‘To be Dutch or not to be Turkish, that is the question’, or, how to measure the reception of a community-based play about living between cultures

Abstract

In this article, the authors experiment with an interdisicplinary, partly empirical investigation into the reception of a community-based theatre production created by three generations of Turkish migrants in the Netherlands. Although community arts has been experiencing a boom of sorts in the Netherlands and local funding agents increasingly call for evidence, very little empirical research has been done in the low countries so far. Prompted by the assumption that community-based theatre has a stronger effect on spectators who are peers of participant-performers than on relative outsiders, the researchers explore the possibilities and drawbacks of two different kinds of measuring reception of this particular community play. In the first, one of the researchers returned to respondents one year after they first saw the play to verify what impact, if any, still remains. In the second, another more psychologically inclined researcher attempted to find out how Turkish and non-Turkish spectators identified differently with particular characters in the play. These combined investigations lead the authors to conclude that the play was relatively effective in causing (inter-)cultural identification processes and sustained (inter-)cultural learning and that in all this there was a marked difference between Turkish and non-Turkish audiences. They also realise their approach is far from fool proof and call for further fine-tuning instruments for reliably measuring reception and participation in community arts projects.

Keywords:

• community theatre
• reception study
• intercultural
• intracultural
• identification

Notes

1. See http://www.doen.nl/web/show/id=44928.

2. For an impression of the process, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBKrRL82FJA.

3. Some subtitled video excerpts from the play can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfolWyVaqWo.

4. In a recent publication, the Dutch Social Cultural Planning Bureau (SCP) shows that 15% of the Dutch population attended a theatre performance during the 2008–9 season (12% of the male population and 16% of the female population). From the population of Turkish and Maroccon descent only 2% attended the theatre. While these statistics did not indicate a significant difference according to age, higher levels of education corresponded positively with more frequent theatre attendance (van den Broek, de Haan, and Huysmans 2009).