad types of theatre - the first is applied theatre, or what is sometimes called community theatre.

Applied theatre understands that performance functions in several different ways; performance may act as a mimesis of life, as a platform for catharsis, and as social ritual. Looking to performance as ritual could offer possibilities for transformation of the rape script, as rituals are commonly used by communities as ‘both indicators and vehicles of transition from one sociocultural state and status to another’ (Turner, 1979, p. 466). Rituals are used by social groups as a process of shared meaning-making and identity formation, with individuals creating, expressing, and changing themselves in conjunction with their society. During rituals there is a period perhaps potent for transformation, this is the liminal period. The liminal period is discussed by anthropologist Victor Turner as a reflexive period in which the initiate is between realities. Initiates are not who they were, but not yet who they are going to be. The liminal period is ‘betwixt and between’ social realities, on the threshold, neither here nor there (Turner V. , 1987). Sitting between times and spaces liminal phases are apart from daily duties, disconnected from everyday social masks. Liminality can include the inversion, subversion and contradiction of daily roles, with this playful performance of alternative realities a way to examine and critique both one’s own social role and the positions of others. The liminal is ‘a time of enchantment when anything might, even should, happen’ (Turner V. , 1979, p. 465).

The Show Junkie by At The Foot of The Mountain

Performances may be ideally placed to become liminal experiences, as they sit apart from daily realities, yet can continue to reflect back upon life. As Turner points out, performance can act as shared reflexivity, in which groups examine themselves. Participants in theatre are set apart from their everyday roles, ‘full of experiment and play’, with the freedom to create new ways of being (Turner, 1979, p. 466). ‘At The Foot of The Mountain’, a feminist experimental troupe established in Minneapolis in 1974, drew upon ritualistic practices, embodying shared processes of transformation (Greeley, 2005). Their piece Junkie! incorporated aspects of the liminal, becoming a space between realities that invited actors and spectators to reflect on current difficulties, and embrace new ways of being. As an attempt at group transformation, Martha Boesing, co-founder of the ‘At The Foot of The Mountain’ says Junkie! was ‘a spontaneous and immediate communal renewal, [and] the first step to spiritual surrender and recovery’ (Greeley, 2005, p. 55). At the conclusion of the play spectators were invited to share their own personal stories of addiction, loss, and recovery. Confines of everyday societal roles were forgotten, as participants came together to traverse shared journeys of recovery. Roles that usually distinguish and define people were overthrown, and stories that are usually private and painful formed the basis for united growth. Connectivity, reflection and expansion were foregrounded, using performance as a ritualistic practice for transformation.



These performative processes enabled an interconnection between actors and spectators, and between performance and life (Greeley, 2005; Rothenburg, 1988). They emphasised shared experience and togetherness, replicating the equality of neophytes undergoing a ritual (Turner V. , 1979). Rather than reflecting one, unified voice, ‘At the Foot of the Mountain’ sought to provoke a diversity of opinions, journeys, and emotions. Rather than driven by scripts written by a sole playwright who sits outside the action, performances instead emerged through group-devised improvisations in response to stimulus, and audience interaction (Greeley, 2005; Rothenburg, 1988). However, this drive for a participatory and equitable form of shared transformation has been criticised as coercive, and of stressing unanimity above diversity by feminist performance theorists Sue-Ellen Case and Jill Dolan. On remarking upon The Story of a Mother II, a performance about motherhood played by ‘At the Foot of the Mountain’ at the Women and Theatre Program in Chicago in 2001, Case said mothers were over-generalised and idealised, assumed to be positive and nurturing figures. According to Case, the performance universalised notions of motherhood, neglecting diverse experiences of individuals. Both Case and Dolan felt the shared ritual of ‘going into the mother’s body’ at the finale of the show was coercive, not allowing for multiplicity or complexity (Greeley, 2005, p. 59). In looking to performance as transformative Case and Dolan point to the coercive potentials of ritual. While ritual may be a process for initiates to shift from one social role to another, these roles can be predetermined through the ritual structure itself, rather than created by participants. Ritual then may not be a successful framework to use if looking to performance as a way of transforming the rape script. Rather than as a tool for social change, ritual can serve to simply reinforce traditional social scripts.

