This article was downloaded by: [Tulane University]On: 01 September 2013, At: 11:57Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Reflective Practice: International andMultidisciplinary PerspectivesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crep20

Performance as inquiry: engaging inimpassioned conversation instead ofhearing polite applauseMichelann Parr a , Terry A. Campbell a & Carole Richardson aa Schulich School of Education, Nipissing University, Ontario,CanadaPublished online: 18 Oct 2011.

To cite this article: Michelann Parr , Terry A. Campbell & Carole Richardson (2012) Performanceas inquiry: engaging in impassioned conversation instead of hearing polite applause,Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 13:2, 295-309, DOI:10.1080/14623943.2011.626027

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2011.626027

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Performance as inquiry: engaging in impassioned conversationinstead of hearing polite applause

Michelann Parr*, Terry A. Campbell and Carole Richardson

Schulich School of Education, Nipissing University, Ontario, Canada

(Received 18 May 2011; final version received 20 September 2011)

In this article, we explore the value of metaphorical performance as both a site ofinquiry and a product of inquiry. As we engaged in dialogue about performanceversus presentation, audience perceptions, and how best to capture our musings inwritten text, we encountered resistance both within ourselves and within our audi-ence. Situating this dialogue within the paradigm of arts-based inquiry allows usto resolve issues related to identity, acceptable research presentation formats, andaudience, both intended and accidental. The paper is intended to be read as a per-formance text and ongoing dialogue that weaves together our voices as teachers-writers-researchers and those of prominent researchers in the field.

Keywords: arts-based inquiry; conversation; performance

Setting the stage

This paper captures the lived experience of a paper performed at a conference. Thetitle and subject of the conference bear no relevance, nor does the substance of theoriginal paper. Instead, in this paper we discuss our key learnings from the confer-ence, the results of the full day of impassioned conversation, and situate thesewithin arts-based inquiry. Using arts-based inquiry as a lens allows us to exploreour performance as embodied practice, recognizing performance as both processand product. We provide an overview of our thinking as we prepared for the confer-ence, our explorations with performance styles, and feedback and reflection on theperformance itself. In doing so, we give ‘exquisite attention’ (de Castell, 2010;Lather, 2007) not only to what we say but how we choose to share it with our par-ticipants, how we can lend voice to our written papers, and how this changes ourthinking and our identities as teachers, researchers, and writers.

Our impassioned conversations were ongoing, among ourselves primarily, andoccurred secondarily with our audience during and after our performance presenta-tion. This discussion focuses on those ongoing conversations before, during, andafter the conference presentation we engaged in as colleagues, collaborators,co-presenters, and co-authors. Our questions fell mainly into two categories: thoserelating to the main theme of our presentation of using metaphors for identityunderstanding, and those relating to whether we would perform our presentation,how, and why.

*Corresponding author. Email: michelap@nipissingu.ca

Reflective PracticeVol. 13, No. 2, April 2012, 295–309

ISSN 1462-3943 print/ISSN 1470-1103 online� 2012 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2011.626027http://www.tandfonline.com

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

Although our collegial conversations are our present focus, it is important tonote that our decision to perform rather than deliver a traditional presentation didstimulate energetic dialogue with and among our audience. This was indeed part ofour rationale for choosing performance. Conversations with audience members onthe day revolved around the immediate topics of storytelling, poetry, and song andtheir place in our academic worlds.

Questions such as the following guided our metaphorical journey and our choiceof presentation format: When we come to understand that the way in which one pre-sents research can be as important as the process and the research product itself, howthen do we learn to pay attention to the development of the format that ultimatelyenables us to effectively communicate our interests, passions, and discoveries?

As three individuals with different strengths and styles, we have been fortunateover the years to share our research processes, which have in turn enabled us toexplore fully the journeys recorded in articles and other presentations as ‘trialogues’(Richardson, Parr, & Campbell, 2008).

At a recent conference, we had the good fortune to turn our collective lenses tothe different ways in which we choose to present our work and to gather, throughimpassioned conversation with others, further suggestions for presenting our workin an artful form. What follows are individual accounts of the decisions made withregard to presenting our personal contributions intertwined with the joint decisionsmade as we struggled to present an artful and performance-based version of ourunderstandings of metaphor and self in our lives and our work. It is important tonote that our initial intent was not to engage in further inquiry through presenta-tions, but the accidental inquiry became central to our impassioned conversation.

