Seite 216 [216]
SECOND CYCLE
Framing — Offering the Direction of Engagement
As the concept of ‘frame’ in drama education covers a number of elements
I will first define my use of the term. The concept of frame distance was
developed by Dorothy Heathcote‘” following Goffman’s Frame analysis and
she defines nine different frame distances from the event, the first level being
‘Lam in the event’. The eight following levels make it possible to step away and
look at the event from various distances. As I am pursuing to facilitate for
participants to be in the event in my lessons, it is not the distancing aspect of
framing that I have used in the lessons. Cooper explains that beside denoting
a role function for participants frame also offers “a certain perspective or
viewpoint through which the event is explored”. It is this aspect of framing
that I employed in my lessons.
So the drama lessons in this research were not aiming to create any
‘distance from the actual event’, the role taken on by participants within the
narrative was experiencing the crisis, the problem explored was affecting
the role directly. The role also offered a specific perspective or viewpoint
within the drama. But I offered a prologue, a short series of tasks, before the
narrative was introduced, which offered a different perspective or viewpoint
from that of the roles within the narrative. I see this prologue as akin to how
Heathcote’s question ‘what would you like to make a play about?’ functioned,
as it framed participants as the makers of a play.
I tested framing the participants with a prologue before entering
the narrative with the 1956 lesson and with Wild Child. In both cases I shared
the Centre that the drama was aiming to investigate explicitly so participants
could use it as a reference point through the lesson. In the 1956 lesson
the frame was that ‘we are exploring what owning your life means through
this story’. With Wild Child I also made the research of this theatre approach
part of the prologue, so I was asking them to investigate with me the inclusion
of Bondian structures and concepts into the drama lesson, framing them as
co-researchers exploring the implementation of this specific theatre theory
and practice.
Participants of the 1956 lesson used the Centre as a reference point in
the session. For example after the scene involving the Bible referred to above,
in which the teenager defied his father in the refugee camp:
T: What is the boy played by Aron searching for?
P1: Peace.
P2: Harmony.
3 Davis: Imagining the Real, 84.
694 Cooper: Imagination in Action, 46.