Yoruba Women dancing

The work of anthropologist Mary Thompson Drewal (1988; 1991; 1992), however, suggests that rituals are not necessarily about stabilising the social order, but can be a continuous process of expressing and negotiating change. Thompson Drewal observes rituals of the Yoruba African tribe; these are characterised by play and improvisation, allowing participants a degree of autonomy, and the potential to change the rituals themselves (Thompson Drewal, 1992). According to Thompson Drewal, rituals are not simply a ‘relic from the past’ replicating traditional social norms, but ‘dialogic in form, always a process of competition, negotiation, and argumentation, never simply a matter of repeating correctly’ (Thompson Drewal, 1988, p. 25). Thompson Drewal calls into question Turner’s claim that rituals both rely upon and create a stable social order (Turner, 1974; Thompson Drewal M. , 1988; 1991). Yoruba village elders contend that as society changes, rituals must also change in order to retain their relevance. Like explicit body performances, Yoruba rituals do not strive to duplicate rituals previously performed, but to re-present them in ways that allow for a critical distance. This critical distance is a revising rather than a repetition of what has been. It is a way of ‘altering the way the past is read, thereby redefining one's relation to it’ (Thompson Drewal M. , 1991, p. 43). The rituals of the Yoruba point to ways that approaches of explicit body performance may contribute to methods of applied theatre. While applied theatre looks to ritual as a lens through which to view performance, ritual structure can enforce, rather than critique traditional social scripts. Yoruba rituals, however, apply approaches akin to explicit body performance and employ ritual not to maintain, but to negotiate social norms. Instead of using ritual as a coercive attempt to align participants with existing social roles, in order to work towards transformation, ritual processes must invite individuals to reconsider and revise existing social scripts.

Is Performance a Mirror of Life?

As a potential tool for social transformation, performance is understood as having several different functions. Here, I look at the notion that performance reflects life. If so - does this model of performance point to possibilites of changing the social script of rape?

Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher

In asking how performance may work to transform the script of rape, I turn to classical notions of the function of performance. Ancient Greek philosopher Plato considered performance as primarily mimetic, that is, performance acts as a mirror to life, or truth. In this way, performance looks to reality as the model for which to base itself; performance is a way to view and express reality. According to theatre for development theorist, Kennedy Chinyowa, performance is not only a way to express personal orientations and social interactions, but also provides ‘the frames upon which social reality can be interpreted and understood’. Chinyowa examines Sbongile, a play about teenage pregnancy made by young people from Edendale township in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In South Africa an average of 1 in 3 women have a baby before the age of 20, and the province of KwaZulu-Natal has the highest prevalence of teenage pregnancy in South Africa. Sbongile is based on lived experiences of community members; the resultant narrative is not one person’s, but one that is emblematic of local gender relationships. Performance acts as a mirror to life, as in classical notions of mimesis, becoming a way for young people to view and consider their choices. The play is created as a ‘platform for action that could influence changes in values, attitudes, and behaviour among the youth themselves’ around the issue of teenage pregnancy. Sbongile is a young woman who is kicked out of home by her father for what he perceives as ‘deviant behaviour’. Sbongile then falls pregnant, and is rejected by everyone: her boyfriend, her ‘sugar daddy’, and her friend. Although Sbongile wants greater autonomy, near the end of the play, she believes her only choices are to either kill herself, or return to her family. Finally, Sbongile returns to her father and asks for forgiveness, before giving birth to a baby girl.




Sbongile highlights social relations in which women’s sexualities are demonised, and men retain social dominance; it reflects the crisis of a ‘double consciousness’ that yearns for autonomy yet feels suppressed and trapped. Yet rather than question or seek to transform this political structure, Sbongile simply ‘allowed [the audience] to experience these paradoxical feelings’. Through using a framework of classical mimesis, and using performance to reflect life, Sbongile does not encourage a questioning of normal social relationships. Instead, it may even foster an acceptance. After seeing the show, some spectators ‘tended to condemn Sbongile for not listening to her parents and falling prey to peer pressure, while others felt she did not have much choice about circumstances. Spectators did not question patriarchal gender relations exhibited in the play, and their own crises were simply affirmed.

Which is the 'real' woman?

While a mimetic view of performance can allow spectators to reflect upon life, it may also stifle change. An attempt at realism can stagnate and make permanent gender relations: ‘In the process of exploring social (especially gender) relations, realism ends by confirming their inevitability’ (Diamond, 1997, p. xiii). Many feminist scholars have pointed to the limitations of claiming any attempt to reveal the truth, arguing that what is seen as truth actually charts maculinised ways of viewing the world (Case, 1988; Diamond, 1997; Dolan, 1988). Truth is viewed through a masculine lens, and therefore any representations of reality inevitably reveal women as seen by men. Women on stage are a ‘male-produced fiction’; indeed in western theatre traditions female characters were all played by men in drag, so today’s women characters are based on these traditions of male perception (Case, 1988, p. 7). This view of performance does not offer opportunities for transformation, simply using performance as a way to explore what is, rather than as what could be. Classical mimesis does not offer any way of transforming the script of rape, merely promising to watch it at work.



