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SECOND CYCLE
to change people with drama?" While other guestions are guite personal,
like: "Will I ever be able to direct if I just get lost watching and admiring
people?”.””
An important question concerning the framing of participants outside
the story is whether it creates a distance in engaging with the problems posed
in the narratives. It seems from the responses quoted that the centre offered
a useful point of reference in creating and in observing scenes. Framing
participants as co-researchers of drama presented the opportunity to perceive
themselves as active creators. I have not found any evidence that the frame
created distancing when I analysed the living through improvisations;
I investigate improvisation in the drama lessons in the next section.
Though framing the drama as an exploration of a central idea and of theatre
forms and structures has a lot of positive impact my reflective diary notes
highlight a problem that I struggled with through the research. A concern
noted after two lessons’ was that it was time consuming and caused
difficulties in time keeping during the lesson. This problem can be addressed
perhaps in longer processes, but is a dimension that needs to be considered in
relation to the positive features it can bring to the lessons.
Following this analysis of different framework’s relationship to the explicit
inclusion of dramaturgical structures and concepts to be used by participants
in the lessons I will look at how these impact on improvisations, the central
components of the living through approach.
Is Improvisation and the Conscious Use
of Theatre Structures Compatible?
Improvisation is a central element of LTD. In the first cycle of research I found
that Bondian Enactment demands the conscious use of structures that enhance
the exploration of the situation. I aimed to make Enactment possible by offering
tools to participants that they can use in the improvisations. The question
arising from this is twofold; one question is whether the conscious use of these
tools allows the experiential ‘being’ mode in these situations, while the other
question is whether they produce Enactment, a conscious exploration of
the situation by participants in these living through moments.
One dimension that the inclusion of structures possibly brought to
the improvisations was pre-planning by participants. One focus group
participant said “you really need imagination to see the whole in one piece.
I went through it in my mind first, trying to work it out and then I tried
it in the scene, to see if it works”.”* Another participant in another lesson
702 Q Wb.
703 RD_Wa; RD_Wd.
704 F 56B.