Lost lists: time for reading, writing, thinking

This is my last editorial, and I have been putting off the moment of writing it. I’m not quite sure why – a combination of sadness, over-working, and not quite finding an appropriate subject to address. To help shape my thoughts, I made a list of possible things I might say. And then I lost the list, but I think it went something like this:

1. A few things to think about when writing an article

2. Careful writing

3. Justifying drama (creativity debate etc.)/justifying research/ measuring stuff/evidence

Procrastinating, I tidied my RiDE bookshelf and put every issue in order from 1.1 (1996) to 23.3 (2018). I re-read some of the editorials I’d written over the last 13 years because sometimes I forget what I’ve said, and I don’t want to repeat myself. After a while it became clear why I was prevaricating. I needed time to think.

I am reminded of Hannah Arendt (2000), who wrote that ‘thinking always deals with invisibles, with representations of things that are absent’ (414). In the same passage she argues that judgements concern things that are ‘close at hand’, but it is the ‘soundless dialogue of thinking’ that ‘actualises the difference in our identity’ (414). This seems apposite for the process of editing, which involves both judgement and thought. I have often found myself in soundless dialogue with an author, trying hard to listen, to follow an argument, to become attuned to their ideas, to imagine their dramatic experiences. Moving beyond the limits of my own experiences and judgements – the difference in my identity – requires careful thinking, detailed reading and hearing what is being said, or not said. Thinking should not be reduced to a cognitive function – Arendt suggests that it is ‘non-cognitive’ (412) – anymore than reading a poem or painting involves deciphering a collection of words or splashes of paint. Editing, when it’s going well, is an empathetic process that involves reading, thinking, and listening at the same time.

I returned to my remembered list, with the feint feeling that my lost list was better. Some artists use lost lists as inspiration, capturing a glimpse of a stranger’s life as art. My list was less inspiring, but I decided to work through it anyway.

(1) A few things to think about when writing an article

On reflection, there’s a risk that I inadvertently imply there’s a formula for a good, publishable article. As editor of this journal I have always tried to be transparent about decision-making processes, but the only piece of advice worth handing on is that there is no formula. In fact, don’t follow a formula. Read and think. Think creatively. Read critically. Write with heart.

There’s no one way to write. The Irish poet Seamus Heaney (1995) knew this when he wrote ‘[w]riters have to start as readers’ and observed that this applies to all kinds of writers, whether you are ‘feminists rebelling against the patriarchy of language’ or people ‘in full cry of local accents or their vernacular’ (6). Many authors who have written in this journal move between different voices and registers – the analytic thinker, the empathetic practitioner, the careful reader, and the engaged observer. It has always been noticeable that RiDE authors use a rich range of research methods, defined to fit the context – reading in archives, detailed textual readings, close observation of a performance or workshop.

As an editor who grapples with ways to order my own thoughts about another’s writing, it’s harder to work with people who have allowed insufficient time to read. Readers – whether of embodied creative practices or the written word – have a head-start. They have given time for thought. Arendt wrote evocatively about thinking as an ethical process:

The manifestation of the wings of thought is not knowledge; it is the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. (414)

Over the years of editing, I can think of many such examples, and this issue is no exception. John Pinder analyses the theatrical qualities of the Museum of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva. Drawing on a detailed reading of Etienne Balibar’s Violence and Civility, Pinder makes a case for the museum as a place of ‘humanitarian civility’, where the theatrical elements invite visitors to imagine an alternative world. Catherine Diamond’s piece about the work of the Taiwanese dramatist Peng Ya-lingin in the Points and Practices series follows a similar aspiration; she offers a thoughtful description of how Peng addressed the history of conflict and violence in her work in Indonesia. Shulamith Lev-Aladgem also looks to the past to understand the present, and her article analyses the documentary theatre of work of the director Nora Chilton in Israel. Lev-Aladgem observes that the theatrical power and political efficacy of Chilton’s work came from combining the ‘political agency … of alternative theatre’, and the North American tradition of acting as a ‘demonstration of the inner process of the individual self’. As an activist, Chilton addressed conflict by staging the testimony of Palestinians who had experienced violence, which audiences in Israel were asked to witness.