Yet even Plato claimed that truth itself is not fixed: for Plato, material objects are not reality themselves, but copies of a supernatural reality. Art is simply a copy of another copy claims literary theorist Susan Sontag. Classical notions of mimesis are refashioned by feminist theatre critic Elin Diamond, so that performance becomes not merely a way to reflect, but also a way to analyse and make truths. According to Diamond, mimesis need not ‘inevitably transform female subjects into fetishized objects whose referent is ideologically bound to dominant – heterosexual – models of femininity and masculinity’. In order to rewrite a patriarchal history, and defy assimilation, feminist artists have a history of presenting personal narratives, of speaking women’s stories. Helene Cixous, in Laugh of the Medusa, for example, urges women to tell their stories, and thus claim their bodies: ’By writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her’. Feminist activism has used performance in an attempt to claim women’s own mimetic representations. This reworking of mimesis may hold potentials for a discourse on transformation, suggesting ways it can agitate, rather than contain, social attitudes. Performance seen through Diamond’s mimetic lens draws attention to the workings of gendered configurations. Performance becomes a way to question truth rather than simply reproduce it. This notion of mimesis is helpful in unravelling a script of rape that relies upon static gender binaries of men as aggressive and women as passive. It suggests the body on stage, particularly women’s bodies, are ‘part of a theatrical sign system’ rather than a fixed image dictated by patriarchal norms.



Dramatherapy

Dramatherapy may be relvant in an exploration of rape prevention in that it works towards analysis and transformation of the self. Dramatherapy is a technique that weaves traditions of psychotherapy and drama to acheive personal transformation. It is used both with individual clients, and with groups of people. I did some at the Drama for Life festival in Jo'burg, 2010.


Through the use of drama, therapists are able to encourage expression of personal narratives that are not exclusively verbal, but may also rely upon image, sound, movement, and gesture. Clients are relieved from the pressures of naturalism, as possibilities of being, thinking, feeling and relating may be explored through metaphor rather than realism. Performance is an ideal tool for dramatherapy due to its ability to portray life, while simultaneously retaining a distance from life. Performance provides a critical distancing from life: while performance can analyse living behaviour, it is also removed from everyday reality. This distancing protects the individual from being overwhelmed by experiences difficult to face. Framed through play, dramatherapy sessions can be a non-threatening way for clients to deepen their awareness of hidden aspects of the self.


Dramatherapy sessions invite clients to perform themselves in new ways. Individuals are assisted to untangle themselves from rigid ways of being, exploring and experimenting with different performances of the self. David Read-Johnson writes that his work is ‘attempting to dislodge the client from the highly bounded self perceptions he or she comes to the session with’.

   

An improvisational technique that is used in drama therapy, ‘transformations’, is taken from the theatre games of Viola Spolin. Transformation is like free associations through performance. Two performers begin a scene, becoming any character and performing any action that occurs to them. When a sound or movement within this scene reminds one player of something else, they transfom the scene simply by beginning to act as if they were in a new one. The other actor must accept this transformation and the scene continues until it shifts again.


Transformation in Action

In working with his client Elaine, Read Johnson discusses how this technique allows the client to discover why she overeats. In a therapy session Elaine becomes very upset. She calls for her mother and when she does not arrive, Elaine begins to overeat. Elaine performs herself gorging on food. Her shameful behaviour is acted out, and Elaine is encouraged to face what is usually suppressed. Elaine eats and eats until she grows into a huge giant. The therapist joins in, also performing a fat, and powerful character. These characters then stomp around the room, squishing little people. The therapist says: ‘Boy are you fat! I’ve never seen you looking so good’, to which Elaine answers, ‘Yeh, and aren’t you fat? God you look great!’ (p. 131). They go on to sing a song about being fat. Elaine discovers that her overeating is connected to a desire for comfort. She also transforms her feelings towards her body; rather than feeling uncomfortable with her weight, Elaine performs herself enjoying the power of her body. Dramatherapy may allow clients to discover and create new ways of being through a process of self-discovery. Through continual play and experimentation clients are invited to deepen their awareness of themselves.

Theatre for Development

In asking how performance may prevent rape, I bring together divergently different methods of performance. Specifically, I aim to bring together techniques and principles of community-driven applied theatre, and explicit body performance.

Applied theatre is an umbrella term for many different types of performance, including community arts, theatre in education and theatre for development.

