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FIRST CYCLE
Site C — How Can Components Be Used to Open Gaps?
Edward Bond emphasizes that DEs can only be created by the actors in action,
which means that the structures studied here can enhance their creation
but finally it depends on the actors, or in the case of classroom drama
the participants, to create them. Site C “conveys the play to the audience”*°
it is about what the actions are, how the words are said, how the objects
are used, and so on. In a LTD context the focus is on the behaviour of the
participants in different improvised situations. I will discuss two concepts
from Bondian theory here, Enactment and Cathexis.
ENACTMENT: Bond argues that actors need to focus on the situation
and explore it rather than convey a specific interpretation of the situation.
He calls this mode of being Enactment, which is crucial in conveying
the situation and leaving the meaning making to the audience. Cooper states
that “Enactment in a Bond play is very close to ‘being’ in role”? in a process
drama. I am going to examine some moments from the first cycle to look at
the ‘acting behaviour’ of participants in the drama lessons.
I evaluated answers to the questions ‘what was the most important moment
for you in the series?’ and ‘what did you enjoy the most in the series?’ filled
in by 12 participants®* of The Tribe series. I present the results in the table
below, highlighting those elements that were clearly individual or whole
group living through improvisations. Only ‘making the phones’ and ‘finding
out the tribe’s name’ are not improvisations, ‘everything’ definitely includes
chunks of improvisations as well, but I only count the specifically living
through moments in the next analysis.
Table 3. Improvisations
Meeting | Bath’s When we When Finding | Making | Every¬
by the interro- | were in the | we were | out the the thing
rock gation | temple inrole | tribe’s phones
(LT) (LT) (LT) (LT) name
Most
. 5 4 0 0 1 0 2
important
Most exciting 2 2 1 3 0 2
Altogether: 7 6 1 3 1 2 4
69 Edward Bond: Directing The Edge, unpublished Email to Jerome Hankins, Personal
communication, 23 March, 2017.
630 Bond: Modern Drama, 10.
61 Bond: Directing The Edge.
632 Cooper: Re-visiting the process drama, 158.
As I ran out of time in the last lesson participants took the questionnaires home. Only
12 from the 18 participants brought it back when I went back to collect them.
633
+ 189 +