Writing about many different places in the world, Pinder, Diamond, and Lev-Aladgem all take readers to a journey to the past, asking questions about the role of theatre and the theatrical in situations of conflict. Their writing, and the work they interpret and analyse, many increase our knowledge, but – more importantly – it invites readers to think about how to distinguish ‘right from wrong, beautiful from ugly’.

(2) Careful writing

I’m not quite sure what was I was thinking when I wrote the list, but I think I meant something about what it means to write with care. I thought I might riff on care – I’ve been very taken by the question Lisa Baraitser asks in her inspiring book, Enduring Time: ‘What is the relationship between care, time and thinking?’ (2017, 14). She recognises care has temporal qualities, describing care as ‘a small theoretical gesture’ (17). Over the years I’ve witnessed many such theoretical gestures, and they have been inspiring and sometimes humbling to read. The journal is a gathering place for generations of people of all ages, beliefs, and circumstances across the world, and the people who have taken part in drama are often at vulnerable points in their lives. Authors show gestures of care for people who have been brave enough to stand in a circle and take part, and the generosity to become part of their research. Care and careful writing take time.

There is a depth of care evident in John Parkinson’s evocative and challenging contribution to the Points and Practices section. Parkinson writes about his experiences of working in prison education, where he demonstrates the power of working creatively, and beyond the emphasis on functional skills that so often leads to an impoverished education for prisoners. Parkinson’s voice, and that of the fictionalised prisoners with whom he works, is urgent, vital, critical.

The prison context Parkinson evokes defines his work, and of course this is often the case in this journal where authors work with – and care for – people living in difficult or complex circumstances. Recently there’s been a new emphasis on care for the non-human, as Sarah Hopfinger’s beautiful article in this issue demonstrates. As a practitioner, Hopfinger is interested in how to develop ways of working that embody the ecological, rather than simply representing it. She brings together cutting-edge approaches to theatre-making with new materialist and posthuman theories of human and non-human agency, developing in the process an approach she describes as ‘ecological directing’. This involves reciprocity and an ethic of careful listening.

(3) Justifying drama (creativity debate etc.)/ justifying research/measuring stuff/evidence

The urgency to justify the place of drama in educational and community settings has not diminished over time, and after all this time working on the journal, this is depressing. This is underlined by Laura Hennessey’s article in Points and Practices, where she reflects on her experiences of teaching drama in a British school. Hennessey responds with care and understanding to a lively piece written by an anonymous school-aged student in this journal in 2017. It is dispiriting that many of the issues Hennessey raises chart familiar territory, reminding readers that drama is still not fully respected in many schools.

One response is to respond directly to the critics to offer measurable ‘proof’ that drama is worth the time and effort. In some quarters it’s become fashionable to advocate for the arts and arts education in terms of their contribution to creativity and creative learning, often justifying creativity in economic terms. I have recently read a new book by Darren Henley, the chief executive of Arts Council England, Creativity: Why it Matters (2018). To be fair, academics are not the target audience, but it makes for an unchallenging read as it works through a sequence of arguments that have been well rehearsed elsewhere. (In brief, creativity matters because it makes money, regenerates run-down cities, supports communities and is nice in education so that young people can make money, help regenerate cities, support communities and contribute to a diverse post-Brexit Britain.) If I thought there was any chance that Mr Henley will read this editorial – or anything else in this journal – I might be more diplomatic, but it is striking that his bibliography contains almost no peer-reviewed research and certainly no research published in academic journals. He likes populist books and stuff by celebrity artists. So why are we bothering to make an academic case?