Theatre for development is the use of performance to assist development outcomes. It is the use of theatre by NGO's and government health, aid, and educational orgainsations that oftens aims to teach a specific message. Theatre may be used to teach people about ways to prevent malaria, the risks of female infibulation, or to encourage villagers to send their children to school. It is primarily an educational tool, a method of delivering messages in fun and engaging ways.

Importantly, theatre for development is presented in local languages, and often performed in hard-to-reach communities. The use of performance enables health and education messages to be accessible to those who are illiterate, and to those without access to radios, television and the internet. Performace is used to its ability to remain locally relevant and contemporary with few resources.

Unlike theatre of the oppressed, theatre for development is not a specific set of techniques, but the application of theatre in the field of development.

While this work attempts to work with marginalised communities on issues that are important to them, theatre for development may be critiqued for proscribing information, for simply delivering information. Rather than engage with communities to discover local knowledge, or foster an attitude of communal enquiry, as is done in theatre of the oppressed, theatre for development delivers key messages.

Theatre of the Oppressed

In my first foray into community arts in 1991 I attempted a method called Theatre of the Oppressed, with a show entitled innabody. In this show I worked with 7 women under 25 to explore body image and eating disorders. We created a piece of Forum Theatre which asked the audience to actively solve the problems presented on the stage.

Here is an image from a Forum theatre I piece I did in 2007, entitled She.

This is a popular method of performance used in community arts, and I have used it several times since. Each time I have been part of the experience I have found it to be collectively transformative.


What is Theatre of the Oppressed?
Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) was created by Augusto Boal in Brazil, following the pedagogy of Paolo Friere. Friere, also from Brazil, wrote about 'bottom up' rather than 'top down' education. In this style both teachers and students decide upon curriculum and examination. Teachers and students share the same power, simply sifferent functions within the school.

In Boal's approach, rather than use theatre to proscribe messages to people, he uses performance to help people uncover their own desires. TO therefore distances itself from some theatre for development and theatre in education that proscribes health, education, or development messages to people. The stage is instead used as a place for the oppressed to critique and work together against the oppressor.

TO is made up of several performative forms, including Forum Theatre, Rainbow of Desire, and Newspaper Theatre and Legaslative Theatre.

Augusto Boal

What is Forum Theatre?
Forum theatre is a style in which a problem that is faced by an individual, one likely to be shared by many in the community, is performed in front of spect-actors. The story is performed again, but this time, any spect-actor (Boal's term for one who is both spectator and actor) may yell out 'stop!' at any time during the story, and attempt to solve the problem presented on-stage.

The story is changed, repeated, and retried until a solution is reached that all are happy with. Solutions must be possible, without any 'magic' cures.

Performance therefore becomes a model for future action. It is preparation and planning for overcoming a shared problem. The stage is a safe space to practice and make mistakes. It is a place to share solutions, and try new options.

Headphone/Verbatim Theatre

I attended a headphone/verbatim theatre workshop and presentation with Roslyn Oades on Friday. The workshop was presented by Vitalstatistix Theatre, and used work from Roslyn's show with Urban Theatre Projects, Stories of Love and Hate.

 

What is Headphone/Verbatim Theatre?

Headphone/verbatim theatre is a method of theatre-making which collects true stories of communities and individuals. These stories are recorded and edited, and played through headphones which actors wear on-stage.

The headphones serve as a visual sign that the words the actor speaks are not her own. Oades speaks of the actor as instead channeling the person who originally delivered the story. The actor reproduces the voice, breath, and vocal characteristics of the story, breathing their breath, feeling their words in their mouth.

This is similar to what Rebecca Schneider refers to as 'ghosting' in her book, The Explicit Body in Performance. Schneider's work is a key text in my research on rape prevention and uses feminist analysis to explore performances by Annie Sprinkle and Carolee Schneeman, among others. This 'ghosting' refers to the referencing of a precedent, as if to 'summon the ghosts'. It is not an attempt to find the pure, unadulterated story, but an awareness of the instability of representation. There is no attempt to recreate the real, but instead, to represent it. So in the piece, Stories of Love and Hate we do not hear the 'real' story of the Cronulla riots, but we listen to representations of representations of the riot. Moral judgement and any attempt to choose who is 'right' then receeds, as focus is intead drawn to multiple layers of representations.

Headphone/verbatim theatre draws attention to the absence of the original speaker, as layers and layers of representation layer and wrap around themselves. The headphones, and the attempt to precisely represent what is spoken and breathed through these headphones quote a precident. They make reference to the fact that there was an original, and this is not it. It is not an attempt to lull the audience into pretending that this actor really expereinced what they are saying. We are forced to see the gap. There is no real, but continually rebounding representations.