Given the individually chosen metaphors of storyteller, poet, and musician, thedecision to take a performance-based approach to present our current work seemedto be the most authentic way in which to truly engage others (our audience) whilehonouring the metaphorical identities within which we have chosen to live andwork. In recapturing this experience on paper and coming to understand our experi-ence of the performance, we have both scripted and quoted researchers as a way ofexplaining and rationalizing where necessary:

Barone: You do recognize that ‘Within the field of arts-based research, there has beenconsiderable debate concerning the use of explanatory pieces to accompany arts-basedwork.’ (2008, p. 499)

Authors: Yes, but we didn’t start down this path as tried and true arts-based researchers.We were qualitative researchers simply experimenting with a different way of presentingour data. As we write today, we become increasingly aware that there are times when wecan let our words speak for themselves, and others where the words of researchers addlegitimacy to our interpretation and experiences, particularly in the field of social scienceresearch, which, as educators, is where we often find ourselves situated. (Barone, 2008)

Context

The original paper (Campbell, Parr, & Richardson, 2009) was an exploration of themetaphors that we use to express who we are as teacher-researcher-writers, how weuse these metaphors in our research and writing, and how they allow us entry intovarious communities related to our profession. Campbell is a storyteller, Parr a poet,and Richardson a musician. We agreed, as we explored and wrote, that themetaphors we each described are reflective of the struggles that permeate our lives

296 M. Parr et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

as teacher, researcher, and writer; in a sense, we thought that we had each settledwith these. But, as we experienced and engaged in the performance of this paperand reflected on other performances we had used in academic and research paperpresentations, we found that performance often allows us to step outside of our-selves for a while and see our identities, our struggles, and even our metaphorsthrough fresh eyes. We have now agreed that metaphor works for us because weeach resist being labelled and categorized – we can accept comparing ourselves tosomething, but we reject being known as that something:

Pelias: In a sense, what you are doing is telling an autobiographical tale where each ofyou as performer has engaged ‘. . .in a process of selection and shaping, of deciding whatto share. . .’ ultimately establishing ‘. . .a persona that audience members may admire orabhor, embrace or resist, identify with or dismiss’. You have had to make decisions oftruthfulness by considering questions such as: ‘What information can be buried, mini-mized, or altered? What particulars can be dropped or added to create aesthetic interest?What details about others can be included without their consent?’ (2008, p. 190)

Authors: Yes, many of these questions have raised interesting issues for us. We havedone our best to minimize our indignities while sharing our intimacies; we haveavoided reference to the title of the conference and the topic of the conference, regard-less of the not-so-polite applause that we heard just as we had begun.

In our original paper (Campbell, Parr, & Richardson, 2009), we did our best tocapture our lived experience – that is, the lived experience of finding a metaphor.We wanted to share our struggles, stories, poems, and music. In a sense, our meta-phors allowed us to step outside our own thoughts and ideas and perform in a waythat was uniquely ours. In so doing, we found that indeed, this was a ‘messy’ form(Lincoln & Denzin, 2003).

While experimenting with what we felt was a true performance piece, we encoun-tered some resistance along the way – not simply within ourselves, but with thosearound us. Strangely enough, one of the first things we encountered that day was alabel – ‘the drama group’ – which perhaps was a strong enough metaphor to capturewhat it was we intended to do or at the very least what others thought we were aboutto do! Today, we recognize how that one little phrase sticks in our minds and nowgives us legitimate entry into the debate surrounding ‘appropriate’ scientific writing,reporting, and representing (Lincoln & Denzin, 2003). What we began that day inour performance, we will indeed try again. Why? Well, first of all, because it was justgood fun. Second, and more importantly, we would like to provoke an ongoing con-versation about what constitutes acceptable academic performance within diversecommunities – academic, professional, and personal – within which we each have aright to be who we are – whether that is a storyteller, a poet, or a musician. And quitelikely, now that we have opened the door, future encounters will be stronger, morerehearsed dramatic experiences and performances; we do anticipate strongerresistance, particularly outside the field of education, but that merely heightens thechallenge. If we just get them thinking, then we have done more than enough.

Of course, other forms of presentation share similar purposes. We hoped that aperformance or drama-based platform would be more provocative than a traditional‘reading from text’ style. Indeed, we did succeed in provoking responses, bothnegative and positive. Arts-based inquiry, as with all the arts, has the potential togenerate unpredicted ‘special effects’.

Reflective Practice 297

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

The day: exquisite attention

By ‘exquisite attention’ we mean the kind of attention described as an:

actual, not metaphorical, JOY in learning, the exhilaration we see in fully rapt atten-tion. . .. It’s the heart-pounding, sweaty-palmed, can’t sit still excitement of seeingone’s ideas (or pencil lines, or brush strokes, or video-clips or numbers or musicalnotes), come together into a pattern which, in that moment, has an almost unbearablebeauty. (de Castell, 2010, p. 13)

This kind of attention inspires highly engaged, euphoric intellectual productivity.Initially, we bestowed this attention on one another; it was also a gift from our audi-ence on the day. The important thing is how this attention is experienced (namely, asexhilarating) and the fact that it actually comes from ourselves (de Castell, 2010).

