Playback theatre as art form from the point of view of arts education By Anna-Lena Østern

Transcription

1 Playback theatre as art form from the point of view of arts education By Anna-Lena Østern This material is made publicly available by the Centre for Playback Theatre and remains the intellectual property of its author.

2 In this article I will make an attempt to describe characteristic features of playback theatre as art form. I use knowledge from art research as well as a more poetic and philosophical approach in the description. This article is a tribute to playback theatre as art form and to Jonathan Fox being awarded with the honorary doctor s degree at Kassel University. 1 Using the eye of art brings to the foreground the meaning potential in playback theatre while the eye of research assists in classifying the features of the genre playback theatre. I know the art form from inside as conductor for Katederkompaniet in Vasa, Finland ( ) and from autumn 2007 for Theatre Momentum in Trondheim, Norway. I am also a researcher in arts education, with a special research interest in artistic learning processes. I will in the following sections elaborate the following question: Which are the characteristics of playback theatre as art form? As arts educator I am wondering about the meaning potential of the aesthetic experience in playback theatre. I reflect upon the transformations in different phases of playback. More precisely I suggest what philosophical view might be the basis for playback theatre, and especially what philosophical aesthetics might be informing playback theatre. There is an ongoing discussion about aesthetic experience and knowledge. In a dialogue between education and art one necessary task to be done is to open up the notion of knowledge and learning in education. Likewise it is necessary to broaden the construction of what is considered to be art by noticing art like expressions, common aesthetics, emerging aesthetics and relational aesthetics in community settings. Playback theatre enhances reflection upon existential themes in the life stories of the audience. This reflection takes place articulated in verbal language, acted out in improvised scenes, and through transformations in different phases of the performance. The ritual form and the community perspective Two fundamental aspects of playback theatre are the ritual form and the spirit of community guiding the performance. The ritual form leads back to an old storytelling tradition, where the shaman brought important knowledge the community in a state of heightened awareness. From this tradition the notion of presence, the condensing aspect, can be recognized as a state of heightened awareness in the performance. This is a transcending aspect, giving the experience a sense of something more, and in a fundamental way makes everybody feel connected to a larger whole or community. The community aspect leads to the inclusive, not competitive attitude in playback theatre, encouraging a person to express him or herself in an artistic way. Jo Salas (1999, pp ) writes in Improvising real life... by letting ourselves be artists, we can reveal the pattern and beauty latent in the raw material of life. In playback differences in cultural traditions among the actors and among tellers challenge the raw material of life. In playback it is possible to find a sense of community despite all differences. I suggest it is because playback goes deep into basic human feelings and ways of communication. I find a parallel in lullabies. On a cover text to a CD with lullabies from different parts of the world is pointed at the deepest and most fundamental ways of communication. Norwegian producer Erik Hillestad writes : Lullabies lead us to the deepest and most fundamental way of communication between human beings. It is where all sharing of ideas and feelings starts Differences in scales, language, metaphors and religion cannot cover the fact that in the lullabies, the cultures 1 30th April