Headphone/Verbatim Theatre is Not 'Real' 

This is not mimicry nor imitation. The actor does not 'become' the person whose story is being told. This is not realism, it is what Roslyn calls 'hyper-realism'. It draws attention to the real while not emulating it.

Headphone/verbatim theatre is an act of deep listening. It is like walking in another person's shoes. It is breathing their breath, feeling all the shapes of their words in your mouth. Perhaps this is an act of true empathy. Allowing the person's aural expression to fill the actor's body.

 

Does Headphone/Verbatim Theatre Attempt Transformation Through Performance?

As my research and practice is interested in transformation - using performance to explore transformation of the rape script - it is worth asking if this method of theatre-making can work towards this.

I suggest that headphone/verbatim theatre can transform stories in a similar way that playback theatre attempts. This is not a deliberate attempt to 'try something different', but a reflection upon what is. In this way then, it differs from drama therapy and Theatre of the Oppressed which uses performance to practice new ways of being in the world. In these styles, the stage is a mini-world, a safe and flexible world, which can be used as a platform to deliberately practice actions in the off-stage world.

Yet headphone/verbatim theatre (and playback) replays people's stories back to themselves as authentically as the actor is able, without mimicing, and without altering. New words are not put into people's mouths. People are not proscribed any course of action, nor asked to engage in looking at the issue in different ways. The 'right' way or a 'better' way is not sought.

The transformation that is enabled, therefore, does not occur on-stage, as it does in the forms of drama therapy and Theatre of the Oppressed. Transformation occurs in the mind of witnesses, after and during performances, off-stage rather than on-stage. Witnesses are presented with different and perhaps even conflicting stories. These stories are not presented as real, but as representations. So we are drawn to question them, to consider them. Unlike working with community performers themselves, I am not responsible for considering the on-stage words seriously - I am free to laugh, not care, to care too much. I am not responsible for the well-being of the on-stage performer, as the words they speak are simply repetitions of those uttered by someone else. Neither am I asked to consider the actor's cleverness, how astutely they can become another character.

Critical analysis is pointed to, yet not demanded. And this analysis can lead to a transformation of witnesses. Stories of Love and Hate has been performed to communities affected by the Cronulla riots. I suppose some people who were actively involved in the Cronulla riots attented the show. In this case, where witnesses may share opinions with those expressed on-stage, headphone/verbatim theatre encourages a reconsideration. It highlights an array of opinions, a range of views about difference, home, and family. It gently encourages witnesses to accept multiple voices, without settling on proscriptive advice.

Differences Between Applied Theatre and Explicit Body Performance

As my research looks at ways that applied theatre and explicit body performance may speak to each other, it is worth starting by looking at how they differ.

I suggest that methods of applied theatre, together with those of explicit body performance, may transform the script of rape. Traditionally these styles are considered to have nothing in common. In fact, theatre-types mark them as distinctly different. I on the other hand, believe they have something to offer each other.

Firstly though, it is worth exploring DIFFERENCES between these performative forms.

Characteristics of Applied Theatre

• The community is at the centre of performance enquiry
• Determines community needs through focus groups, community leaders, writing scripts, and determines themes with community
• Works to develop self-esteem, community-cohesion, education and empowerment
• May be termed an ‘intervention’ because it intervenes in a problem that is recognised by the community, NGO or government organisations
• Teaches performance skills as well as doing issue-based work
• Makes the community or issue explicit
• May draw upon traditional theatre styles, characters, and scripts; yet may also subvert these very structures
• Often draws upon folk art

Characteristics of Explicit Body Performance

• The artist/performer is at the centre of performance enquiry
• The artist reflects on society and uses their body as a magnifying glass to reflect spectators back to themselves
• Aims to awaken awe, wonder, and critical reflection in spectators
• Works to ‘summon the ghosts’ of gender disparity, allowing spectators to re-examine and alter the way they ‘do’ gender/s
• Subverts traditional theatre styles and characters. May use ‘performance outlines’ rather than ‘scripts’
• Makes the body of the artist explicit
• Often works across several artistic mediums

I'm bringing my bed onto the street

Remember John and Yoko and their media interviews from bed - well I'm doing it too!

However, I am briging my bed out and onto the street to chat with people. Here's me doing a media interview with the Messenger from my bed in Victoria Square, Adelaide.

