Heinemeyer, Catherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6300-5544 (2017) Developing a dialogic practice of storytelling with adolescents: encounter in the space of story. Doctoral thesis, York St John University. Downloaded from: http://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/2323/ Research at York St John (RaY) is an institutional repository. It supports the principles of open access by making the research outputs of the University available in digital form. Copyright of the items stored in RaY reside with the authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full text items free of charge, and may download a copy for private study or non-commercial research. For further reuse terms, see licence terms governing individual outputs. Institutional Repository Policy Statement RaY Research at the University of York St John For more information please contact RaY at [email protected] 1 Developing a dialogic practice of storytelling with adolescents: encounter in the space of story Catherine Rachel Heinemeyer Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of PhD (practice-led) York St John University, School of Performance and Media Production January 2017 To be read in tandem with online portfolio of practice, www.storyknowingwithadolescents.net Word count: 54,395 2 Intellectual Property and Publication Statements The candidate confirms that the work submitted is their own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material. Any reuse must comply with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and any licence under which this copy is released. © 2017, York St John University and Catherine Rachel Heinemeyer The right of Catherine Rachel Heinemeyer to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my three supervisors: Professor Matthew Reason and Dr Nick Rowe at York St John University, and Juliet Forster at York Theatre Royal. They have directed my thinking into new avenues, challenged and supported me, provided me with numerous opportunities to develop and learn, and constantly illuminated the wider context for my research. Nobody could have been better supported. I would like to extend very warm thanks to the staff and young people in all my research settings. As well as welcoming me and thus enabling my research to take place, many of them contributed thinking which can be found within this exegesis, through research dialogues and collaborations which went above and beyond their job descriptions. I would especially like to mention Robert Shaw, Sally Durham, Imogen Godwin, Kelvin Goodspeed, Jenna Drury, Matt Harper, Shrikant Subramaniam and Rab Ferguson. I thank my supportive and perceptive colleagues in the Creative Engagement team at York Theatre Royal; it has been an education to work with them. Our conversations have helped me translate many ideas from theory into practice and vice versa, and they have each helped in many practical ways. The same is true of my fellow PhD students, and the staff of the theatre department at York St John University, who have provided a rich, supportive and intellectually curious research environment. In particular, El Stannage has been a constant, wise and knowledgeable discussion partner, helping me to glean learning from my practice and situate it in relation to applied theatre research. I would also like to mention YSJU research support staff, especially Victoria Carpenter, whose writing retreats have been invaluable to me. I thank all who helped in the organisation of the ‘Storyknowing’ symposium at York Theatre Royal and York St John University, particularly Hannah Prole, and Vanessa Simmons. 4 I could not have even contemplated undertaking PhD research without the practical, emotional and intellectual support of my family and friends. My mother Helen Elliott, and friends Tamasin Greenough Graham, Kirsty Kennedy, and Katherine Blaker (as well as many others) have provided babysitting, sounding-boards, wise guidance, and ideas from different disciplines. Most importantly of all, my husband Andreas Heinemeyer and my three sons have remained ever-supportive, and, incredibly, interested in my research throughout. Finally I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for the bursary which allowed me to give over so much of my time and energy to this research. 