3 of the earth meet each other. Or rather; from this starting point they grow into diversity. (Erik Hillestad, 2007 on the cover text of the CD Lullabies from the axis of evil ) These starting points tell something about what attracts individuals to playback theatre. In playback you use the life story and transform it into an artistic expression. This is at least the intention, but like in all artistic communication you don t know for sure if the audience has been touched by the story before the response tells you if this is the case. Playback as art form is confirmed anew and anew in a functional way through the interaction with the audience. The multilayered communication in playback theatre is based on some characteristics, which I will elaborate in the following sections. Characteristics of playback theatre The characteristics of playback theatre can be looked upon from the perspective of different meaning levels. Starting from aspects you can observe in playback theatre (PT) the following features are obvious: It is nonscripted, and it connects to oral traditions of storytelling. The performance is built upon improvisation. The improvisation takes place within the given frames, the PT forms. It uses sound, music, movement, mime and physical expression. It uses the signs of theatre, thus being multimodal. The notion of multimodality has been elaborated in studies of literacy, because the simultaneous exposition of different modes of expression challenges a cultural literacy. In these studies the focus has been on the learning aspect and on the development of competencies to read multimodal texts. Lev Vygotsky (1978) writes about the mediating tools in learning; learning is conveyed or mediated through different cultural tools. Vygotsky uses the notion of semiotic mediation when he discusses how language is learnt. The central cultural tool is verbal language. In a discussion the semiotic mediation through language can be obvious, but there is also a semiotic mediation which is not so obvious. This mediation works through other signs than verbal language; it uses the other symbolic languages provided by art forms. An individual can associate based on the cultural knowledge she or he already has, and is perhaps able to expand the frames of reference through the mediation. Through semiotic mediation an individual learns cognitive dispositions. To be literate in different symbolic languages is called multimodal literacy. PT as a whole can be considered a mediating tool for cultural learning, and especially the multimodal signs used in PT. The semiotic or meaning making signs are several in PT. Multimodality used in order to condense meaning Through the use of the concept multimodality, I will approach playback more in depth. Multimodality is explained as a combination and mix of different modes of expression. Researchers in multimodal theory argue that different modalities have different meaning potentials. The multimodal expression shows a maximal economy and meaning condensation. To use sound, verbal language, music, movement, acting and pieces of cloth implies a cluster of expressions in one unit. This unit has several meaning creating resources. Kay O Halloran (2005,11) writes: Utilizing and combining the unique meaning potentials of language, symbolism, and visual display in such a way that the semantic expansion is greater than the 2

4 sum of meanings derived from each of the resources The quote focuses on the phenomenon recognized in playback theatre performance: the combination of signs makes the story performed rich and sometimes also deep. The expression in PT is multilayered and exposed to the audience in a simultaneous way. This multilayeredness is one of the key features of the expression in PT, in combination with the transformations, which I will focus on in a while. Before I explore the transformations in playback I will take one further step into the depths of PT suggesting one possible philosophical basis that might include some of the core themes in playback. Philosophical basis in phenomenology PT has been described as an approach and as a genre inspired by psychodrama, but with a focus on artistic communication (not on therapy). This is of course not enough as a description, which Jonathan Fox writes about in Acts of Service (Fox, 2003/1986, 3). The starting point for PT in 1975 was negotiating and elaborating a synthesis: In many ways we were groping for a new synthesis of old and contemporary. In his book Jonathan Fox describes the landscape around PT, the characteristic features of spontaneity, commitment and tradition in the non scripted theatre. When Heinrich Dauber in Gathering Voices (Fox & Gauber, 1999, 160) forms a model for researching PT he identifies four dimensions, which could be the basis for research hypotheses: a content dimension, an artistic dimension, a ritualistic dimension and a social dimension. Gauber attributes specific aims to the different dimensions. The content dimension has as its aim personal meaningfulness, and the artistic dimension elaborates artistic form, while the ritualistic dimension aims at collective meaningfulness and, finally, the social dimension has as aim social integration. From a philosophical point of view the following features of PT can be added to the description above of characteristics: In PT the person is considered to be meaning seeking and meaning making. In PT the essence of the story is important. The story is embodied through the enactment; the communication is from body to body. The physicality and the movement promote thinking and feeling. The key skill in the actors, the musician and the conductor is to be present and mindful. These aspects describe phenomenological philosophical thinking, most closely body phenomenology as it is written about by French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. He considers the body to be our anchorage in the world, and describes the body as pre-reflective. The articulation of verbal language is connected to the pre-reflective experiences, bodily experiences. Merleau-Ponty s theory is that language has developed from body-signs and gesture. In The Visible and the Invisible (1968, 123) Merleau-Ponty writes: " because between my body looked at and my body looking, my body touched and my body touching, there is overlapping or encroachment, so that we may say that the things pass into us, as well as we into the things". The word essence can of course be interpreted in different ways, and if essence is interpreted as something that is there in advance it might not be applicable in playback, where the essence is emerging in the story telling situation, collaboratively constructed, based on some deep structure of life. 3

