Rehearsal as Research: Layering Meaning

• In Event: 61.058 - Toward an Understanding of Performative Research as Embodied Inquiry

Abstract

A member of Panel 1 developed a full-length research-based theatre script, Homa Bay Memories as part of his doctoral research. The script and dissertation critically examine his mother’s teaching experience in Kenya in the late 1960s, his experience there as a pre-service teacher in 2004, and how the narratives he grew up with have shaped and continue to shape his professional and personal identities. His research focused solely on script development and writing rather than staging. As a result there has not yet been a full staging of Homa Bay Memories. However, since completing the script, it has undergone a full workshop reading as well as a staging of several key scenes.

To date, little scholarly work closely examines issues and challenges encountered in the significant shift from research script to research performance. He and four others partook in this This panel seeks to contribute to this emerging conversation by reporting on the rehearsal and filming of a pivotal scene from Homa Bay Memories. Turner (1982) describes the rehearsal and staging of performance ethnography as an opportunity to get “inside the skin” (p. 90) of ethnographic participants. Building on Fels’s (2012) stop moments in performative inquiry and Bakhtin’s (1986) chains of utterances, this panel will highlight key methodological and experiential insights gained during rehearsals. Through these discussions the panelists will begin to articulate a notion of rehearsal as research method.

Authors

• Graham Lea

• Lynn Margaret Fels, Simon Fraser University