Title: Kaleidoscopic
First published: 2001
Description: Abstract

This research deals with a case study involving a programme that used drama with youth (aged 14 – 18 years) based on the dialogic and polyphony concepts: the participants crafted oral and written speech through a dramatic theatrical practice that focused on the creation of ‘utterances’ from different perspectives. Participants in drama usually use special speech methods when they play a role, and utterance as a basic speech unit in a social context is full of dialogic when it interacts with other utterances. Therefore, uncovering the dialogic of utterances through a dramatic learning process has led to the production of oral and written utterance through interaction between the participants in realistic and fictional contexts. The participants learned from this experience how to recognise other voices and perceive them, and this led to two results: the creation of human images from a variety of positions and view points, and the ability for the self to see itself in interaction with other selves that have their own visions and aspirations. Such a self should not be marginalized or destroyed through the supremacy of one monologic unilateral voice that does not recognise the other or its existence. This research also investigates the methods used in the drama programme with youth in Palestine to construct and review its theoretical approach through practice. This creative educational programme seeks to provide a model for an unprecedented experience that deserves to be tested and its efficacy assessed.