Participatory drama workshop

One of the first workshops early on was from Alun Morgan, based on a project he'd been involved in writing up as a case study for his social work module at the Open University.  The technique is used to open up difficult issues and makes use of drama.

Three groups each made a short drama and filmed it in the space of about 45 minutes:

Afterwards we made the following analysis of the technique:

Participatory drama
This workshop raised the possibility and illustrated the application of introducing drama into participatory video research processes. There may be occasions when the issue being studied is complex, emotionally charged, or maybe on occasions embarrassing. In such circumstances researchers may choose to encourage research participants (subjects?) to act-out and dramatise some elements of their story or dilemma. The process of choosing and ‘acting’ a role with others can potentially be less threatening to individuals, for whom ‘hiding’ in the role for a limited and structured period of time can be appropriate and protective, generating useful data for researchers that may be difficult to access by other more traditional research data collection methods: for example, through structured interviews. For this workshop the presenter used an illustrative example of young adults with a learning disability (mental handicap) in Leeds in the UK who were involved in researching, in association with researchers from Leeds University, the subject of making and sustaining personal and sexual relationships among learning disabled young adults. In this study, drama was used extensively to enable the young people to more effectively express their needs and view. This drama was captured on video and used a raw data for analysis in the research design. Workshop members in small groups simulated this drama process as a research tool, and created three illustrative dramatized video exercises: one of an anxious parent talking with their child’s teacher; another of a young person whose recent unemployment was very significantly affecting her life-opportunities; and a third of a parent with severe literacy problems having her problem exposed at her child’s school. Feedback by workshop members after completing this exercise and watching all of the video exercises was as follows:
Affordances	Requirements		Notes
·        Working with uncomfortable issues ·        Get under the skin of an issue ·        Authentic representation of real life ·        Access to emotional aspects ·        Participation/empowerment of people ·        Emancipatory – it allows a subject to be explored without confessions or personal consequences ·        Less powerful people act out issues of power and control ·        Effective communication – In a short time it can transfer a big message that would take much writing to be explained ·        To get a picture of a complex situation before analysing it from one aspect only ·        Explore areas that may be difficult to access ·        Activity for discussion ·        Facilitate further discussion after watching the video ·        Communicating a problem in a way it is easy to understand as it involves emotions ·        Makes very sensible issues ‘fun’ to discuss ·        Allows us to learn about attitudes towards issues		·        A properly skilled researcher ·        Facilitations ·        Debriefing – picking up of issues ·        Mutual respect/shared goals ·        Requires Trust ·        Consent from participants ·        A video camera ·        Some video editing skills ·        Some basic filming and acting skills ·        Video equipment ·        Facilitation/organisation ·        Narrative structure ·        Watchability ·        Understanding of audience ·        Trust ·        Camera ·        Time ·        Co-operative and open participants working at different hierarchical levels ·        Emotional risk ·        Share understanding of confidentiality/privacy -> use of data afterwards		·        Communication happens through narrative, spatial and emotional modes ·        Allows for the exploration of situations where empathy can be gained for the issue ·        Data analysis?  How? ·        Links to Forum Theatre, participatory drama (PADT?) ·        Can participants refuse to take part without being questioned? ·        To examine a situation to fill forms in relation with tenderers.
CHANGE website: http://www.changepeople.co.uk/ and the sub-link to the page including a film made by The Open University in the UK. http://www.changepeople.co.uk/showPage.php?id=9.