Revisiting Grace Street: A Retrospective Account of an Arts-Based Research Study of Alcoholics Anonymous

Abstract

Grace Street, perhaps the first study in music therapy to use the term arts-based research (ABR), was undertaken to explore the experiences of men and women dealing with addiction(s). It uses the framework of a musical to express the lived experiences of adults in an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting, giving insights into the dynamics of their addictions. As an artistic container, the musical gives form and emotional expression to their lives, allowing the audience to reflect and find meaning through the listening experience. In presenting Grace Street, this article serves two related intentions. The first is to show the author’s creative process through affective engagement with the data-collection process, and the second is to present the play and musical transcripts as the study results. An accompanying video of Grace Street (see Supplementary Video File 1) invites the reader to engage in the narrative and artistic materials contained here, and then enter into the play as an audience member. The author is not necessarily providing a discussion of the findings, or definitive implications of this study, but instead allowing readers the opportunity to immerse themselves in the data and consider how knowledge is communicated in the arts, and how the artifacts of research (documents, music, etc.) shape these ways of knowing.