We arrived the morning of the conference aware that we would be spendingtime with a group who had previously reviewed our paper and would pay exquisiteattention to what we had written, providing feedback and suggestions for improve-ment and revision. We know that we can be a little loud and boisterous at times;it’s pretty difficult not to be passionate and get excited about what you say, whatyou think, and what you believe particularly when you’ve chosen to experiment alittle with performance.

Each group received their room allocation. We found ourselves – a small groupof five – sharing a room with another small group, and we knew instantaneouslythat this room assignment was not going to work. We tried our best, but as webegan, we just couldn’t help ourselves, and we were quickly asked to quieten down.How could we silence our voices when the whole idea of our presentation was toexperiment with performance and what was acceptable?:

Barone: What you failed to consider was your intended audience. ‘Different audienceshave different needs, hold different expectations, and are best served through differentapproaches.’ (2008, p. 499)

Campbell: Actually, we didn’t fail to consider our intended audience, as in those whochose to participate in our session.

Parr: What we failed to consider was the venue of our session and what can best bereferred to as our accidental audience.

Richardson: I suppose, given my musical background and previous experiences withconferences, I should have been a little more aware and empathic, but I was genuinely‘propelled by intellectual-emotional curiosity, intensified by the commitment to an out-side audience’. (Bresler, 2008, p. 229)

We found out quickly that in a small room with another discussion group, it isdefinitely not appropriate to tell a story, recite a poem, and sing a song (well, not theway we do it), unless of course, we have the entire room’s attention (which logisti-cally, practically, and by participant choice, we did not). Fortunately, there was roomfor us, and our ideas, elsewhere, and what we found there was acceptance thatacademic presentation is not predetermined, it is what it is and, messy or not, it iswhat we are, who we are, who we might strive to be – sometimes, how we saysomething is far more important than what we say.

298 M. Parr et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

We began with the Jesse Harris (2002) song, One flight down, sung by Richard-son, and then after a brief overall introduction, we presented and performed each ofour segments in turn, linked through the repetition of lyrics from the song. Weexplained how we adopted and adapted our individual metaphors, and performedand lived them through poetry, story, and song. We encouraged the audience tocomment throughout the discussion segments, and the conversation flowed freely:

Barone: ‘Each person brings something to the table, and personal experiences, prefer-ences, and long-standing beliefs shape what one sees or experiences when interactingwith an artwork or a piece of arts-related research. Consequently, audience, and thebiases and expectations the audience possesses, influence how arts-related researchwill be perceived, understood, and assessed.’ (2008, p. 499)

Authors: Within the context of the whole conference, our research was questionedand the biases and expectations of the accidental audience were made explicit. But thisdid not deter us. . .we persevered, and what we found is captured in our stories,poems, and songs below.

Sister Story and Sister Truth

Terry Campbell

I entered our conversation about finding identity through metaphor with an aware-ness that I have been increasingly troubled by the tensions within the roles weadopt (and are assigned!) in our university setting. The roles are, in their broadestcategories, those of teacher, researcher/writer, and members of service committees. Isuspect that tensions exist for most faculty members in most universities but I wastrying to make sense of my own situation. I decided to attempt to find some har-mony in the dissonance through my activities as a storyteller. Although I do notidentify myself as a storyteller in the sense of a professional storyteller, I do engagein storytelling as a teacher. In addition, I was seeking feedback and insights frommy closest (female) colleagues, as well as from those encountered at the conference,where most participants were members of faculties of education. I also wanted tolisten to their stories about how they find harmony and create personal identities forthemselves from our diverse roles in our university settings.

Stories began to emerge in our post-performance conversation with the audience;for example, one audience member had been involved in collecting family stories in alarge urban setting and commented on the power of stories in identity building.

As a storyteller, my belief is that multiple truths about ourselves and the worldcan be told ‘on a slant’ as Emily Dickinson implied. Through stories, we are ableto make meaning from our raw life experiences. We need to have a story to giveshape to our inarticulate feelings and responses to the things we sense andexperience. The story cannot be literal or it would not be able to confer meaning.This does not mean it does not convey truth; rather, it expresses different truths.

