Muffling Identities/Cultural Silencing: Exploring Issues in cultural diversity Through Dance

Abstract

Kathryn Ricketts is a doctoral student donning an oversized overcoat and hat and carrying a suitcase heavy with the weight of borrowed stories she tells through a methodology called a/r/tography. This paper serves as a living document of the years she has spent with the core members of the a/r/tographic team: Rita Irwin, Carl Leggo, Peter Gouzouasis, and Kit Grauer and marks the continued articulating of a practice informed by the key themes of identity and place. Her work is focused on the telling of stories of displacement through dance and how this telling impacts the agency of those who tell and those who listen. This paper is written from the personal perspective of the artist researcher and also from the perspectives of the a/r/tographic team.

Keywords:

• ARTS-BASED RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES
• A/R/TOGRAPHY
• PERFORMATIVE INQUIRY
• TRANSMEDITATION
• COMMUNITY ARTS
• MOVEMENT
• PERSONAL NARRATIVE
• EMBODIMENT
• DIASPORA
• IDENTITY AND PLACE

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathryn Ricketts

Kathryn Ricketts has been working for the past 26 years in the field of movement and visual arts. Her work has been presented throughout Europe, South America, Africa and Canada. Kathryn ran her own company (ricketts dance co) in Copenhagen Denmark for 10 years and later a 3 year professional dance training program. For the past 10 years, Kathryn has been working with a focus on social/political issues in schools, galleries and community centers with movement and visual art as the language. She has recently completed her Masters at the University of British Columbia on the topic of identity and place with personal stories interpreted through embodiment and is in the first year of her Doctoral program at Simon Fraser University, furthering this research.

Rita L. Irwin

Rita L. Irwin is a professor of Art and Education Curriculum Studies and Associate Dean of teacher education at The University of British Columbia. Rita publishes widely, exhibits her artwork and is well known for her work in teacher education, arts education, socio-cultural issues and especially a/r/tography. Her best known book on a/r/tography (co-edited with Alex de Cosson) is entitled A/r/tography rendering self through arts-based living inquiry.

Carl Leggo

Carl Leggo is a poet and professor at the University of British Columbia where he teaches courses in English Education, writing and narrative research. His poetry and fiction and scholarly essays have been published in many journals in North America and around the world. He is the author of three collections of poems as well as a book about reading and teaching poetry. He is also a co-editor of Being with A/r/tography.

Peter Gouzouasis

Peter Gouzouasis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia. His perspectives on music acquisition and learning led him to explore research in traditional and New Media contexts in the early 1990s. Peter was the first person to teach interactive multimedia courses in British Columbia and Australia.

Kit Grauer

Kit Grauer is actively involved in art education organisations at the local, national and international levels. She has held executive positions in the BC Art Teachers Association, Canadian Society for Education through Art, National Art Education Association as Director in Higher Education and the Chair of the NAEA Teacher Education Research Task Force.