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Reflections on narrative supervision methodology in practical-theoretical master projects Heli Aaltonen1 and Ellen Foyn Bruun2

Introduction

Through narrative, we construct, reconstruct, in some ways reinvent yesterday and tomorrow.

Memory and imagination fuse in the process. Even when we create the possible worlds of fiction, we

do not desert the familiar but subjunctivize it into what might have been and what might be. The

human mind however cultivated its memory or refined its recording system, can never fully and

faithfully recapture the past, but neither can it escape from it. Memory and imagination supply and

consume each other. Jerome Bruner 2002, 93

In this reflection on supervision methodology we wish to discuss how narrative methods

may be used in practical-theoretical master projects. The text is co-written and based on

continual professional dialogues since 2008. As we are both part of the team responsible for

developing the practical-theoretical master’s programme in drama and theatre our

considerations and concerns delve upon our role as supervisors. Jerome Bruner (1986) has a

constructivist approach to narratives and his philosophical thinking has been highly

inspirational to our thinking. Bruner defines two ways of thought, where the one is the

thought of reason and the other one the thought of story or narrative (1987/2004, 691).

Bruner points out that even if life might be seen as narrative, it is not. Life experience can be

constructed as narrative, but the story is always created in one way or other. So is our story

and the master student’s story. This is one of the reasons why it is important to write down

notes throughout the research process. At the end of the process there will be evidence of

the different narrative creations based on life experiences. The stories we tell are metaphors

for embodied knowledge creation. During the research seminar held at NTNU in August 2012

1 Email: heli.aaltonen@ntnu.no. Faculty Humanities, Drama and Theatre Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, Norway. 2 Email: ellen.bruun@ntnu.no. Faculty of Humanities, Drama and Theatre Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, Norway.

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with researcher-artist Stephanie Knight our thoughts were fed and confirmed in a playful

and creative way. As scholars our narrative way of thinking was nourished in a way that

inspired to further reasoning and thinking.

What is an elephant? To illustrate the narrative way of thinking we will use a version of the folktale “Elephant and

the blind men”3:

Image 1: Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts, Art Gallery of Ontario4

Four hundred years ago a precious gift was given to King Christian 4th of Denmark and Norway. One

day he got a female Indian elephant (Image 1) from the Indian Maharaja Ranjit (Sanskrit for great

king). King Christian didn’t know what to do with such a huge animal, and he called his most talented

supervisors to know what an elephant really is. The four supervisors had never met an elephant and

after they had discussed different research methods they agreed that the most basic knowledge is the

experiential, embodied knowledge. They decided to use the tactile, embodied research methods. They

asked the king to blindfold them and lead them to the elephant. "Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the

first supervisor who touched his leg. "O no! It is like a thick branch of a tree or probably like a snake,"

said the second supervisor who touched the trunk of the elephant. "It is like a big wing" said the third

3 One version of the “Elephant and the blind men” story can be found in the following web site: http://www.jainworld.com/literature/story25.htm. Accessed 30 December 2012. 4 Maharaja: The Splendor of India’s Royal Courts, Art Gallery of Ontario: http://breathedreamgo.com/2010/11/maharaja-ago/ago-durbar-painting-550/. Accessed 30 December 2012.

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supervisor who touched the ear of the elephant. "It is like a huge wall," said the fourth supervisor who

touched the belly of the elephant. The supervisors began to argue about the nature of the elephant

and each of them argued that he was right and knew what the elephant was. They were getting quite

agitated and angry. The wise king Christian was laughing at his supervisors and asked them, "What is

the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what is an elephant." Each one of them said what he

thought the elephant was. The wise king Christian calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The

reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched a different part of

the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features. Why don’t you take off your scarfs and

just look at the elephant?”

And so they did and they saw this view….

Image 2: African elephant5

The moral of the story is that there may be some truth to what everyone says. Sometimes

we can see that truth and sometimes not because each one of us has a different perspective.

5 “Samuel Wasser, one of the researchers, warned that African elephants – largest living land animal- are being pushed into extinction and could be extinct by 2020”. http://www.africapoint.net/general/african-elephant-endangered/. Accessed 30 December 2012.