In order to demonstrate to the next generation of teachers what a potent rolestorytelling plays in both literacy development and in personal development, I oftenteach through storytelling. It is one way of making meaning from this complex thingcalled teaching. The equally complex endeavour called research in a post-secondaryinstitution might also be framed in terms of themes from the old stories: the oldwoman in the shoe, the girl expected to spin straw into gold, and families who areso poor they leave children in the forest to fend for themselves. I have recentlyinterwoven my identity as a teacher who does storytelling with my identity as a

Reflective Practice 299

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

university researcher by initiating a project that teaches children to be storytellers.Although tensions exist between my roles as storyteller, teacher educator, andresearcher, I wondered how well the image of the storyteller might capture my ‘pro-fessional’ identity. These were the questions I carried with me into the room (thesecond one!) where we met as colleagues on that beautiful spring day in May:

Banks: Katherine Frank’s (2000) work comes to mind. She says that ‘fiction can reachaudiences that are broader and larger than those within the academic tribe of readers. Inaddition, fiction provides immediacy – an artfully strategic evocation of sights, smells,sounds, and other contextual factors – far beyond what conventional writing conveys.Moreover, fiction writing is a form of practice that often is pre-theoretical in the sensethat the writer can write in and out of problems of representation without the morecumbersome and constraining language of academic discourse’. (2008, p. 161)

As a literacy and language teacher, I am naturally a promoter of meaning-mak-ing and of the importance of making sense of life through story in its many forms,including oral and print texts. As I struggle with my position and the place of storyin an institutional setting, I find that the following story resonates and continues toinform the way I think and feel. I wanted to tell the story that day in the traditionaloral way, where I can physically be in the same room as the listeners, see and feeltheir responses in their eyes and bodies, and hear their immediate reactions. So Itook a breath, stood up, and told them this story:

There were two sisters, Sister Story and Sister Truth. Whenever and wherever SisterStory went travelling, she wore beautiful clothes, sparkling jewels, and fine perfume,and the people all crowded around and followed her. Now, when Sister Truth wenttravelling, she went naked. People ran away from her.

After a while, Sister Truth was bothered by this, so she asked her sister, ‘Why is itthat when you go out everybody is attracted? When you travel, everybody followsyou. When I go, people run away from me. I don’t like it. Why is it?’

Sister Story said, ‘People don’t like to see the naked Truth.’

The next time Sister Truth went out, she wore beautiful clothes, sparkling jewels, andfine perfume. People crowded around. Everybody followed her.

Wherever she travelled, she attracted a crowd.

And so it is to this day. Whenever Sister Story and Sister Truth go out together, noone can tell them apart.

Telling a story live to an audience is a very different experience from havingthem read the text in print form. As Rosenblatt (1978) once said, the print merelyconsists of black and white marks on a page. In a reading transaction, the textcomes to life in one way as the reader interacts with the ideas on the page. Butwhen you tell the story directly, the transaction is alive and immediate, and theexperience is physical and emotional as well as intellectual. The advantage for thestoryteller is that she can see all that in the eyes of her listeners. The listeners hearand see the story come to life in the storyteller’s voice, eyes, and body.

On the day of the conference, the experience did not disappoint. As the teller ofthe story, I was able to receive re-confirmation of my belief in the power of the

300 M. Parr et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

story to animate the listeners and me. It also became a bonding experience in thesense of creating a common understanding, if only for two to three minutes. If tell-ing a story can achieve that in the space of a few minutes, what does this say aboutits potential as an identity builder?:

Banks: I’m reminded here of Robert Coles (1989) [who] argued that ‘researchersshouldn’t be concerned about whether we present our subjects as real or fictional char-acters, but whether we can capture and well express the interiority of those persons’.(2008, p. 160)

Campbell: I am aware of the importance of the role of storytelling in identity build-ing; it is how we recall personal anecdotes or family narratives. Stories are often howwe make sense of experiences through our formulation, rehearsal, telling, and retelling.When the story is chosen for heartfelt reasons – that is, when it is told by heart, fromthe heart – something powerful can happen between the teller and the listeners.

Our session included stories expressed in song and poetry, as well as inacademic paper style. After the session was over, I felt a deeper and wider sense ofcollegiality and a strong validation of my belief in storytelling as a potent form ofcommunication, identity building, and community creation.

As Richardson sang the Jesse Harris lyrics, there was ‘a song on low playing allalong’. My questions may not all be answered, but now I do know that the simpleact of telling a story carries deep personal power in thinking, knowing, and feeling.

A poem in my pocket

Michelann Parr

I arrived that morning, poem in my pocket, more nervous than I had been for anyother presentation – I wondered perhaps whether it was because we had resistedpresenting in favour of performing. While I love to write poetry, I do not considermyself to be a poet. In fact, the poem that I had incorporated into this paper wasone that I had written many years ago and forgotten about: so forgotten was thispoem that I actually googled it to ensure that I had not plagiarized it. What a disas-ter that would have been! And this tiny but significant fact I had not articulateduntil I introduced my poem at the conference; I actually did not realize just howfunny, and yes, tragic, this really was until I said it out loud. My two colleagueslooked at me, first with surprise and a little laughter, next humoured, and thenagreeable – yes, they knew me well. And that was who I was as a poet: decent,expressive, but not overly confident. . . well, certainly not confident to the point thatI could accept credit for something that I felt was quite good. This admission made,my context provided, I began to recite the poem that I carried in my pocket. Andthe words were there, but I could hear a catch in my voice. All those issues that Ifelt that I had resolved within myself as researcher and writer suddenly came to thesurface as I performed this poem for those seated in front of me – at once, I won-dered, Can I do this? Is it good enough? Will they find it interesting? Am I toomuch into myself here? Is it too subjective? Why did I stray into this qualitativestuff? I should have just stayed with the objective! Today, I am thinking that itwould have been far safer to share numbers not words! Why for goodness sake,would I do this to myself, given that I had so stealthily avoided performance of thisnature up until this point in my life?