Chat Room Research - Public dancing

Today I popped on a wig and my disco outfit and danced to Whitney Housten's I Wanna Dance With Somebody in Marion Shopping Centre. Check out my shameless display of public dancing.

I am researching for Chat Room, and looking for ways to create moments of intimacy and joy in busy and disconnected public spaces.

Check out me getting kicked out of the mall!

"I am a victim of a terrible crime"

'I am a victim of a terrible crime'

I spoke these words in front of a group of people, strangers in a drama therapy workshop, because this man here, David Read-Johnson, asked me to.

I wasn't acting. I meant it. The words were like thorns in my mouth, and tumbled out with blood and tears.

Everyone said it. Some people described their crimes in a language only they could understand. My body spoke in a language only it could understand. I cried so much! I wasn't prepared. I went to his workshop as a therapist, not a client.

1. Why was it so painful to say this?
2. Was the pain in the speaking, or the being heard?

Drama Therapy and Play Therapy by David Read Johnson and Amanda Gifford

I never got drama therapy. Like playback theatre, I had an active and even vocal dislike of drama therapy. I thought it looked silly. What do you think?

Yeh, I know, pink legwarmers do look silly.

But I am embodying my image of a preferred future, and it was (yes, perhaps only internally) powerful.

What is Drama Therapy?

Drama therapy is a broad name for many different styles of performance, all which have a therapeudic aim. Methods of drama therapy also include psychodrama and play therapy. Drama therapy focuses on expressing a personal narrative that is not exclusively verbal, but also relies on image, sound, movement, and gesture. Primarily, it is an embodied therapeudic practice.

Drama therapists rely on drama to allow clients to distance themselves from trauma. The client is encouraged to describe and work through the trauma using metaphor. It uses drama to assist people solve a problem in their lives, and acheive catharsis.

Unlike the work I do, drama therapy does not rely on having public performances. I attempt to distinguish drama therapy from other forms of applied theatre through this characteristic. I look at drama therapy as an umbrella term that refers to using drama in therapuedic practice that does not have a public performance outcome. 

How are drama therapy and play therapy different to community arts work?

Rather than focus primarily on community-building as I do, my impression of drama therapy is that it instead focus on building the strength of the individual. drama therapy works with a client/s, rather than a community/ies

Here is a picture from one of my community arts performances. These women are community performers from a local women's shelter speaking about their vaginas in front of 2,000 people in one of my productions of The Vagina Monologues.

This show was community arts work, building community, rather than primarily focusing on building strength of the individual. My community arts performances distinguish themselves as working with community rather than the individual through:

• delivering the show to the performers' communities, with participants performing themselves as strong and capable
• focus on delveloping skills with the group as a whole, rather than on an individual's achievement
• the performers support and grow together, becoming a support base and friendship circle

At the Drama for Life festival there were several workshops and performances that utilised drama therapy. I want to have a look at 1 of those workshops.

Drama therapy with David Read Johnson

David Read Johnson co-runs the Post-Traumatic Stress Centre in the States. He believes that nothing cannot be played with. Nothing. Read Johnson works a lot with child survivors of sexual abuse. In order to deal with their traumas he plays with the abuse.

Wierd huh?!

Read Johnson works on the premise that avoiding speaking the truth causes more trauma. Consequently, he wastes no time with his clients in speaking about their trauma. He says he 'does not even bother with hello', before asking 'what happened to you?'.

Unlike playback theatre in which the storyteller sits outside of the action, and watches a replay of their trauma, or some issue in their life, in Read Johnson's work, the client engages their body in a reenactment of their story.

After speaking of what happened, Read Johnson then works with the client using a play-centred approach. He sets up a resistence for the client, attempting to put them into the position of the victim, which they will invariably resist. Read Johnson does this through:

• clicking the door shut and laughing menacingly
• shutting the door and saying 'no'
• simply closing the door firmly

The client resists the role of victim, fighting with Read Johnson, at which point they become perpetrator to perpetrator. After a bit read Johnson then assumes the role of victim, being killed, tortured, or whatever it is by the client perpetrator. Read Johnson begins to enjoy the role of victim, making it look so enticing, playing it with such commitment that the client eventually wants to play the victim.
The client then takes on the role of victim and Read Johnson threatens them. He starts to bring up the actual abuse ie:

• do you want me to poke you?
• do you want me to poke you with something hard?
• do you want me to poke you like your Uncle did?

The client will then fall into grief and begin to mourn the abuse. Read Johnson turns back into himself and comforts the client - if the client's parents or family are present, they take over this comforting role.

Wow. Read Johnson is not afraid of the trauma. He is not afraid.

