Saldana Brings Ethnotheatre Research from Page to Stage

We are pleased to announce the recent release of the book "Ethnotheatre Research from Page to Stage" by IJCAIP Advisory Board Member and Professor of Theatre, School of Theatre and Film, Arizona State University, Johnny Saldana. Saldana is well recognized as an international leader in the field. The book has been published by Left Coast Press and "covers the preparation of a dramatic presentation from the research and writing stages to the elements of stage production. Saldaña nurtures playwrights through adaptation and stage exercises, and delves into the complex ethical questions of turning the personal into theatre. Throughout, he emphasizes the vital importance of creating good theatre as well as good research for impact on an audience and performers. The volume includes multiple scenes from contemporary ethnodramas plus two complete play scripts as exemplars of the genre."

Call for Photographs Ethnotheatre

A call for photographs from Johnny Saldana, Arizona State University

I am writing a new book for Left Coast Press titled Ethnotheatre: Research from Page to Stage. The manuscript is due summer 2011 with a tentative publication date in 2012.

The book covers playwriting and production methods for ethnotheatre (also known as performance ethnography and verbatim theatre), and provides references to the dramatic literature in the field (e.g., The Laramie Project, The Exonerated, Fires in the Mirror, etc.).

I am searching for 10 to 15 digital photographs of ethnotheatrical productions which can be featured in the book. I am unable to compensate contributors, but your work will be appropriately credited if it is selected for inclusion.

Please do NOT send me any photos now, but if you're interested in contributing or if you have any questions, please contact: Johnny.Saldana@asu.edu and request a copy of the digital photo submission guidelines (e.g., content, types of files, contrast requirements, cropping, permissions, etc.).

Thanks!

Johnny Saldaña,

Arizona State University

Performed Ethnography in HIV Education, Presentation University of Toronto

The Centre for Urban Health Initiatives Youth Sexual Health RIG is pleased to announce our next seminar entitled:

Performed Ethnography,
HIV/AIDS & Aboriginal Youth
with Dr. June Larkin, Tiffany Nelson, and

Christine Smillie

University of Toronto, University College, 15 King's College Circle RM 244
March 4th 1:30-3:00

"In this presentation we present an innovative knowledge dissemination strategy for research on HIV/AIDS and Aboriginal youth. Through a partnership with Native Child and Family Services and the Gendering Adolescent AIDS Prevention (GAAP) project, The Universityof Toronto and a group of Aboriginal youth worked with Aboriginal actor, *Herbie Barnes, to turn data collected in a study on HIV/AIDS and Aboriginal youth into scripts and discussion questions for HIV/AIDS education. We will discuss the process of developing the scripts and the value of this approach for HIV prevention. The presentation will include samples of the youth performances."

(*As an actor Herbie has worked on many stages across Canada, in such plays as: Toronto At Dreamers Rock, The Gap, and The Hobbit as well as acting in such films as: Hidden in America, Dance Me Outside, and the series, Due South and The Rez.)

Free, all are welcome, please RSVP to adrian.guta@utoronto.ca

Saldana to Conduct Ethnodrama and Arts Based Research Workshop at Fifth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry

Registration is underway for The Fifth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry to be held May 20 - 23, 2009 at The University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. I was pleased to see Johnny Saldana will be offering a workshop at the Congress this year "Ethnodrama and Ethnotheatre: Arts-Based Research from Page to Stage". Johnny Saldana is also a member of our CCAHTE
Journal (Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal) Advisory Board.

(from the ICQI programme)

Workshop Title: Ethnodrama and Ethnotheatre: Arts-Based Research from Page to Stage

No prior theatre or performance experience is needed to participate in this workshop. Arts-based research, ethnodrama in particular, has been advocated by such key figures in qualitative inquiry as Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln as a powerful way for ethnography to recover yet interrogate the meanings of lived experiences. This workshop will introduce the fundamentals of dramatizing data and explore how qualitative research transfers "from page to stage." The session will provide a literature review of available ethnodramas with participants reading aloud informally from scripts (and, pending A/V availability, watching videos of ethnotheatrical performance). We will then explore how the participants' personal lived experiences can become "autoethnographic monologues." Participants will select a personal story as the basis for workshopping an informal retelling of that work to peers. The facilitator will guide each researcher-as-storyteller through the process of selecting necessary sensory details, choosing evocative language, and employing gesture and voice as instruments for dramatizing the data.

