Machines and Choral Speech as Interpretive Responses

• In Event: Response Abilities: Generating Arts-Based Research With Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King

Abstract

Purpose

This presentation will playfully apply process drama techniques (O’Neill, 1995) to historical monuments in order to make explicit tacit understands that are evoked by the sculptures and quotes. Rather than presenting a prepared representation this form of participatory public scholarship is designed “to help participants to reconstruct their own ever-changing cultural identities” (Wang, 2014, p. 39).

Perspectives

Process drama is a constructivist educational approach through which students make meanings individually and in groups. There exists a wealth of techniques (Neelands & Goode, 2000; Scher & Verrall, 1987; Tarlington, & Verriour, 1983, et al) that enable those involved to extend their meanings through a variety of theatrical elements including focus, metaphor, tension, symbol, contrast, role, time, space (Bowell & Heap, 2013, p. ix). Similar to museum theatre (Jackson, 2000) this fifteen-minute session will employ the techniques of machines and word collages to provide a variety of perspective as evoked by the interplay of the site, the activities and those in interaction.

Data

Building upon ‘readers’ response theory’ (Rosenblatt, 1978), It is my contention that data does not exist on the page, rather it is coemergent (Kieren, 2005) through the interaction between a text/object/ responder. As indicated in the overview, the data will be generated on site.

Results

Within a coemergent epistemology there are many sequential aspects of results, some of which are interconnected with the processes themselves. For example, The MLK quote (as previously described) was chosen because it had resonance with the presenter. The choice of quote is a result in itself. Second the result is the choice of process drama techniques that the sites evoked. The next result will be the interplays on site.

Significance

This presentation will coemerge pedagogy and participatory arts-based research in a public place.

Author

• Joe Norris, Brock University