This work is WILD!!


Drama Therapy with Amanda Gifford

Here is a photo of after Amanda Gifford's drama therapy workshop.

Yes - I look happy cos - despite the pink legwarmers - I have been able to release some trauma. Gifford's work helped me to see that I can make another choice when I am affected by post-traumatic stress. I do not have to live in the past, the fear and sadness. I can instead choose to focus my attention on the present, which i can see is strong, freeing, and totally lovely.

 
Amanda Gifford has studied with Read Johnson and shares a similar lack of fear for trauma.  She just goes straight in. Her lack of fear strips away a layer of fear, enabling the trauma to surface more freely. It also does not allow the client to back away from speaking through the trauma - the excuse of 'noone wants to know anyway', or 'I don't want to upset anyone' loses its hold on the client's mind. An atmosphere of safety and openness is established.
 
I suggest that creating a space of openess and trust is essential for those who have been sexually abused. It provides a distinct difference to an environment of secrecy that can accopany abuse.

Protest Theatre and Gender Bending at Witwatersrand University, Joburg

Last week I returned from the Drama for Life festival and African Research Conference at Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg. The festival explores how live performance can prevent the spread of HIV. This year the theme was 'Sex, Actually'.

The festival and conference were mind-blowing. Performers were predominantly students from the Drama and Drama for Life postgraduate course at Wits. There were also performances by critically acclaimed choreographer, PJ Sabbagha, and other local performers.

Local performer, Deep Fried Man

Protest Theatre

On the first night off the conference we all bussed up to Constitutional Hill. Constitutional Hill is the infamous prison that detained many anti-apartheid activists, including Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Later, this prison was transformed into the court which drew up South Africa's constitution, which stands as one of the most progressive in the world. Now, Constitutional Hill is a museum which tells of the struggles of apartheid, and the dreams that wouldn't die.

Students performed excepts from plays they had performed during the year around the old prison. Placed around Constitutional Hill, we walked in groups to each one. The combination of the students' commitment to what they were saying, and the historical landscape in which performances were set, combined to give this performance event deep emotional resonance. the students can act, dance, and oh! can they sing. Nice.

Two student performers at Constitutional Hill

Performances at Constitutional Hill were in the style of protest theatre. These performances told stories of struggle during the apartheid era, adressing themselves to the oppressor, a plea for mercy. They used minimal props and very physical acting styles. A leading writer of protest theatre is Athol Fugard.

In a recent discussion on protest theatre chaired by the head of DFL, Warren Nebe, and between Nobel prize winner Nadine Gordimer and Chilean-American writer Ariel Dorfman, theatre was suggested as particularly important in bringing about change in South Africa. Art's function was considered to be as societies' conscience.

Protest theatre is not the same as agit-prop theatre, as it does not attempt to incite political action or retribution. Instead, protest theatre is more like a lament, an appeal to the conscience of the oppressor. No solution is sought, the problem is simply stated. Or often, wailed.


Here is an example of a the very physical protest theatre in Imobokotho's show

Gender Bending in Jo'burg

The performers and presenters embraced the festival theme, 'Sex, Actually', as many shows explored same-sex desires and gender fuck. As someone who enjoys a bit of queer activist activity this suprised me. I'd heard that due to South Africa's strong and large Christian population it's a taboo to speak about sex, especially sex that's not straight, monogamous, and within marriage.

But the DFL festival did not show this same silence. I wonder if choosing such a provocative theme opened the festival up to exploring riskier work?

Several shows charted a masculinity that is not all sexually, politically and physically powerful.

• Deep Fried Man sang about being romantically and sexually clueless, and a bit of a geek.
• Blow explored a man's romantic relationship with his blow-up doll. It was vulnerable and tender, reminiscent of Norweigan film, Lars and the Real Girl.
• The Tea Party used full-face masks and a puppet-like physical style to unravel the story of a heterosexual relationship gone stale, until the husband starts having sex with strange men in toilets. The wife follows him one day. He stops doing it. And all goes back to normal.
• Pillow Talk explored the sexual lives of several different characters, exposing people's private lives as definately queer despite their religions and private school uniforms.

The queer narrator of Pillow Talk


Notions of femininity were not challenged with similar gusto, only one show, a piece of performance art, examined ideas of women as being sexually available and desirious.

Playback theatre - Bonfire Theatre, South Africa

I saw Bonfire theatre perform their playback theatre at the Drama for Life festival in Joburg.

Let me make this very clear: I hate playback theatre!!!
But Bonfire theatre, now they are something else.

Why DID I hate playback theatre?