The deadline for submitting papers is past, however, registration for the Congress itself is ongoing. The Congress has some excellent presentations and workshops planned. A great opportunity to connect with others with like interests around the inspiring theme,

"Advancing Human Rights through Qualitative Inquiry"

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Johnny Saldaña New One-Man Autoethnodrama "Second Chair"

I had an opportunity today to connect with Johnny Saldaña Professor and Associate Director, Katherine K. Herberger College of Fine Arts, School of Theatre and Film, Arizona State University, Tempe. Johnny is the author of the book, "Ethnodrama: An Anthology of Reality Theatre" , and is considered a leader in North America in the research based theatre genre "ethnodrama". We are pleased to inform you about his newest autoethnodrama project, "Second Chair". CM

Johnny Saldaña at Arizona State University (ASU), developed a 30-minute, one-man autoethnodrama titled "Second Chair," which explores the reminiscences by an older adult of his high school band years and his quest to become first chair clarinetist through an epiphanic challenge.

The play is a metaphor for the feelings of lesser status experienced by the marginalized individual in a competitive mainstream society.

The play was commissioned for performance at the second annual Narrative Inquiry in Music Education conference in February 2008 at ASU. Since then, Saldaña has performed the piece for a Phoenix valley LGBTQ youth group, and at the September 2008 Seventh Qualitative Research Conference in Health and Social Care at Bournemouth University, UK. He has also been invited to present "Second Chair" as the keynote address for the Arts and Learning Special Interest Group meeting at the April 2009 American Educational Research Association conference in San Diego.

The full play script and related commentary will appear in a future issue of the journal "Research Studies in Music Education."

Arts, Mental Health and Autonomy

"Socialized fences, isolating human beings behind "us" and "them" notions, confining individuals behind ideas such as "the elderly" can be cleared in the act of learning as one becomes the other fully animated and performing the "stories" of life. A performance can raise awareness educating well beyond the podium conveying "lived experience" in action with elements visual, emotional, physical and spiritual. In this field process we are told and we tell stories engaging in one of the most primal, meaningful and universal of human connections."

C. McLean

Click here for more information about the performance "Remember Me for Birds"

Performing Stories About Aging, Mental Health and Autonomy

Cheryl McLean ,Editor, Publisher, International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP
Editor, "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change"

With a degree in the Social Sciences from The University of Western Ontario, London, Cheryl McLean worked for close to twenty years in publishing, corporate communications and adult education. She also had an ongoing interest in the performing arts producing and directing regional theatre in Ontario. Returning to graduate school at Concordia University, Montreal, she worked for two years (01 - 03) as a researcher and group therapist conducting group sessions with older persons at Maimonides Geriatric Hospital and The Rene Cassin Institute of Social Gerontology of Quebec "Over 60 Mental Health Program".

To help raise awareness about issues related to aging, mental health and autonomy, as her thesis presentation, she wrote and acted in a one woman performance called "Remember Me for Birds" based on this research and these experiences.

This work in its early stages had been influenced in field work by therapeutic approaches drawing from theoretical models and techniques utilized in current approaches in drama and expressive group work and drama therapy (Current Approaches in Drama Therapy, 2000), theatre for social change, Augusto Boal, (Theatre of the Oppressed) drama with special populations..realism and Stanislavski influenced acting approaches while working in projects for two years under the direction of Dr. Muriel Gold (Therapy Through Drama: The Fictional Family,2000) and, later, qualitative/narrative and performative approaches, writings by Dr. Norman K. Denzin, (Performance Ethnography, Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture, 2003) and developments in the emerging playwriting and research performance genre, ethnodrama, Johnny Saldana, (Ethnodrama An Anthology of Reality Theatre, 2005).

