‘Why me?’ Trauma through a Performance Lens: Performance through a Trauma Lens (Book Chapter) (original) (raw)
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Feeling performance, remembering trauma
Platform, 2007
In recent years there has been a surge in the growth of Trauma Theory as an important and engaging field of academic study and while it has begun to engage with both literature and fine art it is yet to be fully theorised in relation to theatre and performance. This paper seeks to briefly highlight one of the ways in which trauma theory might engage with performance and vice versa. Employing both theories of trauma and kinaesthesia this paper examines the felt quality of performance as a catalyst to receiving an understanding of the performance and to a re-embodiment of (personal) traumatic memory through this. After briefly tracking the history and development of trauma theory, the paper reads it alongside examples of live performances. Through this the paper establishes live performance as the ideal site for an exploration of the difficulties of traumatic experience and the creation of understanding through the visceral quality of performance.
The idea of trauma has become so used in the public sphere as to become almost meaningless in its ubiquity. But this is also to say that we live in a historical moment in which society feels bound to its traumatic experiences. Trauma, it would seem, has become a cultural trope. Furthermore, contemporary trauma theory suggests a performative bent in traumatic suffering itself – the trauma-symptom is, after all, a rehearsal, re-presentation, re-performance of the trauma-event. This is not to trivialise traumatic suffering or detract from the insistence that trauma narratives must adequately, truthfully, be borne witness to so as not to diminish the weight of the original event. ‘On Trauma’ explores a range of instances in which performance becomes a productive frame through which to address traumata and/or where trauma theory illuminates performance. With papers examining topics from African funeral rituals to witnessing, and ethics to Argentinean escraches, this issue of Performance Research benefits from a cross-cultural dynamic which brings together academic articles on and artistic responses to performance that embodies, negotiates, negates or provokes trauma.
Scarred Dancer: Autobiographical Performance with a Woman in the Psychiatric System
Educazione Aperta, 2022
Background: we explore the hypothesis that Autobiographical Therapeutic Performance (ATP) is effective to help traumatized people heal from their wounds, express their gifts and benefit their communities. Methodology: we analyse an individual case study of ATP conducted by the two authors in the capacities of director (Miramonti) and performer (Millán). Miramonti is Community Theatre professor and drama therapist while Millán is a young woman diagnosed with chronic depression and anxiety, who attempted suicide and was in psychiatric care for four years. The two authors co-created an autobiographical monologue on the life of Millán, combining theatre, improvisational dance, puppetry and visual arts. Results: this process of storytelling, embodiment and performance in front of an audience helped the re-framing on Millán's biography and enhanced her sense of being a purposeful person in a purposeful world. This case study qualitatively corroborates the hypothesis that ATP could be effective in supporting individuals in creating cohesive life narrative, enhancing their wellbeing and the one of their communities. Moreover, ATP could be effective in de-pathologizing the representation of people diagnosed with psychiatric conditions, making their gifts visible and inviting them to use their experience to serve the healing of other traumatized people. Finally, we stress how ATP redefines the role of audiences as active subjects who "bear witness" and collectively engage in social inclusion. Conclusions: we recommend the intentional and systematic use of ATP at the individual and community level, both as a prevention and healing tool to build collective resilience and choral resignification of traumatic experiences.
Theater, Trauma, and the Rehearsal to Recovery
2020
Using theoretical concepts, Missy talks about the ways that theater provides a platform for healing. Speaker: Missy Maramara holds a Master of Fine Arts in Drama (Performance) from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville through the International Fulbright Scholarship Program. She also trained at the L\u27École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and at Tectonic Theater Project in New York City. A Filipino actress with television and film credits, Missy is primarily a theater actress with local and international performances. She has worked with Tanghalang Pilipino, New Voice Company, Repertory Philippines, PETA and Dulaang UP. She performed her solo shows Love Liz and Clytemnestra in the New York United Solo Festival, and toured Clytemnestra around Europe and the United States. Missy has performed in festivals and conferences in New York, Paris, Berlin and Prague. She is a tenured Assistant Professor in the Fine Arts and English Departments of the Ateneo de Manila U...
Trauma and Performance: Primary Sources
This article proposes a primary function for art, that creation and performance may be on a level with eating and drinking. A second proposition is that through a concept of primary source trauma performance we are able to redefine artistic value in relation to the individual and society. Creativity, performance, theatre, music and the arts in general represent in fact a primal human need; that their denial – or relegation to a minority interest - is a denial of humanity itself. These propositions are examined in relation to a selection of case-studies where an artist is still working even when faced, or overcome, with life-threatening force.