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LIVING THROUGH DRAMA AND BONDIAN DRAMA
the experience verbally. Ihe problem of trivialising learnings and teacher
pleasing both come up as possibilities in this case. It is also guestionable if
the rational learning will be incorporated in any way into their actions.
O’Neill claims that re-characterising participants as both “actors” and
“audience” strengthens “the elements of reflection and contemplation”.*”
Fleming differentiates between three different ways of switching from “actor”
to “spectator” in drama work, including individual participants momentarily
changing to observing, and also what he calls “percipients”,” the observer
element that is part of making drama. O’Neill also states that process drama
“like any play, includes moments of intense ‘living through’ experience,
reflective or contemplative passages, the manipulation of time both backward
and forward, changes of pace and tempo, and episodes of greater or lesser
tension and intensity”.*”® Perhaps it is in the interplay between these elements
that reflection from within a ‘making’ mode of participation needs to be
analysed. Bolton state that metaxis gives a “reflective edge to the role-play
which direct experience often lacks”.
Though the deeper exploration of this concern would demand a research
focussed on this issue, the understanding created by participants as an
outcome of the research lessons is analysed, reflecting on this issue to some
extent, as part ofthe data analysis.
After having discussed two different approaches that contextualise
the directions I aim to develop the LTD practice in and examining six issues
raised in relation to LTD, some of which will be revisited in the data analysis
and the final chapter of my thesis, I look at the points of connection with Bond’s
theory before offering a summary of aspect of LTD I rely on in my research.
LIVING THROUGH DRAMA AND BONDIAN DRAMA
Edward Bonds commitment towards theatre in education and drama in
education is obvious from his intensive collaboration with Big Brum Theatre
in Education Company and a number of keynote speeches he made at
different conferences of the National Association for the Teaching of Drama.
His engagement with this field is based on a number of common aims and
practices between his work and that of certain drama education specialists.
Davis has been one of those specialists who has played a crucial role in
connecting Bond’s work with the field of drama education. Bond’s theory is
213 O’Neill: Drama Worlds, 125.
24 Fleming: Starting drama teaching, 16.
25 O’Neill: Drama Worlds, 56.
26 Bolton: New perspectives, 32.
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