5 Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the lived body In PT this communication from body to body can be interpreted as a transformation through the actors and the musicians s performance and through the audience s and the teller s being touched by the expression. According to Merleau-Ponty I and the Other are interwoven and he argues that when I touch I am being touched, or the world makes an impact on me as I make an impact on the world. I am seen and I see at the same time. Merleau-Ponty in a way tries to break down the barrier between consciousness and body without totally overrolling it. In PT as improvisation it becomes evident that the communication between the teller and the actor builds upon a common experience and knowledge frame. Jerome Bruner (1987, 21) in an article called Life as narrative argues: / / life stories must mesh, so to speak within a community of life stories; tellers and listeners must share some deep structure about the nature of life. For if the rules of life telling are arbitrary, tellers and listeners will, surely be alienated by a failure to grasp what the other is saying or what he thinks the other is hearing. Experiences can become visible and articulated in a multimodal language, which includes communication from body to body. Leena Rouhiainen in Living transformative lives discusses the embodied subject s relation to the world and she concentrates especially on Merleau-Ponty s understanding of the motility of the body and its pre-thematic and significance-bearing functions. (Rouhiainen, 2003, 425). Body phenomenologically inspired research underlines the thought that movement makes thoughts to be set in motion. Bodily expression is touching in a direct and complex way. There is an interplay between symbolic communication on different levels: concrete, abstract and thematic levels. In the following section of this article I will take one further step to explore the meaning potential in PT. I will be more concrete focussing on transformations in playback theatre. The notion of transformation is a concept used by John Dewey in Art as Experience. In this text from 1934 he describes how everyday experiences are transformed into aesthetic experiences through a poetic elaboration, or transformation. John Dewey and transformative aesthetic theory applied on playback In PT it is possible to recognize mimetic, expressive and transformative aspects of aesthetic theory applied in the performance. The mimetic aspect can be seen in the use of symbols to represent persons, feelings and perspectives. PT is not a naturalistic form of theatre; hence plain imitation is seldom used in the performance. The expressive aspect is underlined in the way the actor takes the perspective of the teller s person s experience. The transformative aesthetic theory however describes central aspects of how the artistic process is working in PT. There is not in advance an idea about what will be the product, the content of the performance. There is not in advance an inner expression. What is brought into the performance is what comes into being through a constant dialogue between the individual and the task, 4

6 between the different individuals taking roles or marking positions, between the individuals and the form chosen in a constant (self) reflective process. The core of the transformative aesthetic theory is the inclusion of the dialogical process in artistic work. The dialogue is about the form which gives most meaning. What comes into being is created through a series of transformations. The real life experience is transformed into an aesthetic experience through a poetic elaboration. 2 A poetic elaboration with an active aesthetic response A poetic elaboration is done through a forming and transforming process with artistic tools. The form transformation can be to distort, to enlarge, to diminish or to stylize. Through the transformation a commentary to what is performed, is given; the concrete actions are supplied by other levels of expression for instance the thematic aspect can be induced like a chorus of repetitions in a liquid sculpture, and a more abstract associative space might be given through improvised music and sound. What is in common for the form transformations is that there is left a space in-between, a gap or a blank to be filled out by the audience, and by the other performers as well. The empty space is a mental space for learning, because the spectator is activated to fill the gaps with personal meanings. What is learnt can be called an otherness character formation 3 where the individual acknowledges the foreign, not before known, in himself or herself, considering themes and form. To acknowledge gets as consequence that the individual makes some change in some aspect through the meeting. The aspect can be the relationship or view of herself or himself, relationship to others, to nature, to society, the ideas about the world. When a person has been touched by the meeting this person is not the same as before the meeting. Wolfgang Iser (1967) in his reception aesthetic theory [Theorie der ästhetischer Wirkung] writes about the reader s response in reading literature in a way that also can be applied to the reception of PT. The interactivity in PT gives the audience the role of author of the manuscript to be performed. During the performance the audience fills out gaps and blanks, become co-writers in their minds in the way the individuals interpret the performance and connect to their own life-stories. The reception of the enactment is part of the text produced. Transformations in Playback Theatre as collaborative creative work According to my interpretation of Dewey s notion of transformation, the transformation is explicitly working as a mediating tool in the artistic work. Transformation is a change from one mode to another expressive mode, it might be for instance to condense or to magnify. The transformations are always working with references to culture and with a rich intertextual repertoire. Intertextual is understood as pointing at or associating to other texts of the culture or another culture, thus enhancing the quality of the expression with another layer of meaning. The transformations work at different levels from concrete to abstract, thematic and metaphorical. The metaphors are images with a sharpened focus, telling more than many words, in a split second. 2 See more about the application of Dewey s transformative aesthetic theory on playback in Østern s article Die bedeutungsschaffende Dimension körperlicher Transformationen am Beispiel des Playback Theaters. In Leiblich in der Schule (ed. Anja Kraus, in print). 3 See Drotner (2004). 5

