“LET ME TALK MY SHIT”: EXPLORING RACIOCULTURAL TRAUMA THROUGH EMBODIED ARTS

This dissertation focuses on a qualitative study drawing on critical ethnography in conjunction with the self-reflective components of autoethnography, the critical race methodology of racial and counter-storytelling (Johnson, 2017; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002), and youth-centering components of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) (Cammarota & Fine, 2010; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; Torre et al., 2012). The purpose of this study was to explore the complex relationship between trauma, the lived realities of racially minoritized youth, and the arts. As theory-building research, this study sought to expand trauma theory toward raciocultural perspectives of trauma while expanding performance arts theory into an embodied understanding of performance arts. Moreover, this theory of trauma is based in the lived realities of racially minoritized youth as they live with and through trauma. In this way, trauma functions as a haunting for racially minoritized youth (Derrida, 2012; Gordon, 2008). Observations were conducted at a monthly open mic, L!t (pseudonym) that the researcher volunteered at for two years and hosted prior to gaining permission to conduct research. One cisgender woman and two queer women youth artists participated in the study, which consisted of 10 unstructured interviews held over the course of a year in the New England region of the United States. The participants and researcher identified as Puerto Rican, although one participant identified as bi-cultural and another participant identified as multi-cultural and were mentored by a Puerto Rican artist who was the founder of the monthly open mic, powerful community leader, and a member of the Nuyorican Literary Vanguard. Instead of focusing on pain narratives, this study focused on the various forms of power and wisdom that come from being haunted by traumatic experiences. Findings from this study reveal that participants use embodied arts as a means of therapy that is rooted in culturally sustaining practices. Participants also view performing embodied arts as a pathway toward disrupting the culture of silence around trauma that exists in their communities

The body of the artist, in the body of Christ : toward a theology of the embodied arts

This research was conducted as part of the Art as Revelation project, funded by the Templeton Religious Trust.One insight at the heart of embodiment research is that the particular, material human body is the nexus of two loci: as an integration of sensory apparatuses, the body is the receptive locus of the world; at the same time, the body is the locus of responsive engagement with the world. Working from the framework of embodiment, this essay is a theological exploration of the arts, with particular attention given to the artist. The first half details two controlling ideas about the nature of embodiment and the arts: (i) the arts are necessarily embodied, and (ii) the Christian artist is in Christ’s body. Here I examine how the artwork and the artist are necessarily embodied—the body is the horizon on which the arts are possible. With these two controlling ideas in hand, the second half of the essay considers three implications: (i) the artist works in and for the church; (ii) the arts are a gift of the Holy Spirit; and (iii) the arts are a place where the church experiences the Spirit’s working. These implications yield, among other insights, the finding that Christ’s body is horizon on which the Christian arts are possible.Peer reviewe

Method Development: Dance/Movement Psychotherapy to Address Substance Use Disorder in Cultural Appalachia

Arts-based-embodied research was used to investigate the potential effectiveness of Dance Movement Psychotherapy methods to treat substance use disorder from a trauma-informed and cultural approach, based on subjective/objective findings of the writer. Residents of diverse demographics, aged 26-59, within the cultural region volunteered to attend one or more of the three workshops offered. Methods were created based on theoretical, historical, and clinical research and implemented through workshops with the intent to promote community, self-expression, empathy, and creativity-all beneficial traits for on-going mental/physical health recovery and resiliency. Movement observation and participant feedback indicated overall increased awareness and deeper knowing of self and other, reduced feelings of physical/mental stress, and renewed confidence and curiosity. Discoveries supported embodied, arts-based research to reflect and process new knowledge to develop and implement future dance/movement psychotherapy research and future applications in the treatment and on-going recovery of persons with substance use disorder in the Appalachian cultural region

Collaging as Embodied Method: The Use of Collage in a Study of American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreters\u27 Experiences