Reflective Practice 301

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

In performance, in order to share honestly the struggles I faced, I became thepoet that I often deny myself, bringing true meaning to Galeano’s (1988) quote,‘we are what we do. . .’ (p. 121). In performance, I could no longer hide behind themask of metaphor, nor could I hide my words in a paper, relying on the reader tointerpret, add emphasis, intonate, etc. I had to pull that poem out of my pocket, lit-erally, and for a few moments, be a poet. In performance, the struggles, the pauses,the inflections, and the triumphs could be heard in my own voice, and my wordscould be reflected in those around me – there was no hiding here. In performance, Irealized that there was still so much more to be said than just words, and I supposethis is where Galeano’s (1988) quote really exemplified itself:

We are what we do, especially what we do to change what we are: our identity residesin action and in struggle. (p. 121)

In performance, I wasn’t just talking about something; in many ways, I wasreliving it and experiencing it anew – providing me with a fresh perspective, boththat of my own and that of others, filtered through my own perceptions of the per-formance, but then also in their words of feedback. And bit by bit, struggle throughaction, my identity surfaced, if only for a moment, and I realized that there was stillwork left to do:

And, the room was quiet. . .

I’ve a poem in my pocket

possibilities to be foundoptions to be considereda claim to research and writinga right to be I

limited by objectivityalone, I could not besubjective, I might benot allowed to rear its ugly headalways in need of a he or a she, I wasI was not

All eyes were on meAll ears were listeningGone was the laughter

heard at the notion of googling my own poemFound was a shared silence

as the last of my words were uttered

a time of strugglewho am I?not bound by objectivitywhere am I?

302 M. Parr et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

not shamed by subjectivityhere I am.a time to reconcileI am worthy.

And now out to show it is –no longer is this poem in my pocket.

Little was said, which was just fine with me – the silence gave me time to re-find my self and my purpose:

Barone: Silence. Did you take that to mean that you had made the right perfor-mance decisions and that you had effectively separated ‘the good from the bad,the magical from the mundane’? (2008, p. 186). Did you find in your telling thatthere was an affective element that ultimately gave you ‘emotional knowledge,offering [you] a sense of attitudes, sentiments, and passions of what [was] per-formed’? (2008, p. 187)

Parr: Well yes, despite my initial trepidation, I had propelled myself through the per-formance. I could hear my voice, initially soft and tentative, gain strength as I movedtoward the end. I really thought that I had reconciled those issues within myself. Butthrough performance, and really being aware of my self and my body, I realized thatthere was still work to do. I think I realized that it is one thing to talk the talk, but acompletely different thing to put it all into action and walk the talk.

Barone: It sounds to me that your final and perhaps most daunting task is to acceptthis knowing body that ‘finds its power in the cognitive, affective, and intuitive com-ing together to form a sense of what it has to say’. (2008, p. 187)

Perhaps – but on this day, as my performance concluded, my self took over,and once again, I could hide behind the mask of metaphor, easing back into myacademic knowing body, resisting the label of poet as quickly as it was given.

I would never call myself a poet;I am simply one who does poetry.

Singing the metaphorical – and literal – song

Carole Richardson

I have only to look at the notes scrawled all over my copy of our proposal torecall my growing excitement as we began to discuss the possibilities of perform-ing instead of presenting our work. Handwritten notations such as ‘guitar chords’and ‘portable music stands’ followed by exclamation marks reflected my under-standing of performance as that which must be planned and staged. My sugges-tion that we signal our intent to perform with the physical presence of threebright red metal and somewhat ornate music stands standing in front of threechairs was embraced by all of us. These physical manifestations of our intent toperform became a promise that we felt we could not break. Our decision was toperform our paper, and once the promise had been made to our audience by thepresence of our bright red music stands, the option to revert to a mere presenta-tion no longer existed:

Reflective Practice 303

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

Bresler: The expectation of a potential audience, essential to both music performanceand research [one might argue arts-based research in general], heightens perception,rendering it into an articulated, communal act. (2008, p. 229)

Richardson: Yes, and at this point, I was ready, we were ready, and quite honestly,our response to our accidental audience’s request to be quiet was a little defiance andrebellion mixed in with adrenalin, the potential complexity of what we were about totry, and the absolute ambiguity inherent in trying something new. And we found thatit was better to pick up and perform elsewhere than to disappoint our true audience.