7 In the following section I mention the obvious transformations in different phases of playback work. These transformations are collaborative and dialogic and they make the ownership of the expression belong to the community gathered for the performance. The transformations also weave threads of communitas (a feeling of belonging, being part of a larger totality) between actors-conductor-musicianteller and audience. Transformation 1: Articulation of a personal memory The teller is a person in the audience. During a performance different persons are tellers of stories, which are episodes from their own personal life history elicited by the conductor. The audience might be a working team, a group of school children, people sharing some specific experience. The story told is the first transformation, and this story and its focus, is the basis for the subsequent transformations. In a playback performance for friends in Trondheim, December 2007, the theme chosen was the dark time of the year. The audience consisted of a wide range of different ages the youngest teller was eight and the oldest 75 years old. A series of experiences connected to darkness inside and outside were told. I mention four examples of stories told Story 1 I was free diving with some friends at an island; I only had a lamp to light up the total darkness at 12 meters depth in the sea. It was a profound, deep existential experience of the nature and I alone Story 2 I was in Italy, it was Easter time. A procession with all the villagers walked through the village carrying the holy items it made me tremble, I felt such huge respect and love. Story 3 I was in the far East on a hired bike. I wanted to reach a remote place before dark. I didn t and so I went on in the dark. Far away I saw a fire with some people around. I approached them We did not understand each others languages but they welcomed me and showed me their hospitality and included me. Story 4 I am now seventy-five but I remember when I was twelve taking violin lessons. I went to my teacher in the evening. It was cold and dark. I had my violin lesson and my teacher was very proud of me. When I came back home my mother brought me warm clothes and something warm to drink. I felt so loved. The first transformation thus is from one concept the dark time of the year to an articulated story, a personal memory, a story elicited through association to this concept or theme. Transformation 2: Choice of essence The conductor makes an interview with the teller and chooses the moments to focus on in the PT performance. The moment is always played back from the teller s point of view, thus honouring the story. In this transformation the aesthetic transformation consists of stylizing, taking away something of the story; in this phase some aspect becomes the essence of the teller s emotional memory, and this aspect might be enlarged in the performance. This aspect is negotiated in the dialogue between teller and conductor, before the conductor sums up for the actors. The transformation in this phase is a 6