Working with her Jewish clients, some of them Holocaust survivors, Cheryl had an opportunity to help individuals express their stories (through storytelling, poetry, enactments, other dramatic and expressive methods as well as through one on one interviews). These accounts became the basis for a performance script as did transcripts, oral histories, witness accounts, historical material, topical news stories and current events taking place in Montreal at the time. ( The real names of participants were not used, nor were locations mentioned. In some cases compilation characters were created to protect identities but the authenticity of the stories remained.)

"There is a paternalism with regard to "the elderly" (older persons). This often results in their autonomy being assumed to be less than it is or taken away against their will. I learned I am inappropriately detached from people. I attended because I was curious and I am glad I came. I learned about others but it (the performance) taught me about myself." Researcher, Elder Abuse

The original 30 minute performance was directed by Dr. Muriel Gold , formerly Artistic Director of the Saidye Bronfman Theatre, Montreal. Cheryl had a special opportunity while in Montreal to work as an actor with Muriel in projects for two years studying acting.. (Stanislavski influenced approaches/realism) and training approaches. On April 14, 2003, a solo performance was held for social workers and clinicians at The Rene Cassin Institute of Social Gerontology. Over the next two years following the original performance, the work as an "ethnodrama" advanced through several development phases as more personal and historical narratives were added, as well as written contributions from professionals who worked in aging and health, for example, an audio taped narrative written by a nurse (herself 76 years old) who had directly experienced work with the aged in mental health and palliative care settings.

See video clip

In later performances symbol and metaphor became more important and objects were presented in a "collaged" back drop drawing on significant items identified on site and from true stories. These objects along with news items etc. were used to visually juxtapose and contrast concepts and ideas from past and present.

The research performance in its final form had evolved to become a full one hour ethnodrama. (For more on this genre see, Saldana, J., Ethnodrama An Anthology of Reality Theatre, AltaMira Press) Acting solo in multiple roles, as well as performing personal narratives, Cheryl presented "Remember Me for Birds" for hundreds of academics, healthcare professionals and students at universities, health organizations, medical schools and national conferences in Canada and the U.S.

In follow up discussions and through feedback questionnaires, many audience members commented on the authenticity of what they experienced as witnesses to the stories in the ethnodrama with reflective comments about the value of such work in helping to "re-illuminate" the importance of re/membering the "patient" or "client" as a person with a life, a past history and a unique story.

"Remember Me for Birds" was featured in May 2005 as the keynote performance at The Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work Conference held in conjunction with The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of Western Ontario, London and later that year for the McGill Interdisciplinary Geriatric Seminar, McGill Medical School, Montreal.

The performance was produced independently as an educational film in 2007.

See a video clip from the performance "Remember Me for Birds"

____________________

"Ethnotheatre employs the traditional craft and artistic techniques of theatre production to mount for an audience a live performance event of research participants' experiences and/or the researcher's interpretations of data. This research..meaning to investigate, in its broadest sense, can be conducted by artists, scholars or even by the participants themselves in such diverse fields of study as sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, health care, women's studies, justice studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, political science, journalism, human communication, performance studies and theatre. The goal is to investigate a particular facet of the human condition for the purposes of adapting those observations and insights into a performance medium..."
Johnny Saldana, from "Ethnodrama: An Anthology of Reality Theatre, AltaMira Press, 2005, (pp. l-2)

"Ethnoperformances are postmodern often building a type of narrative collage that critiques culture. Speakers can "leap forward and backward in time" from present to past, presenting real news accounts against dramatic historic enactments of the past, using poems, monologues, dialogues, voice-overs and interior streams of consciousness."
Norman K. Denzin, from "Performance Ethnography, Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture", Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California, 2003.

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References:

Boal, Augusto, "Theatre of the Oppressed", Pluto Press, London, 1979.

Denzin, Norman K., "Performance Ethnography, Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture", Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California, 2003.


"Current Approaches in Drama Therapy", Penny Lewis, David Read Johnson Editors, Charles C. Thomas Publisher, Springfield, 2000.

Gold, Muriel, "Therapy through Drama The Fictional Family", Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 2000.

