Storytelling in Participatory Arts with Young People: The Gaps in the Story

284 Pages·2020·3.52 MB·English

by  Catherine Heinemeyer

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN PLAY, PERFORMANCE,
LEARNING, AND DEVELOPMENT
Storytelling in
Participatory Arts with
Young People
The Gaps in the Story
Catherine Heinemeyer
Palgrave Studies In Play, Performance,
Learning, and Development
Series Editor
Lois Holzman
East Side Institute for Group
and Short Term Psychotherapy
New York, NY, USA
This series showcases research, theory and practice linking play and
performance to learning and development across the life span. Bringing
the concerns of play theorists and performance practitioners together
with those of educational and developmental psychologists and coun-
sellors coincides with the increasing professional and public recognition
that changing times require a reconceptualization of what it means to
develop, to learn and to teach. In particular, outside of school and infor-
mal learning, the arts, and creativity are coming to be understood as
essential in order to address school failure and isolation. Drawing upon
existing expertise within and across disciplinary and geographical bor-
ders and theoretical perspectives, the series features collaborative projects
and theoretical crossovers in the work of theatre artists, youth work-
ers and scholars in educational, developmental, clinical and community
psychology, social work and medicine—providing real world evidence
of play and theatrical-type performance as powerful catalysts for social-
emotional-cognitive growth and successful learning.
Advisory Board
Patch Adams, Founder, Gesundheit Institute, USA
Natalia Gajdamaschko, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Kenneth Gergen, Professor, Swarthmore College, USA and Tilburg
University, the Netherlands
Artin Gonçu, Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
James Johnson, Professor, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Fernanda Liberali, Professor, Pontific Catholic University of São Paulo,
Brazil
Yuji Moro, Professor, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Alex Sutherland, Professor, Rhodes University, South Africa
Jill Vialet, Founder and CEO, Playworks, USA
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14603
Catherine Heinemeyer
Storytelling
in Participatory Arts
with Young People
The Gaps in the Story
Catherine Heinemeyer
York St John University
York, UK
Palgrave Studies In Play, Performance, Learning, and Development
ISBN 978-3-030-40580-9 ISBN 978-3-030-40581-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40581-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020
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A
cknowledgements
The tremendous guidance, challenge and support I received from my
three Ph.D. supervisors, Prof. Matthew Reason, Dr. Nick Rowe and
Juliet Forster, were critical to the research which informs this book, as
was the Arts and Humanities Research Council funding which enabled
me to concentrate intensively on it.
The regular writing retreats led by Clare Cunningham at York St John
University have provided an essential and supportive space in which to
revisit this body of research and capture it in book form. The unwavering
support of my husband Andreas Heinemeyer and our three children was,
of course, vital during both periods!
Above all, I send my thanks out to all the young people, teachers and
practitioners who welcomed me into their schools, youth theatres, men-
tal health settings and youth clubs and agreed to be part of this research.
They took a chance on me and taught me rich lessons; may others do the
same for them.
v
c
ontents
Part I Storyknowing
1 Introduction 3
2 Storyknowing and Education 29
3 Chronotopes of Storytelling with Young People 59
Part II Telling Stories
4 Pushing It Too Far at Maple House:
Or, The Space Between Teller and Listeners 105
5 The Arresting Strangeness of Wormwood:
Or, The Territory of Story 115
6 No Space for Stories at City
School: Or, Dialogic Storytelling Fora 125
vii
viii CONTENTS
Part III Story Gaps
7 Mapping the Space Between 137
8 Defining the Territory of Story: With a Special
Focus on Young People’s Mental Health 171
9 Spaces for Storytelling 211
Appendix 1: Practitioner Interviews 251
Appendix 2: Story Games and Structures for Dialogue 261
Appendix 3: Recommended Further Reading 273
Index 275
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 1.1 Triangular relationship between listener, storyteller and story 12
Fig. 1.2 The role of writing in my practice research 23
Fig. 3.1 Conquergood’s ‘dialogical performance’ stance (1985: 5) 88
Fig. 3.2 Relationships between chronotopes of storytelling
with young people 92
Fig. P.1 The gaps in the storytelling exchange 103
Fig. 8.1 Story as a walk through unknown territory 177
Fig. 8.2 Story as founder of a ‘theatre of actions’ or ‘safe space’ 184
Fig. 8.3 Story as No-Man’s-Land 192
Fig. 9.1 Resingularisation and the storyteller 242
Image 1.1 Reflection sheet for John’s legend of swimming 4
Image 4.1 ‘Girls Combing Their Hair’ (1875–6), Edward Degas,
The Philips Collection, Washington, USA. Available
at https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/
the-phillips-collection?hl en, accessed March 2020 107
=
Image 4.2 ‘The Dream (The Rabbit)’ (1927), Marc Chagall,
https://www.marc-chagall-paintings.org/The-dream-
The-rabbit.html, accessed March 2020 109
Image 5.1 Imogen and I performing Wormwood in the Garden 118
Image 6.1 Poster for ‘Liars’ Lunch’ at City School 126
Image 7.1 The space between storyteller and listener 137
Image 8.1 The territory of story 171
Image 8.2 Felix and Oliver’s storyworld 199
Image 9.1 Spaces for storytelling 211
ix
PART I
Storyknowing