This essay combines critical reflection with dramaturgical analysis to uncover some of the ethical questions that arose when working in applied ethnographic theatre with veterans of the US Armed Forces. In the aftermath of 9/11, theatre in the United States has grappled with the ongoing armed conflicts through a number of recent projects and initiatives performed throughout the country, including Basetrack Live (2014), Holding it Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project (2013), and The Telling Project (2008-present). Each of these performances has taken a different approach to performance (e.g. historical dramatization, musical theatre, documentary theatre) and have involved veterans in a number of different capacities (as collaborators, performers,
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We understand embodied historiography to be an evolving fusion of methodologies from oral and public history, theatre, and new media technologies developed specifically within this project. Individually, I am writing this analysis from the perspective of a humanities-grounded collaborator with a dramaturgical technologist and performers who represent how they remember and understand their own lived experiences through the subjective genre of storytelling. The individual narratives that emerge during our performances are consistently interrupted and thereby disrupted through the use of an evolving media system designed for this project that interjects various video, audio and graphic media into the conversation. The end result is something of a curated conversation. Our initial hypothesis was that this unique fusion of methodologies would beget a kind of “embodied historiography” in which the performers are themselves recognized as historical documents who would, through the act of performing, expose our subjective processing of memory and historical events through the live layering of multiple …show more content…
Venues have included a 160-seat proscenium on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, an art gallery in downtown Phoenix, the Arizona State Museum in Tucson (in collaboration with the University of Arizona), and in November 2016 it will be performed at Filmbar, an independent art house cinema in downtown Phoenix. During these performances, veterans have shared stories that collectively represented every major US war from Vietnam until the present. Ranging in age from 22 to 70, they come from a range of cultural, ethnic, and class backgrounds, and served in varying positions in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines including: paratrooper, military police, nuclear biological chemical specialist, helicopter captain, intelligence, recruiter, and infantry. The majority of veterans featured in our performances are currently ASU students, alumni, faculty, or employees. After graduation, one became a firefighter. Another now teaches at Gettysburg College. One is living off-grid. And one is running for Arizona State
We understand embodied historiography to be an evolving fusion of methodologies from oral and public history, theatre, and new media technologies developed specifically within this project. Individually, I am writing this analysis from the perspective of a humanities-grounded collaborator with a dramaturgical technologist and performers who represent how they remember and understand their own lived experiences through the subjective genre of storytelling. The individual narratives that emerge during our performances are consistently interrupted and thereby disrupted through the use of an evolving media system designed for this project that interjects various video, audio and graphic media into the conversation. The end result is something of a curated conversation. Our initial hypothesis was that this unique fusion of methodologies would beget a kind of “embodied historiography” in which the performers are themselves recognized as historical documents who would, through the act of performing, expose our subjective processing of memory and historical events through the live layering of multiple …show more content…
Venues have included a 160-seat proscenium on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, an art gallery in downtown Phoenix, the Arizona State Museum in Tucson (in collaboration with the University of Arizona), and in November 2016 it will be performed at Filmbar, an independent art house cinema in downtown Phoenix. During these performances, veterans have shared stories that collectively represented every major US war from Vietnam until the present. Ranging in age from 22 to 70, they come from a range of cultural, ethnic, and class backgrounds, and served in varying positions in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines including: paratrooper, military police, nuclear biological chemical specialist, helicopter captain, intelligence, recruiter, and infantry. The majority of veterans featured in our performances are currently ASU students, alumni, faculty, or employees. After graduation, one became a firefighter. Another now teaches at Gettysburg College. One is living off-grid. And one is running for Arizona State