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So, rather than arguing like the blind men, we should say, "From which perspective are we

looking at the questions?” And then discuss the different ways of sensing the world. But

there is another aspect of the story that further challenges our perspective today. The story

describes a time when it was totally accepted to send living animals from one part of the

world to another. In 2012 we tell stories in a different context. It is unacceptable to give

living elephant as presents. Both African elephants (Image 2) with large ears and Asian

elephants (Image 3) with smaller ears…

Image 3: Asian elephant6

… are endangered animals that according to scholars could be extinct by 2020. Today the gift

of elephant is more likely to be from the Elephant Parade

(http://www.elephantparade.com/), the world’s largest open air art exhibition of decorated

elephant statues that seeks to attract public awareness and support for Asian elephant

conservation. One of these is the 21st Century Ganesha (Image 4) who symbolizes auspicious

beginnings, success and removal of obstacles – an important greeting to all scholars and

researchers to be.

6 http://www.conservenature.org/learn_about_wildlife/asian_elephant/asian_elephant.htm. Accessed 30 December 2012.

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Image 4: 21st Century Ganesha, Mythili Thevendrampillai, Exhibited in London 2010.7

The story of the elephant and the blind men illustrates how a story is alive: how it changes

meaning, is re-used and modified in different contexts. Humans are narrative animals. We

create stories based on our lived experiences. Stories are such an essential part of our

meaning making that we usually don’t draw attention to how we chose to tell the story or to

what grounds our choices are made upon.

Complementary narrative models Without reflection on how the stories are constructed stories might easily be viewed as

identical to what has really happened. The truth is that we have a possibility to choose which

story we wish to tell. In everyday life we choose, depending on context, to tell something

and leave out something else. In academic contexts we should also take into consideration

how we tell our story and be aware of the choices we make. This is important for the

validation and assessment aspects as well as in regards to research ethics (Leavy 2009, 155-

157). Stories are value carriers and it may be tempting to use canonized success story

structures even if the research process and outcome would suggest using counter story

7 21st Century Ganesha http://www.elephantparade.com/elephants/21-stcentury-ganesh. Accessed 30 December 2012.

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structures (Abma 2003, 229). Patricia Leavy (2009, 25-55) explains how narrative inquiry can

be used as a method in arts-based research practice. Our experience as supervisors on the

practical-theoretical master programme in drama and theatre is that narrative inquiry can be

an important research tool for the students as it enhances their understanding of how they

construct their stories. Further the use of autobiographical material in the research entails

an obvious necessity of increased critical self-awareness of the story construction.

Christopher Booker (2004) suggests that the human mind uses “the seven gateways

to the underworld”. He means with this the seven basic plots that are found as multiple

variations in different stories worldwide: 1) Overcoming the Monster, 2) Rags to Riches, 3)

The Quest, 4) Voyage and Return, 5) Comedy, 6) Tragedy and 7) Rebirth. To reflect and self-

reflect as a researcher on how one relates oneself to these kinds of basic plots in different

phases of the master’s programme might provide an aesthetic distance and a new

imaginative input to the often tedious and challenging research process. In this way it is

possible for the student to become and be increasingly aware of her own choices of

‘research story construction’. We see our role as supervisors to support this process well

aware of our own perspectives in each situation asking: “What kind of choices do we make

as story-tellers supporting the students”? The complexity of this reflective process can be

held in the tension of the two following narrative models: the Hero’s Journey and the

LUUUTT-model.

The Hero’s Journey As supervisors of practical-theoretical master students we recognise all the seven plots of

Booker in different variations at different times. However, the research process is often

described to be a kind of journey. Plot number 4) the Voyage and Return story structure

stands out as the two-year master’s programme is limited in time and space and has a

beginning and ending resembling a journey as in Joseph Campbell’s (1949) Hero’s Journey

plot.

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Image 5: The Hero’s Journey. In Campbell, J. (1949) The Hero with the Thousand Faces.

In our context: The Researcher’s Journey, ‘Researcher-Hero’.

