Embodying Memory, Time, and Space: Improvisation to Explore Personal History in Qualitative Research

• In Event: Practicing the Possible: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Improvisation Toward Remedy and Inclusion

Abstract

In this section, I consider how engaging in improvisation as a method in qualitative research might better ground research participants in their personal histories and identities, yielding greater insights and connections to their experiences, memories, and shared phenomena. In qualitative research, particularly in case study, grounded theory, and phenomenology approaches, researchers often rely on interviews to explore the stories and perspectives of others. While interviews are a common way to encourage reflection, Cresswell and Poth (2018) point toward challenges in dynamics between interviewers and interviewees, highlighting a power imbalance and, especially in phenomenology, in getting interviewees to move more deeply into the meaning of their experiences. Additionally, interviews are almost always conducted verbally and spontaneously; we ask our participants to share essential past experiences they may not have thought of recently, which may evoke strong emotional responses that cloud recollection and meaning making around their experiences.

As I designed a recent phenomenological study around the essential experience of becoming an artist (Authors, 2024), I planned on conducting retrospective interviews, but I was concerned about these challenges that might keep participants from delving deeply into the meaning of their experiences. I knew I wanted participants to reflect on early experiences and that some of their life histories may be emotionally difficult to explore. I wanted participants to get to know me and to prime their reflection so that when we got to the interviews, we would be able to dig deeply into their stories and how they interpret significant events. Additionally, I was working in a context where participants shared cultural attributes with one another as members of a Latine theatre troupe, cultural identifiers I do not share as a white researcher.

To address these challenges, the participants and I co-designed workshops aimed at promoting reflection and embodiment of personal learning journeys. Leaning into my background as a theatre teaching artist, I chose to rely on the tools I’ve used in the past to create trust and share experiences with students, the tools of improvisation. Augusto Boal (2022) shares a structure of improvisational exercises to connect an actor’s emotions and body, encouraging a break from mechanized responses and social masks. Workshops in this study were designed around identity exploration through applied theatre games, particularly sensory and memory exercises (Boal, 2022), and arts-based cultural mapping activities (Duxbury et al., 2019). The improvisational activity became an opportunity for participants to explore memory in time and space as they embodied artistic and cultural experiences, instances where their personal identifiers may have held privilege or oppression, that help to shape an individual artist identity. Using theatre games, movement, and art materials, participants traveled through their arts experiences. We found that through imaginative play afforded by improvisation, participants were able to be and see their experiences, to embody their histories, memories, and family stories. Additionally, as a theatre company rooted in Latine culture, participating in improvisation together allowed participants to see and hear their own and others’ stories, making meaning for self in a social context.

Author

• Lora Cawelti, University of Southern California