This methodological essay describes the generativity of collaborative collaging in a qualitative inquiry project with American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters who serve D/deaf students within a public university. Sign language interpreting is a demanding profession requiring physical endurance, creativity, and quick mental processing to switch between spoken and sign language. Interpreters’ visual communicative culture aligns conceptually with the embodied arts-based, visual, and tactile research technique of collaging. We first introduce collaging scholarship to ground our discussion of using collaging as a method within this case study of ASL interpreters. We then provide an overview of ASL interpreter research and our case study to situate the collaging method used alongside other approaches, asking, “How was collaging a productive method for exploring interpreters’ understanding of their work experiences?” We describe the use of the method and the productivity of interpreters’ collaging for surfacing embodied experiences, fueling collaborative meaning-making, and showing rather than telling aspects of interpreters’ labor in another expressive language. We conclude by identifying the value of collaborative collaging in this case study and for other researchers, issues, and contexts

The self which enacts learning, a research with/through the Bay Area Artists for Women's Art (BAAWA)

This thesis reveals and clarifies through creative research practices and forms a movement towards, and a recognition of, embodied arts learning through and as a result of an association with the Bay Area Artists for Women's Art (BAAWA), a particular feminist art educational community. Interpretive inquiry on a present learning process both locates and frames this research. The components which inform this interpretation include: a study of the associated literature on feminist art communities, a participant research study with the BAAWA community presented as a notated theatrical performance script, and an exhibition. They relate to and through each other in a complementary relationship and record the various values, perspectives and orientations I have taken on at different occasions in my learning. It is the relationship and specificity of these occasions or events which point to naming my learning process as curriculum as I have understood it from, and applied it beyond, BAAWA. This research is multi-layered, multi-textured, dialogic, open and aesthetic and points to the particular complexities, needs, and practices of contemporary North American women artists in reaching to name, affirm and expand their practices as artists

Expanding from the Small Screen - Arts Practice for Affective Digital Presence

Responding to conditions of lockdown and social distancing since March 2020, the Centre for Arts and Learning (CAL) at Goldsmiths is researching how arts practice and creative processes can sustain an affective presence in digital learning environments. In this article I discuss our research into how artist educators and students have adapted to the necessity for online learning, including the difficulties of doing so. I refer to a posthumanist, Deleuzian theoretical map that connects with the different collaborative, practice research assemblages we are working with this year. In discussion is a project for engaging with artists and creatives and their learning developments since March 2020 called Finding Comfort within Discomfort. Participants speak for themselves from Instagram and Linktee. The CAL online recorded events with myself and Francis Gilbert; Heather Barnett and Sarah Christie; Jane Prophet; Kimberley Foster, Karl Foster and Victoria Mitchell are referred to as ‘cultural texts’ in hybrid digital/material/embodied arts practice. This research observes ways of expressing emotive release, expanding embodiment from the small screen, and making connections with others that can be adaptive to their different cultural, localised situations. The research seeks to further transferable, affective creative processes

