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CHAPTER FIVE: DATA ANALYSIS
drama lesson to explore socio-cultural dimensions of narratives. Enactment
and Cathexis can possibly bring new possibilities to the making? element that
Bolton" refers to as the central component of LTD.
However, for DEs to be created it seems inevitable for participants to have
an awareness of aims and forms of creating gaps in the narratives they are
actively building from within. Exploring this possibility became the central
concern for the second cycle of my action research. Though LTD has been
misrepresented or misinterpreted as a form of dramatic playing that lacks
an aesthetic dimension, we have seen in the analysis of lessons of some of
the major innovators of LTD that the participants’ enhanced awareness
of theatre components creates a more powerful artistic and educational
opportunity. I am exploring new possibilities in this tradition in the second
cycle of my action research.
SECOND CYCLE
The understanding born out of the first cycle of the research led me to
explore how the conscious use of Bondian dramatic concepts and structures
by participants of the lessons could enhance creating Drama Events in Living
Through Drama. Awareness of theatre forms and concepts has been part
of the living through tradition as we have seen in the examples explored in
the first chapter. But I wanted to investigate how a specific set of structures,
taken from Edward Bond’s work, can be used consciously by participants.
I followed an existing tradition within the LTD approach but took it one step
further by introducing these components.
This change produced several questions that I will examine here.
An important practical question concerns the framework within which these
concepts and structures can be offered to the participants. Another central
question was whether the conscious use of theatre components hinders or
enhances the living through experience of participants. Thirdly, the type of
understanding created by participants within these drama lessons was also
a question of importance for my research. I analyse the data to get answers
to these three questions in the following part of this chapter, but before
I do that I present a summary of the concepts and structures offered for use
to participants in the drama lessons. This is followed by a short summary of
the drama lessons implemented within the cycle to offer context to the data
analysis. I return to my central research question and the summary of the two
cycles of research in the final part of this chapter, following the analysis of
the second cycle.
656 Bolton: Acting in Classroom Drama.
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