‘Is that what you really want?’: a case study of intracultural ensemble-building within the paradoxes of ‘urbanicity’

摘要

Ensemble-building is a practice within drama education that is understood to be a powerful metaphor for democratic living. However, this ongoing work in classrooms also demands that teachers understand and enact a broad, interrelated range of knowledge, skills, and values that support participants’ encounters with conflict and representations of change. In this sense, ensemble-building is not simply about getting along, but embodies an ‘intracultural’ practice of ‘living together’ while learning and using creative strategies for ‘fighting together’. In this qualitative case study of ensemble-building as an intracultural practice we present the key forms of knowledge, skills and values that two teachers enacted to create conditions for trust and knowledge production with a group of African American students at a racially segregated urban secondary school and a collaboration between this group and multi-ethnic and multi-racial university students in a theatre arts programme. Their work, and the work of ensemble, we argue, is shaped by and within the intersections of ‘urbanicity’ where urban life is recognisable and lived beyond the boundaries of urban centres through the paradoxical conditions of rigidity and creativity, stability and mobility, and anonymity and visibility.View full textDownload full textKeywordsensemble, urban education, drama educator, anti-oppressiveRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2011.566991