The model of the Hero’s Journey (Image 5) can assist the student as a map to find a path in

the creative research process which may at times be chaotic. As humans, our experiential

being in the world imitates, or maybe is originally the very object of imitation of the linear

story structure. As living beings, we come to the world, live and die. Our life, as a story has a

beginning, middle and the end. This ‘universal’ narrative might be regarded to be of utmost

importance in the supervision process as it keeps the often chaotic and divergent processes

within the linear time perspective and as part of an overarching convergent narrative

construction structure. The ability to reflect on the progress of the different phases and trust

the ‘Hero-Researcher’s’ Journey imaginatively in a metaphorical way seems important. Not

only does it underpin the researcher as a ‘story-teller’ with choices and dilemmas at all

times, it also highlights the research ethics and responsibilities. To see oneself as the hero on

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the journey opens up for imaginative thinking about risks, dangers, monsters, tests, demons,

and so forth which provides the researcher-student with a reflexive distance to their

personal lives and private stories.

Image 6: The Hero’s Inner Journey. In Campbell, J. (1949) The Hero with the Thousand Faces.

In our context: The Researcher’s Inner Journey.

The Hero’s Inner Journey plot illustrates that there is a reason and need for the journey.

Each phase necessitates the next. The logic is both recognisable and to some extent rigid to a

degree that the reading of the model today might be done with a playful and flexible

approach rather than as a prescription. The sequences of transitions and increasing insight,

the awareness of liminal spaces and the threshold of conscious and unconscious creative

processes all allow for scholarship twinned with personal development. The inner journey is

one of growth as the mastering of more and more difficult challenges is achieved. The

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journey is necessary because without the inner journey there would not be any new

knowledge construction, but stagnation and no transformation. In this way the aesthetic

distance using story-telling devices consciously in the research and supervising process

enables and enhances the student’s self-reflexive and self-critical competences. The

metaphor of the Hero’s Inner Journey might indeed represent the creative process of the

reflexive researcher aware of her own construction of knowledge and able to incorporate a

meta-reflection of the knowledge production process. However, the multiple stories based

on our lived experiences are not only recognised in the linear and causal structure. Our

memory, as our thinking in the present and about the future, relies also on different kinds of

narrative structures. The ‘simple’ linear journey structure needs to be complemented with

another model that parallel to it, and simultaneously, holds the complexity and different

layers of meaning making.

The LUUUTT-model of narrative construction The LUUUTT-model (Image 7) crystallizes another important aspect of storytelling and is

useful in supervision of practical-theoretical master projects as it strengthens scholarly

consciousness and consciousness of choice of stories. The model exemplifies the multiple

tensions between different potential and possible stories.

Image 7: The LUUUTT-model8

8 A Pearce Associates Seminar (1999). Using CMM: “The Coordinated Management of Meaning”. Accessed 29 July 2012, http://www.pearceassociates.com/essays/cmm_seminar.pdf. Accessed 30 December 2012.

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The creators of the model ‘suspect that a spiralling evolutionary process works, so that

unheard stories become untold stories, untold stories become after a while, unknown

stories, and vice versa’ (ibid.). They explain the concepts of the model as follows:

- stories Lived ‘are the co-constructed patterns of joint-actions that we and others

perform’,

- Unknown stories ‘the participants are not (currently) capable of telling’,

- Untold stories ‘are perfectly capable of telling but have chosen not to (at least, not to

some of the others in the situation)’,

- Unheard stories ‘although they have been told, have not been heard by some

important participants of the situation’

- stories Told ‘are the explanatory narratives that people use to make sense of stories

lived’, and

- storyTelling “deals with ‘how’ the stories are told rather than their contents,

narrative features, or place in the conversational interchanges”.

In our role as supervisors the model supports our thinking of storytelling as an activity where

the teller consciously takes responsibility for choosing the story that is worth telling. The

lived story is not necessarily the told story, and there are numerous untold, unknown and

unheard stories that would be worth telling, hiding somewhere to be discovered. The task of

the scholar is to find the story that is worth of telling.