For me, the decision to view this as an opportunity to perform our work wassomewhat of a relief, and felt like a validation of my approach to almost everyaspect of my work. For my colleagues, allowing their voices to speak through theirresearch was challenging. As a performer (and a soprano), my challenge had alwaysbeen to ensure that, in my writing, my voice was heard in harmony with others,and not merely as a solo. This opportunity to actually perform together meant thateach of us could work within our metaphorical understanding of ourselves, and stillperform as an ensemble: in the roles of storyteller, poet, and musician.

Though I had long been known as a singer, early in my adult life I rejected theseemingly natural progression from being known as a singer to being labelled a musi-cian because others seemed intent upon defining it for me. As I continued to work,teach, perform, and research in the musical world, I came to understand that I didrelate to the world around me as a musician. As a conductor, I conducted choralensembles but also set the stage for others to work together in groups and classrooms.As a singer, I sang and encouraged others to hear their own voices, but also to listencarefully to the voices of others. As a performer, I communicated my passion formusic and for teaching, and demonstrated the importance of taking chances and creat-ing a safe environment in which others could take chances. To me, literature reviewswere polyphony, collaboration was dissonance resolving to consonance, and teachingwas performance. As I came to realize that key understandings in my research, myteaching, and my world had to ‘sing’ for me, I redefined my metaphorical musician asthat which embraced all the musical ways in which I related to the world.

As a singer, the fact that we had chosen song lyrics as the metaphorical ‘groundbass’ of our work made a performance approach very easy for me, and I offered tosing these lyrics as a means of introducing our presentation and of establishing theperformance. Within my metaphor of musician, I was being given the opportunity toperform as a singer and as part of an established ensemble of metaphorical artists.

I recognized, prior to beginning to singing the lyrics that so aptly described ourunderstanding of the life of each of our chosen metaphors:

One flight downThere’s a song on lowAnd it’s been there playing all alongNow you knowNow you know

– that my voice, unexpectedly raised in song, could potentially cause some dis-comfort among those to whom we were presenting. In an effort to alleviate this, Ismiled, made eye contact with my colleagues and our audience, and then began tosing. Though performance can sometimes have the effect of distancing artists from

304 M. Parr et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

their audience, our intent was to engage our audience through performance so itwas very important to us from the outset to use our performance as a means ofcommunication and as a way in which to initiate impassioned discussion. After Isang the very short refrain that introduced our performance, my colleagues steppedinto their metaphorical spaces and performed their work and though I had alreadyfinished the performance aspect of my own piece, I continued to feel very muchlike part of a musical trio of voices. I was conscious of feeling as though this wasthe way in which to truly communicate fresh knowledge and understandings toothers – particularly when working with the arts. How better to help others tounderstand than to use the very medium that we usually just describe? I foundmyself wondering why it had taken so long to come to this moment of performanceinstead of presentation and I suddenly found myself very thankful for the safe spacein which to explore this new direction:

Bresler: This is similar to one of my ah-hahs of personal experiences, when I realizedthat teamwork, like jazz ensembles, consist ‘of individual voices, each with its owntimbres and characteristics yet all interacting to create a composition’. (2008, p. 227)

Richardson: Yes, and it brought me back to the challenge of ensuring that my voicewas heard in harmony with the others, not as a soloist. I remembered reading some ofyour work when you discussed the need to be attentive to others’ voices in researchand co-construction of knowledge. I particularly liked the metaphor of ‘ensembleresearch’ which really did characterize this performance in which I was engaged.

Bresler: And I heard in your story a desire to maintain that delicate balance betweenyour ‘empathic connection and resonance to the music’ (2008, p. 230). I heard yourstory situated within those of your co-researchers, which was largely based on ‘a con-nection to a mood, or an emotional quality,’ attributed, in part, to the responsivenessof your audience. (2008, p. 230)

Throughout, our audience was encouraged to contribute to the performance andto make suggestions with regard to broadening the performance nature and ourwork and the work of others. We found no criticism, only validation and acceptanceand wonderful encouragement to take the performance further, expand it, and offerit as an alternative wherever and whenever possible. The post-performance conver-sation with our audience was still energetic when ‘time’ was called and the spacewas needed for the next session. The impassioned conversation among ourselveslasted well into the day, and we left bubbling with excitement and connected in awonderfully different way to our colleagues.

What we know. . . one final note

Our reflections on this experience focused on what we learned through presentation– particularly performance – that we did not encounter through reading, writing,discussion, or even collaboration. Whether we like it or not, the way we write andresearch is controlled by our disciplines, which have the power to withhold thebenefits of publication to nonconforming texts (Bochner, 1997; Rose, 1990). To us,the theme of the conference – impassioned conversation – gave us some room toexperiment. We did not expect to be excluded by the same ‘rules of conformity thatdiscipline our writing’ (Bochner, 1997, p. 432). Performance, in a sense, allowed usto step outside the rules of conformity of traditional texts. We could bring ourselvesand our personal truths to the text in a way that writing could not do.

