Utopian Performatives and the Social Imaginary: Toward a New Philosophy of Drama/Theater Education

Abstract

Utopian Performatives and the Social Imaginary: Toward a New Philosophy of Drama/Theater Education Monica Prendergast (bio) Prologue Raymond Williams—A Found Poem shadows of shadows fiction; acting; idle dreaming and vicarious spectacle; the simultaneous satisfaction of sloth and appetite; distraction from distraction by distraction a heavy (even gross) catalogue of our errors till the eyes tire millions of us watch [End Page 58] shadows of shadows (and find them substance); scenes situations actions exchanges crises slice of life drama now a voluntary habitual internal rhythm; flow of action and acting of representation and performance raised to a new convention . . . a basic need.1 Introduction Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. —Ludwig Wittgenstein My interest in aesthetic philosophy and performance theory has offered me the opportunity to engage with the recent work of political philosopher Charles Taylor and performance theorist Jill Dolan.2 As I read these studies, I see interesting and potentially useful contributions to be drawn from their philosophical investigations toward the beginning moments of a new philosophy of drama education that is rooted in the collective creation of socially imagined performative utopias. It is through this process that I arrive at the understanding that the very nature of the dramatic education process embodies and defines socially committed moral values of active and engaged democracy and the protection and implementation of universal human rights. Thus, this paper is organized into three sections. First, I will introduce Dolan’s philosophical insight that, under certain conditions, we can experience “glimpse[s] of utopia” in performance contexts.3 Second, I will broaden my viewpoint beyond the realm of performance and culture out into society itself with Taylor’s philosophical argument that we (that is, modern humanity) have socially imagined our way into the present and can shift those collective acts of imagination that underscore how we live with new imaginary acts that envision other ways to live in the world. Third, I will suggest how [End Page 59] these philosophical works can be adapted and seen as a fresh and welcome way to see, reflect upon, and assess what we are doing as drama educators and applied theater practitioners who practice “socially committed pedagogy.”4 I conclude by inviting drama education scholars to consider more deeply the aesthetics and poetics of what we do in an act of conscious resistance to the cult of scientism that still dominates how we teach, research, think, and live in the world. This process is supported by the inclusion of selected found poems created from the writings of drama/theater theorists and educational philosophers; it is hoped that these poems function effectively as indicators that it is possible to know the world and to demonstrate research and learning successfully in more aesthetic forms than are seen in standardized qualitative research writing.5 As an educational researcher rooted in the arts, I am interested in representative forms that are consonant and resonant with my research topics. Arts-based educational research offers such possibilities of rendering research into visual art, music, drama, or creative writing.6 My own interest has been in drawing on poetry in an attempt to more fully express the affective, embodied, transitory, and ephemeral nature of performance.7 I include some examples of my poetic inquiry practice within this essay as found poems created from theorists whose work engages dialogically and relationally with Dolan and Taylor and their notions of utopian performatives and the social imaginary. Defining Terms: Performative Utopias Baz Kershaw—A Found Poem spectacles of deconstruction in the performative society mediatization disperses performance through culture: the eye of the camera the ear of the microphone the body of the keyboard the extra finger of the mouse everything as performance (for someone else and crucially for ourselves) mediatization coupled to liberal democracy to late-capitalism the market at the heart of the social ubiquitous and spectacular: [End Page 60] politicians perform shares perform life-styles perform (the ghost in the global machine is a performer and we are that ghost) every vision of disaster every fantasy of civilization the spectacle of knowledge itself contained in the magic of the micro-chip shrinking the human to nothing dispersing the human everywhere...