In this section I will weave my understanding of arts-based research around artifacts that seek to demonstrate my competence.

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Arts-based research (ABR) uses art as a tool to communicate new understanding and knowledge.  It recognizes that art making is a way of knowing. Arts-based research offers many advantages that may not be present in a more positivist method such as critical conscious raising and empathy, accessibility, and sensing dominant ideologies. I am relatively new at this type of research and am thankful for those who came before me who are willing to provide mentorship. 

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To begin, I have completed and achieved success in the following courses to enhance my work as at arts-based researcher:

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The Ethnoactor and Verbatim Theatre 

Methods and Materials of Research

Creating Ethnodrama and Documentary Theatre 

Introduction to Qualitative Research

Performing Narratives 

TA for Ethnoactor and Verbatim Performance

Arts Based Research (Summer 2022)

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Because of my aforementioned dip into Ethno-acting in 2018, I decided it was my calling to delve deeper and investigate the true meaning and power behind verbatim performance as a research methodology. In 2020, I joined Joe Salvatore and the Verbatim Performance Lab with an independent study on the effects that Covid-19 was having on people across the US.  For the project, entitled, Portraits US: COVID 19, I interviewed and recorded seven different people across the country on their experiences with the pandemic.

 

The interview prompts for this research project were as follows:

• How would you describe yourself as it relates to your identity?

• How have you been affected by COVID-19?

• What core values are guiding you through this moment in time?

• What are you learning about yourself and others at this moment in time? 

• What are you rediscovering during this moment in time? 

• What do you hope the world learns and carries with it out of this pandemic? 

• Is there anything else you would like to say about the topics we’ve been discussing?

• Do you have any questions for me?

 

I studied their speech patterns, memorized their gestures, and analyzed their breathing and rhythm.  One particular interview, entitled “I think this whole thing is a political push,” was posted on the VPL site and watched by a broad audience all over the world. (See below clip). Interviewing this person, with whom I disagree entirely, was an eye-opening experience for me. He said Covid was a hoax, but then spoke very kindly about his own children. I was able to empathize with him and bridge a connection with him that can only come from embodying his speech and gestural patterns. I also am grateful for this experience because it gave me some insight on my own practice and how to embody the true meaning of reflective practitioner. Many of these interview participants asked ME what I thought about Covid and the effect of the pandemic. Because of the success of this independent study tackling Verbatim theatre with ABR, I have confidence to pursue my final dissertation project. 

 

Also, in 2020, I took the course Ethnodrama and Documentary Theatre and learned step by step how to take these recorded interviews and artifacts and turn them into a dramatic play. This course was crucial to my learning and understanding of the next steps after the data is collected. Here I have included a one-act script that my group and I created to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the Brooklyn Arts Academy (BAX). This script demonstrates my understanding how to work with interview data and construct a script that addresses the research question(s) for the project. We have included scripting conventions are evident in scenes 3-5, and a clear way of identifying the participants in performance. (See below script and research questions.)