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SUMMARY: POSSIBLE FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF LIVING THROUGH DRAMA
drama is needed to deal with our ideologically distorted vision”.”” The territory
that needs to be explored further is: how can drama be used in creating
gaps in dominant social narratives, that define our understanding of events
surrounding us, and that help participants form their own understanding of
situations from within the story? The term narrative is used here in a wide
sense, to cover not only stories but those accounts and explanations of social
occurrences that often become accepted as ‘reality’. The LTD practices relying
on a strong ‘being’ element offer possibilities to create these gaps.
Neelands??® points out that the conventions approach is based on Brechtian
distancing techniques and relies strongly on language based reflection and
a rational understanding of the problems investigated. Distancing takes
participants out of the fiction to reflect on it using the reality as the reference
point of reflection. The nature of the understanding used as the reference
points is unquestioned.
The MoE approach to drama employs a fictional frame to distance
the problems explored. The attitude of ‘experts’ offered to participants
produces a particular stance through which participants engage with
the problems the fiction offers. The aim of this approach is not the questioning
of values but providing motivation and scaffolding for incorporating subject
oriented learning into the fiction of the drama. Hence, I rely on those LTD
practices that aim at creating possibilities for ‘being’ and exploring the crisis
encountered from within the fiction.
What to Develop Within Living Through Drama?
In my research lessons I explore the incorporation of Bondian structures and
concepts into an LTD framework with the aim of facilitating participants
of the drama to create gaps in meaning, moments that question or unhinge
dominant social narratives, in living through improvisations within
the story.
The survey of the field of LTD offered the following aspects that the research
drama lessons can be based on:
a) Qualities of narratives:
¢ Crisis happening to the roles offered to participants
+ Social constraints and norms clashing with basic human needs
contributing to the crisis
e Crisis producing clash of values within the individual roles
e Strong connection between reality of participants and the fictional
world
225 Ibid.
226 Neelands: Mirror, Dynamo or Lens.