Dilemmas of how to use language and give words to experiences arise from this and

need to be taken into consideration for scholars like our drama/theatre students and

ourselves researching life-worlds and as-if/play-worlds of different kinds. David Abram has a

phenomenological point of view to language. His ideas are influenced by Merleau-Ponty’s

(1962) writings. He writes following about language: ‘The complex interchange that we call

“language” is rooted in the non-verbal exchange always already going on between our own

flesh and the flesh of the world. Human languages, then, are informed not only by the

evocative shapes and patterns of the more-than-human terrain. Experientially considered,

language is no more the special property of the human organism than it is an expression of

the animate earth that enfolds us’ (Abram 1996, 90). In other words with the use of

language humans reflects his/her life world. Our relationship to language and how we

construct it in stories is complex and as supervisors we aim to draw attention to this

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complexity and provide research methods that allow creative and new thinking processes

rather than non-reflexive and unconscious adaptation to hegemonic discourses and

canonised story structures. The last section of this reflection on supervision, before the

conclusion, will be an example of a practical-theoretical master thesis, supervised and told

by Heli.

Practical-theoretical master in drama and theatre: a supervision story Now I will tell a story behind one practical-theoretical master thesis which I have supervised

together with theatre director Nora Evensen. The thesis is performed and written by Hanne

Wiseth (2011). Wiseth reflects on her theoretical part her artistic process of dramaturgical

work. As a supervisor I use five W’s questions: Why, What, When, Where and Who. The last

question: How, is crucial too. These questions are connected with the Pentagon of research

formed by Rienecker and Stray Jørgensen (2006).

Image 8: Pentagon of Research9

9 Rienecker & Stray-Jørgensen 2006, 28.

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In May 2011 Wiseth performed Oppdrag Aquila10 (Image 9) in Teaterhuset Avantgarden. Her

starting point was a classical text, Medea by Euripides, which she wished to connect to

actual child tragedies. For a long time during the process Wiseth tried to represent the

mother who killed her own child, but at last in the spring 2011 she turned the tragedy up-

side down and chose the child as a main character. At last, in the performance she played

the child who murdered her mother.

Image 9: Performance: Oppdrag Aquila – Mission Aquila, Hanne Wiseth, Teaterthuset

Avantgarden, Trondheim, May 2011 Photo: Magnus Aursand.

10 Oppdrag Aquila - Mission Aquila

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The model of the pentagon (Image 8) guided the research process and provided a model

that both student and supervisor could relate to from all five angles of the pentagon, both in

a linear way and jumping in and out of, depending on the needs of the project development

and the student’s creative process.

The questions Wiseth developed during the research process were the following. Her own answers follow

each question in Norwegian:

1. Research question: What is your question?

Hvordan kan bruk av adaptasjonsstrategier bidra til å skape ny dramatisk tekst? (Wiseth 2011, 11)

2. Reason, use: Why do you ask?

… muligheten for å kunne kombinere det dramaturgiske arbeidet med regiarbeidet gjennom hele

prosessen…Et ønske om å lære å bruke adaptasjon som et verktøy for å skape ny tekst. (Wiseth 2011, 10)

3. Phenomenon, empiri data: What is your question is based on?

Dramatikers skapende prosess fra ide til forestilling

Dokumentasjon: Materialet som jeg har som dokumentasjon er i form av logg, illustrasjoner, tekstutdrag,

tankekart, film og bilder (Wiseth 2011, 29; vedlegg 2, 60)

Arbeidet med denne oppgaven har foregått i flere etapper, fra å utvikle em ide til å presentere et ferdig

produkt… Det praktiske arbeidet har jeg delt inn i seks faser.

• Fase 1: Konseptutvikling

• Fase 2: Åpning og utforskning av tekst [Medea]

• Fase 3: Utprøvning og valg

• Fase 4: Manusarbeid

• Fase 5: Forestilling – Oppdrag Aquila

• Fase 6: Etter visning

4. Theory: What do you ask with?

For å kunne gjennomføre dette praktiske prosjektet har det vært nødvendig med en teoretisk plattform.