What is striking is that Darren Henley seems to be persuaded more by what he sees than what he reads, and his lurid pink book is full of examples of arts experiences that he has enjoyed for different reasons (much of the book is a thinly veiled plea to government for more arts council money, and there’s nothing wrong with that). This journal has been read by thousands of students over the years, many of whom end up working in education, or theatre, or community-based arts, and I know that it has contributed to their understanding and their working practices as well as informing academic debate. This journal has contributed to the professionalisation of our field – or subdiscipline – of applied theatre and drama education, and research has stretched knowledge and understanding, opening ways to think differently. The academic article – that robust, tightly argued miniature – exists quietly in the background, providing detailed evidence, challenging orthodoxies, sharply cutting the edges of new thought and innovative practices. Convincing policy-makers is perhaps a slightly different task, and undoubtedly hard-line governments pick evidence that fit their policies and measure things they know they want to prove. But evidence can be found in narrative as well as statistics, and experiences can challenge and persuade. As academics, our role is to narrate, witness, inspire, qualify, question, challenge, analyse.

Samuel Tanner and Erin Miller’s analysis of drama as anti-racist pedagogy should be widely read, not least because it addresses the horrifying rise of white supremacy taking root in the USA and elsewhere. Recognising that the fairy-tale castle – so prevalent in children’s play – is a symbol of white power (a ‘racial sign’), they use improvisation to develop children’s critical literacy. Tanner and Miller are prompted to think about castles by a moment of a child’s creative play, and their article demonstrates that creativity without the arts is ethically and politically impoverished; there is a need for understanding how symbol, metaphor, and image are used to sustain or challenge dominant and hegemonic narratives. Eero Laine and David Allen are similarly concerned to extend pedagogical thought, and their article draws attention to the pedagogy of the audience. Using the work of Jacques Rancière, they make a compelling case for theatre-making as a collaborative pedagogy in which the audience is seen as a significant co-creator rather than a passive presence.

In a similar vein, Gail Mitchell and Carla Rice are interested in political energy of creativity. They ask ‘what can artistic processes teach creators?’, and this informs their practice with women and gender non-conforming people who live with disabilities. They draw on the careful work of Mia Perry and others to respond to this question, making the case for a critical pedagogy that is creative, collaborative and socially just. In her essay, Understanding Spaces of Potentiality in Applied Theatre Cathy Sloan has furthered debates about change and affect, turning these theoretical ideas to analyse practice with people who have experienced addiction. Sloan was the recipient of the prize for the best postgraduate essay in 2017 awarded by UK’s Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA), and she is a new and welcome voice in the field.

As an editor, I have been acutely aware of the importance of publishing in a career path, the significance of prizes on a CV, and the power held by those who judge. I am proud that RiDE has published so many new voices, and I know that they have appreciated the support they have received from reviewers’ detailed reading of their work. I have been delighted by research that documents new practices, building respectfully on the past, but also moving the creative energy on from practices developed in the mid-twentieth century that have become orthodoxies. Equally, the toughest part of the job has been turning work away. I have been an editor, not a gatekeeper, and the editorial board has recognised that to achieve our ambition to represent a wide range of voices it is the academy that needs to change. Rather than asking authors to conform to modes of research favoured by academics the privileged West, we have encouraged authors to be creative, to develop different forms of writing, and find new ways to represent the rigour of analysis and the ‘wings of thought’ Arendt described. There’s always more work to be done.

I’m not good at endings, but I know it’s the right time for me to hand over, and I look forward to contributing to the journal as a member of the Editorial board. It feels more comfortable to leave as editor mid-sentence – or mid-thought – rather than with a final conclusive flourish. I’ll just pause to thank all the authors who have contributed to this journal, my fellow editors, friends, and colleagues who have served on the editorial board, generous academics from across the world who have reviewed articles, and everyone at Taylor and Francis who has worked to ensure the journal’s success. It has been a privilege to serve. My warmest wishes to my successor Michael Finneran, and I am sure that everyone will show the same generosity to him as has been shown to me.