Reflective Practice 305

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

Eventually, our writing and our performance led us full circle back to the needto experience and to have an active voice in our inquiry, our writing, our research,our teaching, and our presentations. Like Bochner (1997), we have stories, poems,and songs that:

long to be used rather than analyzed, to be told and retold rather than theorized andsettled. And they promise the companionship of intimate detail as a substitute for theloneliness of abstracted facts, touching readers [and audiences] where they live andoffering details that linger in the mind. (p. 434)

From the beginning, we suspected that there was a risk to be taken, and wewillingly engaged ourselves in it in order to deepen our understanding not only ofpresentation, but of self as well. We embarked on this adventure knowing thatregardless of outcome, there was something to be gained:

Understanding is an adventure and, like any other adventure is dangerous. . .. But. . .[i]tis capable of contributing in a special way to the broadening of our human experiences,our self-knowledge, and our horizon, for everything understanding mediates is mediatedalong. (Gadamer, 1981, pp. 109–110)

The performance experience, understanding in action, has deepened our sense ofwho we are as teachers, researchers, and writers. Each recount was slightly differ-ent, but led to the same type of inner awareness that for each of us knowing reallyis doing, and doing really is knowing. It was when we brought our three storiestogether that we realized what we had in common and what we had to bring to per-formative inquiry. We each had a story to tell, and looking at the stories as researchdata just reduced it to content. When we each performed our stories, poems, songs,we forced ourselves to be authors and audience in a way that made us think ‘with astory’ and ‘to experience its affecting one’s own life and to find in that effect a cer-tain truth of one’s life’ (Frank, 1995, p. 23).

The truth that we found was not unlike many others (Bochner, 1997; Douglas& Carless, 2008) – our personal and professional truths did not often walktogether. Our resolve was to somehow bring these two truths closer together, andit was not enough to simply talk about it or write about it. We realized that our‘public appeal of personal opinion’ (Cho & Trent, 2006, p. 331) needed to extendbeyond personal essay left open to the interpretation of readers. We actually hadto do it and experience the immediate outpouring of personal opinion, recogniz-ing, as did Dewey (1916, 1944) many years ago, that ‘knowing is not enough;we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do’. Performance, for us, was anexperience that required us to act without reserve or quibble and ultimately leftus with a more practical attitude toward what we do, who we are, and how wepresent that to the world.

We now recognize that this type of practicality necessarily involves both think-ing and feeling, something that we all felt strongly through performance. For us,these have become more than interdependent processes; they are now critical wayswe interpret and respond to our worlds (Bresler, 2008). In the end, we are comfort-able with what we’ve learned about the art of inquiry and performance-basedpresentation and how this will inform future performances. A sense of empathy andunderstanding of audience and venue is critical; as performers, we must considerthe level of academic or scholarly readiness to accept both the ideas presented and

306 M. Parr et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

the performance format. For us, ‘arts-related research links the emotional with thescholarly and places emotional learning on even ground with scientific understand-ing’ (Barone, 2008, p. 500), but we do recognize that this may attract some criti-cism in social sciences research.

Decisions must be made about how to tell our truths: what to include, whatto leave out, and how to tell our tales without sacrificing the integrity of ourresearch and our research selves. Objectivity, therefore, becomes a misnomer. Wecontinually make subjective decisions about our research, our research partici-pants, and our presentation or performance of research. In performance presenta-tions, we add in the elements of voice and character, and the recognition that themost effective performances and the best inquiries result from a blending orensemble of voices, where lines between researchers and audience are brokenand blurred.

Performance as presentation, for us, was inquiry responsive to the reactions ofthe audience. It allowed us to ‘engage with [our] work on an emotional level,remaining open to the feelings and impressions the work might invite’ (Barone,2008, p. 500), both positive and negative as we encountered:

In its use of everyday, localized, and personal language, and its reliance on texts thatare ambiguous and open to interpretation, arts-based research draws people intodialogue and opens the possibility for critical critique of social structures (Barone,2001a, 2001b).Performativity is the writing and rewritings of meanings that continually disrupts theauthority of texts. Resistance is a kind of performance that holds up for critique hege-monic texts that have become privileged stories told and untold. All knowledge claimsare dependent on ascription within power structures (stories) that are performed withincultural boundaries. (Finley, 2005, p. 687, emphasis in original).