8 condensation of the personal story: a choice of which aspects of the story that will be focused on, which essence. Transformation 3: Choice of PT representation and form The conductor asks the teller to pick teller s actor. The conductor chooses among available PT forms. Here are actually two transformations; one regarding who shall represent the teller s person and the other regarding choice of PT form. The PT forms have different qualities and either underline in more concrete narrative ways or work with moods in subtle abstract ways. During this phase one transformation is introducing an aesthetic distance asking for another person to represent the teller. This choice is done by the teller. This distancing moment gives the teller the possibility to be spectator, to experience the memory deeply, be touched by it just because of the aesthetic distance introduced by the representation. Another distancing element is the choice of aesthetic form of the improvisation. It becomes clear to everybody that this is a construct, which can be modelled. It becomes fiction. Transformation 4: Enactment of a scene In this fiction the transforming element is so important, it is an aesthetic doubling of time (real time time of the story); space (now and here and the time of the story), character (the teller now and the teller s person acting out some other age in the teller s life). Figure 1. The teacher was so proud of me. (Theatre Momentum in December 2007). In Figure 1 one moment from Story 4 (the violin lesson) is shown. The violin is shown as one actor on his back on the floor with a piece of red cloth as the strings of the violin. The red cloth also might symbolize the love to the music or the music performed. The enactment of the scene is the fourth transformation worked out as an improvisation. In this transformation the essence of the story is captured through the choices the actors and the musician make. The transformation made here is the playback of some elements from the teller s personal memory. The transformation is at this moment, from being until now only a story, becoming a performed story where the subtext is the main text: how did the teller experience this moment emotionally? The multimodality is working in signs giving one concrete level with the 12-year-old boy, the teacher, the mother, the violin and the warm clothes. Another level is more abstract: it might be the red piece of cloth symbolizing music, caring love... Another might be the 7

9 mood of the music played. A thematic level might be interpreted as the feeling of being alive, doing something wonderful in playing the violin, and meeting the caring love of a mother. Figure 2. My mother gave me warm clothes. I felt so loved. (Theatre Momentum, December 2007) In Figure 2 is seen one moment from when the boy returned back home, and he is welcomed by his mother in a tender and caring way: putting her hands around the shoulders of the boy. Here is the essence of the story performed: to receive love and warmth as a contrast to the cold and frightening darkness outside; to feel that you have somebody to come home to after you have been in another demanding but rewarding situation, and have somebody to share this experience with. Transformation 5: Reception: the teller s last words. When the enactment is performed, the music has stopped, then the actors look at the teller, make a bow of respect. The conductor asks: Could you recognize this story as your story? One more transformation is done in bringing the teller (and the audience) back to here and now, making the performance history, and making it material for reflection. The reception of the performed story is a transformation that might be very personal. The teller and also the audience connect the feelings coming up during the performance with their own life. The empty spots, the blanks, have been filled out by personal meaning and interpretation. This transformation is a possibility for change, or 8

10 transportation: you are not the same person as you were before being touched by the story. Something, some aspect is different. The five transformations mentioned above are: from concept to articulated story; from articulated to condensed and focused story; creating an aesthetic distance; enactment of the story told through use of multimodal signs thus communicating layers of meaning; from fiction back to the reception. The creation of the piece of art (the performance) is a highly collaborative process, but very dependent on the skills of the performers. In next section I reflect upon the intended transformations and the characteristics of them. I also look at the meaning potential in a perspective informed by philosophical aesthetics. Reflection on the intended transformations and their meaning potential Emmanuel Levinas (1993) is a philosopher engaged in existential philosophy. He writes about the necessity to look at oneself with the gaze of the other, and to let the other person s face become visible. In the constant dialogue verbally and in other symbol languages, the transformations in PT make this happen: the teller can see himself with the gaze of the other. In the performance the other person s face becomes visible, at least some aspect of being recognized, thus honouring the story. Some characteristics of playback theatre can be identified through the description of the transformations. I argue that these aspects make the transformations possible, and contribute to the artistic value of playback theatre. I will point at some of them. The ritual form with recognizable phases, beginnings, endings, forms, contributes to the transformations, offering a safe space for telling and improvising. The altered (heightened) state of presence as well in the PT group as in the audience gives a sense of focus. The mimesis with different qualities is part of the transformation. At one level the actors are imitating some aspect of the teller s story, doing very concretely what was told. At another level the mimesis is representation (a female actor plays the role of a boy; a grown up young man represents the violin). The obvious play with mimesis as resemblance works like a contract between actors and audience: it is a signal that we are playing with fiction in order to communicate something very deep and important about the human condition. Juxtaposition of elements which are not compatible or huge blanks which the audience has to fill out by means of interpretation or co-authoring through interpretation, gives the theatre form characteristic features of showing fragments. The language used is often stylized, with repetition of key phrases, or sounds. Short narrative passages by some actor often give a comment to what happened or make a shift in perspective clear to the audience. 9