1. Because playback is disconnected.
In playback, people tell stories of their lives, and the actors play this back to them. The little playback I have seen pulled any rawness from the original story, proscribed an ending, and not understood the speaker's intentions.


2. Because playback is airy-fairy.
Playback looks to ways that performance can create catharsis and allow for self-expression. Consequently, I have found this catharsis to be forced - pulling out tears and striving for poetry where there is only shit.


3. Because playback is awkward.
Noone from the audience wants to say their story and someone has to otherwise we all shuffle nervously thinking 'someone better say something important'.

Yet....Bonfire's playback made me want to leap for joy instead of off a cliff.

Mind you, I'm not going back on my criticism of playback theatre just yet.... I am actually putting Bonfire forward as practitioners who really get playback, who have found it's beauty. Although improvisation is often promoted as 'anyone can do it' I think that's bullshit. Maybe anyone can, but I don't know if anyone should. I suggest that Bonfire are astute practitioners who do not neccessarily take the easy road.

Why do I LOVE Bonfire's playback theatre?

1. They are not proscriptive of their audience but let each groups' own stories to emerge.

Jonathan Fox, who together with Jo Salas, created playback theatre in 1975 said that he wanted playback to use music, movement and image to create a narrative on 'deeper level than conscious thought'. Unlike some applied theatre, including theatre of the oppressed, Bonfire did not come armed with what they considered to be our oppressions or issues. They came with a theme to explore. They did not only ask us stories of suffering (so they could solve them), but opened the dialogue up, so we could tell the stories that were burning in our minds. there were no antidotes for suffering. There were no grand morals delivered. Answers were not sought.

It was not awkward because we did not have the pressure of telling the 'right' kind of story. Each story was embraced wholeheartedly. We were warmed up a bit before the public sharing of stories, by telling the person next to us the title of the story of our life right now. Unlike other playback I have seen, I did not feel like stories of the greatest pain were required for drama. My life felt just right for the stage.

2. They help people see the choices they made that created their circumstances.

Those who share stories cannot explain away the positive things in their lives with get away with 'it just happened', or 'he made me feel that way'. The conductor (Paula), who works with audiences to gather stories, insisted 'and what did that show you about yourself?'. No matter what, Paula always brought it back to the purely personal. These were not stories of politics, government, stystematic violence. These were stories about the individual, that brilliantly, seemed to be about each onbe of us.

3. They attempt to find a 'possible' ending, rather than imposing a 'reality'.

Each story was a possibility. I think endings are the hardest - do we give it a happy or sad ending? How does the protagonist end up? Paula asked each audience member/storyteller 'and how did the story end?'. If the storyteller didn't know, the actors would improvise. But these were not proscribed courses of action, nor attempts to find the core or truth of the story. It was simply another story, a story given back to the storyteller and the audience.

4. Catharsis occurs through recognition of story, one's role in the story, and awareness of bigger picture rather than pushing the emotional drama.

Tears flowed and laughter rang out. Children danced and one man decided to love again. This was allowed, rather than forced. The actors did not ride the emotions of the piece - primarily, they told the story. They used image and rhythm, connection and movement. And music! The soundtracks to our stories moved them forward, created tension and drama, mystery, and fulfillment. The musician (Chris) worked so well with the actors, and brought so much energy to each piece.

5. Witnessing played an important role

Playback is premised on the notion of witnessing. It suggests that witnessing one's own story, or witnessing that a person sitting near you, creates reflection, connection, catharsis, and social change.

How does it do this?


How does Bonfire theatre enable transformation of the audience/witness?

Reflection

You have the opportunity to view your own story, or a story that you identify with from a distance. A broader view is created. You can see yourself within your surroundings.

Connection

Telling one's story and having it listened to with such empathy that people can actually play it out in front of you, feels like an enormous gift of listening. Witnesses identify and connect with the story, and through this, each other.

Catharsis

Seeing one's story often brings about catharsis as storytellers both laugh and cry. This was brought about through points of recognition of one's pain. Catharsis is a Greek word that means a purging of emotional tensions. It connotates a releasing of tensions that built up without a release.

Social change

Jonathan Fox understands that playback fulfills anthropologist Victor Turner's notion of social change. For Turner, ritual is a vehicle for social change, rather than a method of maintaining the status quo. Ritual undermines everyday social roles, rules, and responsibilities. New possibilities can be imagined. Traditional theatre positions shift: any witness can become the scriptwriter, and actors then become witnesses. Bonfire threatens the rules that govern who can and who cannot speak. Social rules are transformed and a liminal space is created, in which new positions can be played.