Research
Naomi Avadanei
Going into this year I had one thing on my mind: Research. The course. The process. How
do I do it? What will I do it on? Who will I work with? The list goes on.
Research 1 began with many discussions around the question, “What are you interested in?” I started the course with three main interests:
1. Theatre for Young Audiences and anything that involved
TYA
2. Creating and performing intergenerational theatre
3. Using theatre as a tool to teach history and current
events
Every few classes we would go around in class and discuss
our interests and after a few weeks, we began to see sparks of possible
connection between our individual interests.
I first connected with Anna who was also interested in
exploring historical events through theatre and wondered if there was a
possibility of integrating a component intergenerational theatre—an interest
that was sparked, for both of us, by Sobha’s devising class last summer. Anna reached
out to me and expressed her interest in using the stories and histories of New
Yorkers as a catalyst for live theatre. Shortly after Anna reached out to me,
Jess also reached out to me regarding my interest in Theatre for Young
Audiences and how it connected with her interest in the 30,000-word gap and
infant language development. I was interested in both topics (not to mention
working with both ladies,) and I wondered if and how the two topics could be
combined. During the next few weeks Anna, Jess and I agreed to work together
and somehow combine our ideas. Along the way Angelique and Amanda joined our
group. We were 5 strong!
Upon returning back to our next research class, we began the
daunting process of creating a research question that encapsulated all of our
interests. After much deliberation and brainpower we came up with the
following:
What
impact does immersive inter-generational TYA have on families?
With
four additional sub-questions:
- How
does a theatrical experience focused around familial stories help preserve
family stories and cultures?
- How
do shared arts experiences help increase communication and understanding
within intergenerational relationships?
- How
do the arts experiences vary for different socioeconomic
communities(groups)?
- How
can TYA foster communication strategies and skills?
Now came the hard part: beginning our
research and finding the gap in the current research available. We decided to
divide our research into five topics:
1.
Storytelling traditions across cultures
2.
Parenting communication strategies
3.
Impact of arts on socioeconomic status
4.
Achievement gap and language
development
5.
Intergenerational Theatre/Art
Hundreds of
pages of peer reviewed articles, dozens of emails, and way too many cups
of coffee later, we submitted our first draft of our literature review (which
was 100+ pages—holy cow!) I’ll spare you having to read our literature review
and summarize our findings:
Most, if not
all, cultures and communities have some sort of tradition of storytelling and
more specifically storytelling as a means to preserve history and teach. We
found some fascinating research on the impact of parental communication with
their infants and the correlation between language acquisition as well as
speech patterns (tone, pitch, cadence, speed) between adults and children
across cultures that impact a child’s ability to acquire, learn, and use
language. While we had some difficulty at first, we eventually found that there
is indeed research that shows that arts experiences have a positive impact on
those living in a low income area or attending a Title 1 school. Finally, we
found that there are many arts programs aimed at creating and developing
intergenerational theatre (dance and artistic programming) however none of the
programs that currently exist create or develop work specifically for
intergenerational familial relationships and even more specifically, between
grandparents/great grandparents and infants 3-18 months. There was definitely a
need for our research in the field.
After some
final citation clarifications we submitted our final literature review.
Now came the
fun part: creating the piece of intergenerational, interactive baby theatre that
we would use to gather our research. We decided that in order to conduct our
research, we would create a piece of intergenerational baby theatre that we
would perform in three different settings to access three different
socio-economic areas: high, middle, and low.
In the end, I
think we had one rehearsal with all of our members present before our
performance opened—but we made it work! We created a piece structured around
the idea of a family tree. Since our piece was intended for babies aged 3-18
months and their parents/grandparents/great grandparents, we needed something
for everyone. We decided to divide the piece into four different stations, each
with sensory components for the youngest members of our audience and
conversation starters, images, and objects to spark stories from of our oldest
audience members.
The piece
begins with the families exploring the space as ambient forest sounds are
played. Once all audience members have arrived, the ensemble brings the
audience together with a song accompanied by ASL, which introduces the audience
to the structure of the piece. Audience members are then asked to create living
pictures, or tableaux of their families after which they are given the
opportunity to explore the forest, visit the “converse-stations,” and interact
with the Family Forest Rangers at each station. Each family can choose to visit
as many, or as few converse-stations as they please. There are four stations,
each created to elicit different types of memories. All the questions and
prompts at each station were developed from the perspective of the child asking
the question and listening to the story.
1.
Family Tree-“Tell me the story of my
name.”
2.
Maps-“Tell me about where we come
from.”
3.
Music- “What sounds do you remember
from our first moments together?”
4.
Food- “What meals and dishes do you
hope I’ll remember?”
Adults are
encouraged to follow their little one’s lead through the piece, allowing their
interests to lead the stories. After some time of exploration and story telling
families are brought back together to lie under the forest canopy, and listen
to the same song that started the piece integrated with pieces of the stories
they’ve shared spoken aloud.
Over the course
of a weekend, we performed the piece four times. First at Steinway library in
Astoria (this covered our middle class SES), next at Bend and Bloom, a yoga
studio in Park Slope (this performance covered our upper class SES), and
finally, we finished off the weekend with two performances at Kensington House,
a homeless shelter in Kensington (these performances covered our lower class
SES.) Each performance was unique in its own way and each audience brought
their own stories to share. While the piece was certainly different each time
it was performed, there were certain elements that didn’t change; for example,
audience members were always excited to share the story of their child’s name
and discussions of food always seemed to bring people together. Over the course
of the weekend we heard many beautiful stories of family, love, loss, and hope.
Now, since our
marathon weekend of performances we have been given the task to take our raw
research data and turn it into an ethnodrama. In order to gather more, varied
research, each group member interviewed professionals in the field and
individuals we thought would be able to offer some information, opinion and
further insight in regards to our research. I interviewed Alexander
Santiago-Jirau about New York Theatre Workshop’s Mind the Gap program and
together, Anna and I interviewed Pauline, Anneros, and Stanley, participants in
Sobah’s devising class last summer. Additionally, we’ve been fortunate enough
to have the opportunity to refer back to our experiences seeing Anna Deveare
Smith’s, Notes from the Field as well as the new Broadway musical, Come
from Away. We have been working in class with Amanda Gronich of Tectonic
Theatre Company to transform our research into an ethnodrama; deciding on story
tropes, identifying conflict, and creating characters.
Our piece has
since come to be called, Tales from the Tree, and our company, we’ve
decided, is called Family Tree Theatre. As a company, we have submitted our
performance model and piece for development and presentation through several
different theatre companies and conferences.
Needless to say,
the research process is a long one, not without its bumps and bruises. However,
while we aren’t there yet, I must say, it has been an incredible gift to have
the opportunity to work with four intelligent, talented and tenacious women on
this research journey. I can’t wait to see what our final ethnodrama will turn
out to be!
