Ethnodrama
Activation Ideas
Discussion | Discuss potential topics with students. Create one guiding question. Review with students how to do interviews and how to record them. Start with small interviews. One question, only need a few sentences to begin. |
Transcribe | Students will take the words from the recording and write them. |
Group work | Students will work in groups. Students will share their interviews. Students identify similarities, differences and lines that jumped out at them. |
Devising | In groups students will work together to create a script using each person’s interviews. Students will write script. |
Rehearsal | Students will devise and rehearse. |
Share and reflect | Students will share and reflect. Consider if there is a way to combine every group together so that there is one class performance. |
Discussion
There are generalizations made about the below terms, but it is important to distinguish the difference.
Ethnodrama is dramatized data, meaning when a written play script of dramatized selections of interview transcripts, field note, journal entries, media artifacts etc. are created.
Ethnotheatre is performing the data, a theatrical performance that is mounted for an audience, a live performance event of research participants' experience and/or the researcher’s interpretation of the data.
Documentary Theatre explores through investigation of media culture and documents, government reports, interviews, journals, and correspondence.
Verbatim Performance is the word for word, gesture for gesture, is the precise portrayal of an actual person using their exact speech and gestural patterns as a data source for investigation.
Verbatim Theatre is theatre firmly predicated upon the taping and subsequent transcribing of interviews with ordinary people, done in the context of research.
The distinction is not typically made in the field 98% it is all referred to ask ethnodrama, however more recently Verbatim Theatre has been used. It is important to understand the distinction between qualitative data (words) quantitative (numbers). It is often easier to show cause and effect with quantitative data, but you do see a clearer view when you transcribe what you have observed. However, in education there is always a need to prove cause and effect and to prove validity and reliability with observation is hard to do. It is also important to understand the importance of obtaining clearance for words and many time you may have to present to an IRB. An IRB stands for Institutional Review Board. The purpose of IRB review is to protect the rights and welfare of humans participating as subjects in the research.
Resources
Cannon, Anneliese. Making the Data Perform An Ethnodrama Analysis. (2012). Qualitative Inquiry.
Glarin, Anna. Whose Story Is It Anyway? (2020). Arts Praxis Volume 7 Issue 1.
Lypka, Andrea E. A Review of Ethnotheatre: Research from Page to Stage. (2015). The Qualitative Report. Volume 20. Number 12.
Salvatore, Joe. Verbatim Performance and Its Possibilities. (2023). Arts Praxis Volume 10 Issue 1.
Additional Resources
Saldana, Johnny. (2004). Ethnodrama: An Anthology of Reality Theatre. NY: Altamira.
Smith, Anna Deavre. (1993). Fires in the Mirror. NY: Anchor Books.
Taylor, Philip. (2000). Researching Drama and Arts Education. London: The Falmer Press