Saldana, Johnny, "Ethnodrama An Anthology of Reality Theatre", AltaMira Press, 2005.


Other references creative arts interdisciplinary practice:

"Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Inquiries for Hope and Change", Cheryl McLean, Editor,
Robert Kelly, Associate Editor, Detselig/Temeron Books, Calgary (in process for release 2010) see website:
http://creativeartpractice.blogspot.com/2009/05/available-in-2010-published-by-detselig.html

International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, IJCAIP, Cheryl McLean, Editor/Publisher, open access peer reviewed international journal, website: http://www.ijcaip.com/

contact: CherylMcLean@ijcaip.com

posted July, 2009

Alzheimer's, Drama and Research, New Performance Seeks to Foster Humanistic Approach to Dementia Care Practice

Ethnodramatic Production to Help Enhance Communication and Relationships

CCAHTE Journal Advisory Board members include leaders in the creative arts, health, training and education as well as researchers and scientists working at the intersections of the arts and sciences. Continuing our reporting on CCAHTE Journal Advisory Board members and their ongoing projects this morning, we present information about a new ethnodramatic production by Pia C. Kontos, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, The University of Toronto.

Below we present brief excerpts from the paper, “Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s, Moving from Ethnographic Texts to Performing Ethnography", Pia C. Kontos and Gary Nagalie, University of Toronto as published in Qualitative Research, 2006. (excerpts published with author permission.)

There were three main goals in developing the ethnodramatic production “Expressions Of Personhood in Alzheimer’s”

1) to provide an accessible presentation of research to audiences of diverse disciplinary backgrounds

2) to recover the experiential immediacy of the body present in the original data-gathering setting, which, in the case of this dramatic production, permits a powerful demonstration of how selfhood is manifested in gesture and action

3) to create a space to engage in a form of social inquiry that resonates simultaneously with critique and the envisioning of new possibilities (Denzin, 1997).

Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s is a production that not only re-presents embodied expressions of selfhood in Alzheimer’s disease, but also critically exposes depersonalizing tendencies of treatment contexts and caregiving relationships that are a consequence of an assumed loss of selfhood that is widely associated with the cognitive deficiencies that lie at the core of dementia. It is our contention that this ethnodramatic production has the potential to open a space for seeing the humanity of persons with dementia, and for envisioning the prospect of a truly humanistic approach to dementia care practice.

As part of the development process Kontos created a partnership with ACT II Studio, a theatre school and creative drama centre for older adults, which is part of the Seniors Education Programs in Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Toronto, Canada. ACT II Studio has a demonstrated history of developing socially relevant dramas for public presentation. Their director, Vrenia Ivonoffski, agreed to provide artistic directorship.

The collaborative process began with a meeting between Kontos, Ivonoffski, and a group of interested actors. All were provided with descriptions of the research participants who feature in the five vignettes. Five actors committed to the project, all having had some personal experience with Alzheimer’s disease, which was agreed upon by Kontos and Ivonoffski as necessary background to sensitize them to the general condition of the illness and, as much
as possible, to the nuances of embodiment in the lived experience of the illness.

The development of Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s is part of a larger research agenda to humanize the practice of dementia care. With the production now complete, we are embarking upon the next stage of our research, which involves the performance of this drama and focus groups we are conducting with nurses and ancillary health care professionals in three different long-term care facilities. It is anticipated that responses to the performance by the focus group participants will serve as a springboard for discussion about embodied selfhood, and how perceiving a broader range of behaviour as meaningful could enhance communication and the development of interpersonal relationships, and how this could ultimately improve the quality of caregiving and the quality of life of those living with Alzheimer’s disease.

Contact info: Pia C. Kontos: Department of Public Health Sciences University of Toronto 11035-550 University Avenue Toronto, ON M5G 2A2CanadaTEL: (416) 597-3422, ext. 7609FAX: (416) 597-7105Email: kontos.pia@torontorehab.on.ca

Qualitative Research http://qrj.sagepub.com/

ACT II Studios, Toronto http://www.ryerson.ca/~act2/activities.html