Oldal 133 [133]
CHAPTER THREE: BRINGING TOGETHER THE ÁRTISTIC AND THE EDUCATIONAL PRAXIS
As I rely heavily on structures and concepts from the two fields I compare
them in the following section. A common point of LTD and Bondian drama
is to enhance an experiential relation of participants to the problems within
the fictional world. A crucial element that needs to be examined is the nature
of the participants’ presence in the dramatic world as this is not a style of
acting but a specific mode of engagement that is central to both LTD and
creating a DE.
Story - the Framework of Fiction
Ihe basic framework for engaging with a fictional world is provided by the
use of story in both cases. Both Bondian drama and LTD rely heavily on the
unfolding story providing the overall structure for the specific situations that
the participants or an audience engage in. Stories, and I do not mean only
fairy tales here, offer a frequently used cultural form to suspend disbelief and
engage in events happening to ‘the other’. As Bruner points out the models
and procedural tool kits learnt from narratives are crucial in dealing with the
conflicts and contradictions that ‘real’ social life generates, and also points
out that our sense of the normative and the breach of it is also nourished
through narratives.*#” Stories are established cultural forms of making
meaning, either by offering events that need to be made sense of or by
providing interpretations of such incidents.
The ‘making’ element of LTD relies partly on participants being aware of
their role in creating the unfolding story. Even in cases where there is a central
scene that the participants engage in, like in Bolton’s Crucible, story is present
in many forms. There is a whole historical narrative that participants are
led into step by step; and there are family stories also being built through
the depiction task; and then a joint story-making takes place in the whole
group improvisation. O’Neill’s pre-text is usually a powerful story element,
like the return of a feared person, that kickstarts the story-making that
the group and the facilitator are engaged in. In his Child Abuse drama Davis
gets participants to create their personal roles in relation to the central story
and they become part of the unfolding event through these. And Heathcote’s
Man in a Mess drama might ask for a starting point from the participants
giving them great choice and responsibility at the same time.
The story provides the context for the situations engaged in and the focus of
the exploration can be directed by the facilitator through the givens that can
be set as part of the narrative. The relation of reflection on the story is an issue
in which differences between drama education practices can be highlighted.
The distinction often made is whether the reflection is from within the story
48° Bruner: Acts of Meaning, 97.
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