PERFORMING AUTOETHNOGRAPHY DISCOVERING ANCIENT GREEK THEATRE 

In this workshop, we will investigate how performance autoethnography can serve as “a method of inquiry and analysis that engages the body as the methodological nexus upon which the text turns, moves, lives,” beyond any “epistemological hierarchy” (Spry, 2016, p.159). Following the concept of the “textualizing body” (Spry, 2016, p.162), we will produce autoethnographic data (Adams et al., 2016), interpretations, and texts—a materiality that continually makes and unmakes itself as ‘form.’

Our work will take place ‘on the floor,’ through the dramaturgical lenses of Ancient Greek theatre (Ashby, 1999), exploring what Diana Taylor (2016) conceptualizes as repetition implicit in performance: the practice of again-ness(p.26). Enacting again and again is essential to performing autoethnography as investigation because it is constructed and deconstructed through the iterative nature of both performance and research. Again-ness in performance—the repeated doing and undoing—is embedded in the word itself (the suffix -ance signaling iteration) and in the practice (Barba, 2009). A similar framing applies to the word and practice of research. According to Benozzo and Priola (2022), scholarly investigation designated as research derives from practices of “reaching again” (re- indicating repetition), tracing back to gatherer-hunter ecologies where looking again and again was vital for survival.

Diana Taylor (2016) emphasizes that performance operates as inquiry, “as vital acts of transfer, transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity through reiterated actions” (p.25). Similarly, Soyini Madison reminds researchers that “like good theory, performance is a blur of meaning, language, and a bit of pain” (Madison, 1999, p.108). This workshop explores performance autoethnography through the organizing principles of the theatre laboratory (Chemi, 2018) and performance theories (Schechner, 2003).

References

Adams, T. E., Jones, S. H., & Ellis, C. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of autoethnography. Routledge.

Ashby, C. (1999). Classical Greek theatre: new views of an old subject. University of Iowa Press.

Barba, E. (2009). On Directing: Burning the House. London: Routledge.

Benozzo, A., & Priola, V. (2022). Interrogare la ricerca qualitativa. Pratiche critiche e sovversive. Raffaello Cortina.

Chemi, T. (2018). A Theatre Laboratory Approach to Pedagogy and Creativity: Odin Teatret and Group Learning. London: Palgrave.

Schechner, R. (2003). Performance theory. Routledge.

Spry, T. (2016). Body, paper, stage: Writing and performing autoethnography. Routledge.

Taylor, Diana (2016). Performance. Duke University Press.

WORKSHOP FACILITATORS