Teoriene bidrar med perspektiv og begreper som kan bistå meg i arbeidet med det praktiske.

• Dramaturgi

• Adaptasjon

• Monolog (Wiseth 2011, 15)

5. Methodology: How do you ask?

Mitt prosjekt står innenfor det praksisbaserte forskningsfeltet fordi kjernen i prosjektet er både prosess- og

produktoreintert.

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- Artistic research – kunstnerisk forskning

- Hannula et al bruker begreppet “bringing forth” (2005, 109 i Wiseth 2011, 24) som betyr å

frembringe resultatet – ikke i form av å vise det kunstneriske resultatet, men ved å legge frem

reisen mot et resultat gjennom skriftlig refleskjon og dokumentasjon. Ved å gjøre prosessen

transparent for andre lesere styrkes reliabiliteten i forskningen samtidig som det dannes mening

mellom forsker, kunstnerisk praksis og leser (ibid.)

Concluding thoughts In this reflection based on many fruitful dialogues and put together in the aftermath of the

research seminar with guest researcher-artist Stephanie Knight in August 2012, we have

looked at themes to be taken into consideration in supervising practical-theoretical

theatre/applied theatre projects on master’s level. We have experienced that it is important

to have many dialogues with the student to find the research focus. Our main purpose as

supervisors is enabling the student to ‘be on track’ even when chaos and challenge might

seem overwhelming. The storytelling metaphor, we claim, provides a research perspective

for each student to acknowledge his/hers unique project and creativity as constructor of

new knowledge that is validated and as part of this able to disseminate its own

construction/performance reflexively.

One of the challenges for the practical-theoretical research projects is linked to basic

organisational project management, whether the practice is performance-based or theatre

applications of various kinds. It is important to analyse and articulate clearly all partners of

co-operation, the context and the existing networks. Sometimes the project needs to create

totally new networks or draw on collaborators from a different field altogether. The

student’s role as producer/project manager of their own research project is extremely

important to stress and to enable in a realistic way. To embark on the journey of a practical-

theoretical master skills and previous experience with production/applied theatre

management is necessary and the research project has to match previous qualifications,

conditions and resources available. It is crucial to take ethical questions seriously, and when

it is possible to use participatory research methods as these provide complexity and allow

the master student a pluralistic perspective supporting validation. From the beginning of the

research process it is vital to decide which documentation methods are most suitable. It is

further important to become conscious in log writing throughout the project of which stories

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that remain untold, unheard and unknown. With this awareness and perspective on their

own story construction as researchers, the aim being clear, to try as hard as possible to

challenge the canonised story structures and find new ways of seeing the world. Using visual

research methodology (Mitchell 2011) is a useful tool for students to open the sensitivity

and perception to discover and construct their own thinking. As supervisors we encourage

each student to construct their story providing them with the skills and tools to do so as we

ourselves have experienced that only in that way is it possible to find a way through the

wilderness of scholarship.

References Abma, T. A. (2003). Learning by Telling: Storytelling Workshops as an Organizational Learning Intervention. Management Learning Vol 34: No 2, 221-240. Abram, David (1996). The Spell of the Sensuous. Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human-World. New York: Pantheon Books. Booker, C. (2004). The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. London: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual Minds: Possible Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (2002). Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Bruner, J. (1987/2004). Life as Narrative. Social Research Vol 71 : No 3 : Fall 2004, 691-710. Campbell, J (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Leavy, P. (2009). Method Meets Art: Arts-Based Research Practice. The Guilford Press: New York and London. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology and Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. London: Routledge. Mitchell, C. (2011). Doing Visual Research. London: SAGE publications. Rienecker, Lotte and Stray Jørgensen, Peter (2006). Den gode oppgaven – handbook I oppgaveskriving på universitet og høyskole. Bergen: Fagbokførlaget. Wiseth, H. (2011). Oppdrag Aquila: En undersøkelse av en dramatikers skapende prosess. Trondheim: NTNU. Practical-theoretical master programme in drama and theatre, course modules: DRA3191, DRA3192.

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