Dance and Choreography as a Method of Inquiry

In this article, I critically investigate the question, "Are dance and choreography generative methods of inquiry?" To do this, I draw on my experience analyzing and translating field notes about a role transition experience using dance-based methods. I examine how I employed the GRAHAM technique as a lens through which to investigate and illuminate the factors influencing a lived experience of transitioning from registered nurse to advance practice nurse. Throughout the article, I grapple with how to articulate and write about an arts-based research process that is embodied and intuitive. Ultimately, reflecting on and critiquing my experience of using dance and choreography as a method of inquiry, I come to argue that the GRAHAM technique offered a lens through which to ask critical questions in both a cognitive and embodied sense. This process of "dancing the data" to analyze and disseminate findings is generative in that it offered new insights into what a role transition might entail and provided a method of capturing the living of an experience.In diesem Artikel befasse ich mich kritisch mit der Frage, ob Tanz und Choreografie generative Forschungsmethoden sein können. Hierzu greife ich auf meine Erfahrungen mit der Analyse und Übersetzung von Feldnotizen zurück, die aus einer Studie stammen, bei der Rollenübergangserfahrungen mit tanzbasierten Methoden untersucht wurden. In meiner Forschung nutzte ich die Graham-Technik, um die Faktoren zu identifizieren und zu untersuchen, die für das Erleben des Übergangs von einer registrierten Pflegekraft (mit nur befristeter Berufslizenz) hin zur akademisch weiterqualifizierten Advanced Practice Nurse relevant sind.Im Beitrag ringe ich immer wieder damit, Worte für einen kunstbasierten Forschungsprozess zu finden, der körperlich und intuitiv ist. Indem ich meine eigene Praxis reflektiere zeige ich, wie die Graham-Technik als Linse genutzt werden kann, um sowohl kognitive als auch körperliche Aspekte kritisch zu hinterfragen. Der Prozess des "Datentanzens", um Daten zu analysieren und Ergebnisse zu verbreiten, eröffnete neue Einsichten in die Erfahrung von Rollenübergängen und erwies sich zugleich als Methode, das Lebendige an Erfahrung zu bewahren

In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization

Indigenous arts, simultaneously attuned to local voices and global cultural flows, have often been the vanguard in communicating what is at stake in the interactions, contradictions, disjunctions, opportunities, exclusions, injustices and aspirations that globalization entails. Focusing specifically on embodied arts and activism, this interdisciplinary volume offers vital new perspectives on the power and precariousness of indigeneity as a politicized cultural force in our unevenly connected world. Twenty-three distinct voices speak to the growing visibility of indigenous peoples’ performance on a global scale over recent decades, drawing specific examples from the Americas, Australia, the Pacific, Scandinavia and South Africa. An ethical touchstone in some arenas and a thorny complication in others, indigeneity is now belatedly recognised as mattering in global debates about natural resources, heritage, governance, belonging and social justice, to name just some of the contentious issues that continue to stall the unfinished business of decolonization. To explore this critical terrain, the essays and images gathered here range in subject from independent film, musical production, endurance art and the performative turn in exhibition and repatriation practices to the appropriation of hip-hop, karaoke and reality TV. Collectively, they urge a fresh look at mechanisms of postcolonial entanglement in the early 21st century as well as the particular rights and insights afforded by indigeneity in that process

Whose Art Museum? Immersive Gaming as Irruption

This paper introduces Mantles in the Museum, an immersive game that helps ameliorate student discomfort in art museums and to support discourse in, through, and around art museums. Within the game the students take on the roles of critics who use one of five interpretive frameworks, often differing from the student’s own, to select works from a real museum to go to an international exhibition. Assuming these roles empowers students to be in the museum and to assess the works, students are given leave to engage in a vigorous critique process and to examine the art-world from a new perspective

Integrative Research : Using Art to Research Art

© 2021 Informa UK Limited. This is the accepted manuscript version of book chapter which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003155676-20This chapter describes the importance of incorporating research into practice as the way in which a new profession generates evidence, develops research methodologies, and adapts practice as new and innovative approaches emerge from clinical experiences. The relational focus of researching therapy considers the therapist’s subjective experiences as being inextricably linked to the implicit and explicit experiences of the client in the therapy relationship. These experiences are seen as a reciprocal exchange of energy, affect, imagery, and imaginative responses that occur in the body and imagination of the therapist and are admissible as evidence and research data. The focus of research therefore places an equal emphasis on the reported experiences of the practitioner-researcher along with the experiences reported by the client, with both participants contributing to a collaborative account. This chapter contributes to constructing a research design that is based on the art experiences that form the foundation of art therapy. The framework aims to: a) incorporate practitioner-research as a central research paradigm; b) integrate therapists’ creative art making into reflective practice that can inform our supervisory and self-supervisory processes; c) elaborate how art-based methods record a range of dynamic art processes that emerge from creative clinical practice, and d) develop an embodied research framework.Peer reviewe