5 ABSTRACT Oral storytelling has been widely employed with adolescents, often applied to educational, therapeutic or other purposes. The unique contribution of this research is to articulate what storytelling can offer this age group as an open-ended participatory artistic practice, informed by an understanding of the anatomy of narrative knowledge, or ‘storyknowing’. Long-term, reflective Practice as Research (PaR) in educational, mental health, youth theatre and youth work settings has provided me with a powerful methodology to shape storytelling practice around adolescents, and simultaneously to theorise and disseminate this practice. I contend that storytelling practice with adolescents has evolved through different ‘chronotopes’. I both identify, and develop further, an emergent dialogic chronotope which enables dialogue between traditional repertoire and reality, enchantment and empowerment, and storyteller and young people. Such dialogue, conducted through narrative, is responsive to adolescents’ interests without intruding upon their personal challenges. Using my practice as both evidence and methodology, this exegesis explores the complex dynamics of the intersubjective space ‘between’ storyteller and adolescent participants, the demands this makes on the storyteller, and the different roles played by story in facilitating this encounter. In particular I find the sparse and otherworldly nature of myth and folktale to make a strong invitation, or even provocation, to young people to enter into collaborative creative processes. I depart from Bakhtin’s (1981) view of epic to describe how adolescents both ‘knock down’ and ‘raise up’ these stories, to articulate their own perspectives and dignify their life experiences. I consider the extent to which my practice has established dialogic fora (Delanty 2007) contributing to the regeneration of youth institutions, and ‘resingularising’ (Guattari 1995) roles and relationships within them. Given the relatively rigid institutional structures and cultural constructions surrounding contemporary adolescents, I propose that dialogic 6 storytelling entails a conscious orientation to open-endedness, intersubjective meaning- making and singularity. 7 CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER 1: ‘STORYKNOWING’ AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF STORYTELLING 10 PRACTICE WITH ADOLESCENTS 1.1 Introduction and rationale 10 1.2 How to read this research 11 1.3 ‘Storyknowing’: narrative knowledge in my research 12 1.3.1 Building an anatomy of storyknowing 14 1.3.2 Cleverer within the story 18 1.4 Practice review 19 1.4.1 The ‘everyday’ chronotope: the librarian and the teacher 21 1.4.2 The ‘magic’ chronotope: spellbinding performance and healing stories 23 1.4.2.1 Performance storytelling 24 1.4.2.2 Therapeutic storytelling 27 1.4.3 The ‘dynamic’ chronotope: applied storytelling and ‘telling your own 29 story’ 1.4.4 The ‘dialogic’ chronotope 32 1.5.5 Ethnographic research into young people’s own storytelling practices 37 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 40 2.1 Practice as Research 40 2.1.1 A brief note on research ethics 41 2.2 Core methodology: reflective practice - reshaping storytelling in the 42 encounter with adolescents 2.2.1 My body of practice 42 2.2.1.1 Cultural democracy as a reference point for PaR in a 43 participatory context 2.2.2 Storytelling as a research method 44 2.2.3 Reflection and theory 46 2.2.3.1 Resonance 46 2.2.3.2 Provocation 47 2.2.3.3 A device of hope 47 2.2.4 Writing: the two faces of counsel 48 2.2.4.1 The ethics of counsel 49 2.3 Ethnographic methodologies and ethical balances 51 2.3.1 Arts ethnography 51 2.3.2 Performance ethnography 53 2.4 Rigour and impact 54 2.4.1 Rigour in my PaR 54 2.4.2 Osmotic impact and the advocacy of the private 56 CHAPTER 3: RESHAPING STORYTELLING IN THE SPACE ‘BETWEEN’ STORYTELLER AND 59 ADOLESCENTS 3.1 The space between storyteller and listener 60 3.1.1 Buber, Levinas and the ‘between’ 60 3.1.2 The ‘between’ and the artform of storytelling 61 8 3.1.3 Is storytelling an especially dialogic artform? 62 3.2 The reshaping of my practice in the encounter with adolescents 65 3.2.1 A) Towards dialogic storytelling 65 3.2.1.2 Adolescent identity, connection and the dialogic chronotope 68 3.2.2 B) The contracting process 71 3.2.2.1 The storyteller’s ‘authenticity’ or ‘identity’, and the contracting 72 process 3.2.3 C) Gift and coercion in the ‘between’ 74 3.2.3.1 Coercion and its consequences 75 3.2.3.2 ‘Splendid instinct’: the balancing act 76 3.2.3.3 Resisting the search for ‘purpose’ 77 3.2.3.4 Splendid instinct as an impossible and necessary ideal 79 3.2.4 D) The storyteller as guide 81 3.2.4.1 The suffering storyteller 81 3.2.4.2 Guiding while in dialogue 83 3.3 Conclusion: articulating the ‘between’ 85 CHAPTER 4: STORY AS TERRITORY 86 4.1 Metaphors of territory and storyknowing 86 4.2 A) Story as walk through unknown territory 88 4.2.1 The corpus of stories: developing a discourse 89 4.3 B) Story as founder of ‘theatre of actions’ or ‘safe space’ 93 4.3.1 Obliquity and indeterminacy 95 4.3.2