The ‘Not Knowns’: memory, narrative and applied theatre

Conroy, Colette; Dickenson, Sarah Jane; Mazzoni, Giuliana

Abstract

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an attempt to articulate and explore the relationship between the science of memory and the applied theatre project, The Not Knowns. The project was a collaboration between theatre practitioners and a psychologist who worked together with a group of young people known, problematically, as the ‘not knowns’ throughout 2014. For applied theatre practitioners, notions of veracity are crucial, if complex, and go far beyond the practice of ‘giving voice’ to marginalised groups and people. Applied Theatre projects which work with participant autobiographies take on the responsibility of articulating the perspective as one of many possible truths, observing conventions which sustain a truth claim, but leaving this open for questioning. In this essay, the project collaborators examine the implications of the notion of memory as adaptable and malleable, as a factor in stasis or change, and as a story that may and must be re-told and re-remembered in an act of self-sustaining performativity.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2018
• Journal: Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance
• Print ISSN: 1356-9783
• Electronic ISSN: 1470-112X
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 56-72
• APA6 Citation: Conroy, C., Dickenson, S. J., & Mazzoni, G. (2018). The ‘Not Knowns’: memory, narrative and applied theatre. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 23(1), 56-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1398641
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2017.1398641
• Keywords: Literature and Literary Theory; Education; Visual Arts and Performing Arts
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569783.2017.1398641
• Additional Information: Peer Review Statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope.; Aim & Scope: http://www.tandfonline....cope&journalCode=crde20