Performance as presentation runs the risk of opening further sites for inquiry,whether we are ready for these questions or not. The simple reaction of an audi-ence can ignite moments of intense realization and insight, or even indignation.Quite honestly, this paper is a response to the delicious indignity of beinglabelled and asked to quieten down. We found an immediate site of inquiry thatwe had never imagined. Our experience of performance, the impassioned conver-sation among ourselves and with our audience resulted in questions that willguide and shape our future inquiries: Is there a ‘best way’ to tell our truth? Whatimpact will telling this truth have on our audience, our co-researchers, and ourselves? How can we ensure that the performance is an ensemble of voices, asopposed to a series of voices? Is the audience ready for us? Are we ready forthem?

In sharing these views and experiences, we hope to inspire others to experimentwith performance, rewrite, and re-envision meanings of texts, ultimately challengingcultural boundaries and rules of conformity within our disciplines:

Now we know,Now we question.

Now we tell,Now we recite,

Now we sing.

Reflective Practice 307

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

Notes on the contributors

Michelann Parr completed her Hon BA, BEd, and MEd at Nipissing University inNorth Bay Ontario. She completed her PhD at McGill University where she investi-gated the use of text-to-speech software as an alternative text format. She is currently aprofessor in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University where she spe-cializes in language arts, literacy, family literacies, drama, kindergarten, outdoor andexperiential education, and special education.

Terry Campbell was educated at the University of Toronto, where she received a Hon BA,MA, and PhD on ‘Good Talk About Great Literature: Addressing the Problem of Subjectiv-ity in Moral Education’. She also completed a BEd at Nipissing University, where she iscurrently a professor in the Schulich School of Education specializing in language arts, liter-acy, drama, and kindergarten.

Carole Richardson completed her Bachelor of Music at Acadia University in Wolfville, NovaScotia. She then went on to receive her Artist Diploma, BEd, MEd and PhD at the Univer-sity of Toronto. She is a continuous advocate for and promoter of the importance of studentengagement in positive and authentic musical experiences and is currently dean (acting) ofthe Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University.

References

Banks, S. (2008). Writing as theory: In defense of fiction. In J.G. Knowles & A.L. Cole.(Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, exam-ples, and issues (pp. 155–164). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Barone, T. (2008). Going public with arts-inspired social research. In J.G. Knowles & A.L.Cole. (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies,examples, and issues (pp. 485–491). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Bochner, A.P. (1997). It’s about time: Narrative and the divided self. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(4), 418–438.

Bresler, L. (2008). The music lesson. In J.G. Knowles & A.L. Cole. (Eds.), Handbook of the artsin qualitative research: Perspectives, methodologies, examples, and issues (pp. 225–237).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Campbell, T., Parr, M., & Richardson, C. (2009). From implicit intention to exquisite expres-sion: Finding metaphors for who we are and what we do. Journal of TransformativeEducation, 7(3), 209–229.

Cho, J., & Trent, A. (2006). Validity in qualitative research revisited. Qualitative Research,6(3), 319–340.

de Castell, S. (2010). Exquisite attention: From compliance to production. Language & Lit-eracy. Retrieved August 20, 2011 from ejournals.library.ualberta.ca.

Dewey, J. (1916, 1944). Democracy and education. New York, NY: Free Press.Douglas, K., & Carless, D. (2008). Nurturing a performative self. Forum: Qualitative Social

Research, 9(2). Retrieved August 2, 2011, from http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs/Finley, S. (2005). Arts-based inquiry: performing revolutionary pedagogy. In Denzin, N.K., &

Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.) (pp. 681–694).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Frank, A. (1995). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. Chicago: University ofChicago Press.

Gadamer, H.-G. (1981). Reason in the age of science (F.G. Lawrence, Trans.) Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.

Galeano, E. (1988). In defense of the word. In R. Simenonson & S. Walker (Eds.), Multi-cultural literacy (pp. 113–125). Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press.

Lather, P. (2007). Getting lost: Feminist efforts toward a double(d) science. Albany, NewYork: SUNY.

Lincoln, Y.S., & Denzin, N.K. (2003). Turning points in qualitative research: Tying knots ina handkerchief. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

308 M. Parr et al.

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13

Pelias, R.J. (2008). Performative inquiry: Embodiment and its challenges. In J.G. Knowles& A.L. Cole. (Eds.), Handbook of the arts in qualitative research: Perspectives, method-ologies, examples, and issues (pp. 185–193). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Richardson, C., Parr, M., & Campbell, T. (2008). Solitary dissonance and collaborativeconsonance: Trialogue as a reflective practice that resonates. Reflective Practice, 9,281–291.

Rose, N. (1990). Governing the soul: The shaping of the private self. London, UK: Routledge.Rosenblatt, L. (1978). The reader, the text, the poem: The transactional theory of the literary

work. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.

Reflective Practice 309

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Tul

ane

Uni

vers

ity]

at 1

1:57

01

Sept

embe

r 20

13