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CHAPTER FIVE: DATA ANALYSIS
to be adjusted to the groups interests. Apart from one similar response from
this focus group about the difficulty of using the structures in improvisations
this problem was not mentioned elsewhere.
Concerning the question related to Enactment it is difficult to pinpoint data
which can tell if participants were exploring different layers of the situation in
the improvisations. Most improvisations happened simultaneously in pairs or
groups of three and the quality of the video recording makes it impossible to
identify subtle actions, realisations. The understanding and questions arising
from the drama lessons are quite general and only a few are connected by
participants to specific moments of action in the drama lessons. I will be
presenting the questions and understanding generated in the next section.
If participants are able to create gaps in meaning through Enactment,
exploring the Centre of the narrative, then they can create DEs. Based on
the data collected I cannot provide explicit evidence of participants creating
DEs in living through improvisations, but analysing scenes and improvisations
created during the drama lessons, especially in Wild Child, we can see that
participants were able to include certain structures in their work. One such
example is on the border of being a DE, I am unable to surely define it as one
based on the data available. This was a scene/improvisation created about
the education of the feral child. I will give a short description of the action
in the scene and share some screenshots from the video documentation.’”*
The space created by participants was a room with a window. The feral
child (the girl in the white shirt on the screenshot) stared out of the window
(the flipchart). The NGO staff member (also referred to as researcher by
participants) brought in and placed a mirror on the wall then left and observed,
commenting the actions from outside the room. The child first flinched from
her own reflection, then went up to it and touched the mirror.
The staff member went in and placed herself in front of the child’s reflection
mirroring her action. The child touched her hand similarly to the mirror.
The staff member left the room to observe further and left the child together
with the mirror. The child tore the mirror off the wall. The improvisation
created discussion about what the staff member wanted to teach the child and
what she actually taught her, and also what is useful for the child to see and
what is not useful. The participants who created the scene used the Centre
defined for the story (can you be/find yourself in contemporary society?) and
also used unexpected action, played with social roles and used objects to create
gaps in meaning. The mirror and the window were elements of the situation
consciously chosen by participants. It is important to note that this was not
a spontaneous, unplanned improvisation, but also not a rehearsed script.
The details of the situation and the ‘set’ were designed by the participants;
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