Dramatizing Data: A Primer
In the reading, Dramatizing Data: A Primer, author, Johnny Saldana defines ethnotheatre as a performance of experiences and/or interpretations on a theatre stage. Actors utilize significant interview transcripts, field notes, journal entries and other written artifacts to structure a narrative that is communicable in the theatre genre. In theory, ethonotheatre appears to be an innovative way to convey findings of ethnological studies, however I question the genuine realism and legitimacy of this phenomenon.
According to Saldana, ethnotheatre (also referred to as ethnodrama) can be done on any subject matter and since the stage is considered an intimate space, playwrights with research data can create credible and persuasive performances of their analysis that is easier to understand and more accessible to a wider audience. Saldana believes that data can be performed through characters, staging, props and scenery.
My first concern with ethnotheatre is the data and analysis. I believe that ethnography will always be an ultra-sensitive method of data analysis that will forever be scrutinized and criticized because of its methodology. Many opponents of ethnographic research question the validity of information that originates from researchers inhabiting the environment of the very people and situations they are meant to study. Does the appearance of a camera, note pad and/or tape recorder change a subject’s behavior? How can one say, ‘just do as you would normally do and… ohhh by the way, I need a minute to re-load’. This type of debate can carry into more than just the theatre genres of entertainment.
Is the reality television show fact or fiction? Are the participants being themselves or some super-imposed version of how they would be if… and is the story presented what actually happened or something that was later put together with clips from the editing floor. This same argument transcends to film in the form of documentaries. Many filmmakers today go out and shoot to get the footage on the topic they want to represent, and proudly confess that the ultimate story was found in the editing room.
This premise has me question if it is possible to objectively relay findings in a narrative. Just as the findings will always be subject to the opinion of a researcher, in ethnotheatre not only are the plot and storylines of these plays subject to opinion, but the performance as well. Many times we see actors in films like, Charlize Theron’s terrifying portrayal of a predatory serial killer in Monster and Terrance Howard’s ignorant pimp turned rapper in Hustle and Flow give Oscar caliber performances that they attribute to going to the environment of the character and taking in their situations and then adding themselves to the role. In ethnodrama is it possible or favorable to add ‘yourself’ to a role?
Saldana also speaks of using significant selections of findings in order to structure a narrative that will keep the audience’s interest. In his admission, theatre is a medium which has the goal to entertain, the ‘juicy stuff is what is necessary in order to keep an audience interested. What would any performance be without drama? Can legitimate analysis be sifted through where all that is left with is the dramatic, juicy stuff? Is the non-juicy stuff as important? I think the only result would be a play that is merely ‘loosely based on a true story’ and one that can only fictionalize possible conversations.
Saldana goes on to discuss the subject of auto-ethnography, which I believe, is an oxymoron. How can one person be objective of his or her own life and make analysis that is not tainted by hopes, dreams and or personal experiences.
Lastly, ethnodrama presents a clear problem with blurred genres. When looking at the medium of theatre, it is synonymous with entertainment. Do we ever really look for truth in entertainment? Film, television, music and theatre are mediums of make believe where nothing is true. Can one train the eyes and mind to believe an ethnodramatic presentation as legitimate findings?
Although I can appreciate the potential of ethnodrama to reach a larger, broader audience than any research paper ever could. The questions it creates, negates any gain with the loss of authenticity and reality. Moreover, I may never get over my last question: Do I clap at the end?
1 response so far ↓
jasonpine // August 2, 2008 at 2:32 pm
these are good critiques and important issues you raise regarding validity in research and representation in relaying research findings. You should consider, however, that there are more modes of doing ethnography than taking notes and behaving like the non-participatory observer. Contemporary anthropologists are much more performative in their research; they engage in the same activities as their “subjects.” They also often compose their analyses with the collaboration of their subjects.
“traditional” ethnography may have been more as you describe it — and the ways in which other disciplines have adopted ethnography may be the way you describe it, but it does not reflect the multiple innovations in ethnographic practice (doing the research and representing research) that have emerged since the 1980s, in particular…