11 Intertextual references are used to a large extent, borrowing and re-circulating wellknown cultural material like sounds, etiquettes, phrases from song texts and melodies. The active aesthetic response the actors give in the improvisation makes the feeling of awe and wonder possible (at least sometimes), or explains the importance of artistic expression as a prerequisite for being touched and moved by the expression. The fiction contract with the audience is made very explicit in the beginning of the performance. The audience functions as co-author to the performance through the reception. It is a constant feedback-loop through different transformations during the performance. The expression becomes a property the community has ownership to. The importance of performance skills in playback theatre In PT the story is not performed in a naturalistic way, but the performance includes enough of recognizable elements in order to make the teller s story authentic. When the audience comes from different cultural backgrounds, it is important to be deep enough in order to find some fundamental ways of communication. One main question for the choices the actors make in the improvisation is: Which cultural symbols have the flexibility so that they can give a sense of belonging, community? In the performance situation these choices are made mostly based on tacit knowledge, knowledge acquired from earlier experiences. The performers must be able to communicate the aesthetic doubling of time, space, role and plot. In some forms there is not a plot, but a mood to communicate. The aesthetics of playback is emerging, sometimes not fulfilled, but sometimes stunningly beautiful. When I use the notion of emerging I think of who the performers are: from all age groups, with different professional backgrounds. The performance skills in PT include improvisational skills and skills to choose aesthetical signs by diminishing, enlarging, distorting or stylizing in a way, that inspires the audience to connect to a more general story, as well as to a personal story. The aesthetic expression is not based on perfect body control or a fully chiselled product. The performance skills developing (and also needed) are of at least two types. These two types are connected in a chiasmic way, like an X moving back and forwards and crossing paths. I borrow the notion of chiasm from Merleau-Ponty who describes how I and the Other merge, how my body touching also is touched. The most fundamental ability is to be able to empathize with the Other, to put you in accusative like the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas writes, and not to be blind for the other persons face. This empathy (and life experience) is informing the performance skills and interacts with them in a chiasmic way: one informs the other again and again. Warren Lamb (1979) has studied how movement has a strong emotional impact. It is an intricate interplay between the rhythms of movement among persons in communication. It is an play with different movement qualities. I PT the actors think on feet the physical expression forms a stream of energy meeting the spectator s experiences and the cultural code competence in interpretation. Depending on the experiences and the cultural background of the spectator the reception of the performance will differ. The performance skills consist of knowledge 10

12 about the PT forms, about dramaturgy, storytelling, about improvisation (not blocking creativity, about finding the substance, be connected and adjust..), about multimodal communication, about sense of timing, rhythm, and sense of story. The PT forms basically work either in a story telling mode (scenes, narrative V, three-sentence-story, tableau) or in a mood of being (liquid sculptures, pairs, chorus, dance). Some forms can function in either way. PT has an agenda of inclusion and it claims a right for every person to embark the stage and to communicate a right to participate in artistic communication. This ideology shares some vital aspects of Paolo Freire s (1992) Pedagogy of Hope and especially the application in forum theatre (developed by Augusto Boal). There are crucial differences though between these improvisational participant theatre forms. Boal is trying to free from oppression, while PT is seeking for fundamental values and understanding of community, thus building peace and promoting co-existence in a responsible way. I will in the last section sum up my analysis and connect the results to philosophical aesthetics, and finally I identify some challenges for playback theatre. Philosophical aesthetics explaining the beauty of playback theatre In post modern thinking the main idea is based on the death of big stories and the introduction of many small stories, or put in another way, not on The Truth, but on local truths. This thinking is non essential, and in this respect playback is not post modern, because PT is based on finding essences in every small story. This essence is personal, but also existential and enlightens some fundamental aspect of the human condition in a more general way. The PT performance takes in and uses tacit knowledge, and articulates the knowledge in multimodal ways. In the performance the conductor quite explicitly tries to find key moments and turning points. The story performed is often described like forming a platform and letting it tilt. This story structure illustrates the fundamental journey metaphor which also is obvious in folk tales and many myths: The person starts at home, then undertakes a dangerous journey, makes mistakes and is challenged regarding basic values and choices. Then the person returns back home, changed and with a new understanding. This journey is a character forming journey. Aesthetic means used in playback PT shares many characteristics of contemporary not institutional theatre expressions. Some central features are: It is collaborative. It is interactive, to a large extent building on the response of the audience. It is partly autobiographic partly fictive. It is site specific, building on community. The performance consists of fragments; there are gaps and blanks (to be filled out by the audience), and it makes use of recirculation of material. The language is often chopped and beaten. Simultaneous layers upon layers of meaning (concrete, abstract, thematic) are introduced. 11

