Ethnodrama and Ethnotheatre: Parallels to my Own Work

Saldana, J. (2003). Dramatizing data: A primer. Qualitative Inquiry, 9(2), 218-236.

I found this article intriguing, and I agree with the author that all playwrights (and perhaps even all writers) are ethnographers to a degree. We study people's interactions and cultures and use these observations to tell our stories. Very much like some fiction and creative nonfiction stories, "theatre's primary goal is neither to 'educate' nor to 'enlighten.' Theatre's primary goal is to entertain" (p. 220). For my own artistic endeavors, creative writing, I strive to find a balance between entertaining people and keeping their interest, yet also enlightening them and helping them to consider their perceptions of the world. Good art, like good scholarship, should encourage people to think and to question. Otherwise, what is the point? I enjoy being entertained, and I think there is a place for writing that is purely self-reflective or entertaining. However, writing that is of a higher quality, and meant for an audience, should also encourage others to reflect.  As I have aspirations to do ethnographic research at some point in my academic work, I hope these endeavors will effectively combine my research skills and my ability to narrate stories.

Saldana (2002) notes Jean Luc Godard's plotting idea: "A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end--but not necessarily in that order" (p. 220). To construct a great piece of writing or ScholArtistry, one should consider where the story truly begins and ends and what should be shared first. As I re-think how to turn some of my teaching pieces into true works of art, I'm thinking that the "beginning" of my story is at a dance that I once supervised, and where I will introduce the students, who are actually microcosms and composites of students I taught over the years. Although this is how I envision the beginning of my memoir in progress, I do not see myself working on the stories in chronological order. As Misha says, I need to work on small pieces at a time and make them of high literary quality, thinking about characterization, dialogue, and setting in addition to the ethnographic details of place. One advantage of memoir is that I can veil some of the factual details in order to protect people's identities.

Just as Nilaja Smith's theater work of student impressions/monologues is based on several years of observations and interactions, so will be my own prose poems and short memoirs about my years as a middle school teacher.  Her youtube video gave me ideas on how to approach my own work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbx5MNj0a-A