13 PT has a ritual frame which gives a firm structure to the improvised scenes. The musician, which makes intros, underlines, and makes endings contributes with elements of ritual. The conductor is the leader of the ritual when interviewing, summing up and choosing PT form. Through the rituals an aesthetic distance is formed, which makes it possible to stay in the art form and still perform deep stories. Through the rituals the audience can get hold of what kind of fictional contract that works within this theatre form. PT is informed by contemporary aesthetics, which is necessary in order to be communicative and vital. Still its philosophy is not post modern. I have suggested that PT is sharing some central elements of body phenomenological thinking. I now make a more precise argumentation regarding philosophical basis. In phenomenology the person is considered meaning seeking and meaning making. The word philosophy denotes love for wisdom. Art, religion and philosophy open up for the fundamental human questions and promotes insight about something more. In philosophical aesthetics this something more concerns the notion of beauty. What is beauty? Can the ugly be part of beauty? Is lack of beauty also an aesthetic experience? Confronted with a piece of art, or contributing to the forming of an artistic expression the person experiences awe and wonder about something more getting a moment of feeling connected to a larger totality, or community: grasping in a moment that it is possible to think the world otherwise. This insight is in the core of philosophical aesthetics. Confronted with the beauty of an artistic expression the individual is touched and changed. The person has gained an insight that changes some aspect of the person. The person is not the same as before this art experience, or experience of beauty in human relationships, in nature or in culture. Danish philosopher Dorthe Jørgensen (2008, 97, my translation) writes that aesthetic experience is not only a sensuous experience, but also has a feeling-character, and thus also is reflective. In the aesthetic experience feeling and thinking indeed are totally integrated. Challenges for playback theatre In playback theatre the mirror staged by the actors makes the familiar strange, the experience of the expression is desautomatised 4 and a person can experience things anew, fresh. This might fill the person with a sense of awe and wonder. The individual story might be connected to a larger collective story of mankind. The change in a person might be (borrowing concepts from Jacques Mezirow s transformative learning theory from 1978) adjusting frames of reference, changing frames of reference or even changing habits of mind. From an arts educational point of view this cultural learning is of crucial importance because through playback theatre it is possible to Enhance the quality of reflection; Articulate tacit experience in a multimodal way; Change the learning context and content; Connect personal stories to collective stories of mankind; Connect artistic expression to ethics in PT as inclusive community based art form Maxine Greene (2004, 18) writes about art in a way that can be applied on playback theatre: 4 Viktor Sklovskij writes about ostranenjie (defamiliarisation) when he explains how artistic expression promotes change in perception of a piece of art, forcing the audience to not think like usually and thus being able to see the world fresh and new. 12

14 No encounters can release imagination in the way engagement with works of art or aesthetic enactments can release it. Imagination, as is well known, is the capacity that enables us to move through the barriers of the taken-for-granted and summon up alternative possibilities for living, for being in the world. It permits us (at least for a while) the stiflingly familiar and banal. It opens us to visions of the possible rather than the predictable; it permits us, if we choose to give our imagination free play, to look at things as if they could be otherwise. The philosophical aesthetics is closely connected to ethics. Hence I will argue that two main challenges for the future development of playback theatre as community art form are (1) to be flexible and to change regarding physical expression and forms, but at the same time (2) to stick to the ethical imperative which is in the basis of playback theatre. Regarding the challenge to change and develop I argue that the actor s repertoire of actions is of crucial importance. It is a challenge to develop the improvisational communication in not so easily anticipated expressions, just in order to promote the defamiliarisation from the audience s point of view. The ritual form is the stable basis from which new modes of expression can unfold. The multimodality is one source for this development. I suggest that the possibilities in developing multilayered multimodal expressions make the art form productive and lasting. The challenge not to change is the major challenge: to stick to the ethical imperative regarding promotion of intercultural understanding and community, to see the other person, and to want to make a difference in the world through articulation of fundamental human values shared. References Bruner, Jerome (1987). Life as narrative. Social Research, Vol. 54, No 1. Dewey, John (1934). Art as Experience. New York: Perigree Books. Drotner, Kirsten (2004). Otherness character formation. In i A-L. Østern (ed.) Dramatic Cultures, pp Vasa: Faculty of Education at Åbo Akademi University, report No 10. Fox, Jonathan (2003). Acts of service. Spontaneity, commitment, tradition in the non scripted theatre. Originally published in New Paltz, NY: Tusitala Publishing. Fox, Jonathan & Dauber, Heinrich (eds.) (1999). Gathering Voices essays on playback theatre. New Paltz, NY: Tusitala Publishing. Freire, Paolo (1992). Pedagogy of hope. Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum. Greene, Maxine (2004). In Diaz, Gene & Barry McKenna, Martha (Eds.), Teaching for Aesthetic Experience. The Art of Learning, pp New York: Peter Lang. Jørgensen, Dorthe (2008). Skønhed. En engel gik forbi. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag. Iser, W. (1976): The Act of Reading. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP. Lamb, W. (1979): Body Code. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Levinas, Emmanuel (1993): Den annens humanisme. Aschehoug, Oslo. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1968). The visible and the invisible. Ed Claude Lefort. Transl. Alphonse Lingis. Evanstone: Northwestern University Press. Mezirow, Jacques (1978). Perspective transformation. Adult Education. 28:2, pp O Halloran, Kay (2005): Mathematical Discourse: Language, symbolism and visual images. London, New York: Continuum. 13

15 Rasmussen, Bjørn (2004). Teater og unge Kultur og kontekst. I B. Rasmussen, V. Aune & E. Gjervan, DRA 2002 Seminariet ved Trøndelag Teater innlegg om ungdomsteater, NTNU. Institutt for kunst- og medievitenskap. Tapir, Kompendieforlaget. Rouhiainen, Leena Living Transformative Lives. Finnish Freelance Dance Artists Brought into Dialogue with Merleau-Ponty s Phenomenology. Helsinki: Theatre Academy. Acta Scenica 13. (Diss.) Rouhiainen, Leena (Ed.) Ways of Knowing in Dance and Art. Helsinki: Theatre Academy. Acta Scenica 19. Sava, Inkeri Taiteellinen oppimisprosessi. I Porna, Inari & Väyrynen, Paavo: Taiteen perusopetuksen käsikirja, Helsinki: Kunnallisliitto. Salas, Jo (1993). Improvising real life. New Paltz, NY: Tusitala. Sklóvskij, Viktor (2001). Ordets genopstandelse. Overs. Av Jane Kabel. Reception. Tidskrift for nordisk litteratur. 45/2001. Retrieved : Vygotsky, Lev (1978). Mind in Society. The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Østern, Anna-Lena (in print). Die bedeutungsschaffende Dimension körperlicher Transformationen am Beispiel des Playback Theaters. In A. Kraus (ed.). Leiblich in der Schule. 14