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Relational Aesthetics in the Performance of Personal Story

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The Self in Performance

Abstract

Performing one’s life on stage in drama therapy involves giving aesthetic expression to lived experience in the service of healing for both actors and audiences. Within the field of drama therapy, there are several unique genres or approaches to the performance of personal story, including self-revelatory, autobiographical, and autoethnographic theater to name a few (Emunah, 1994, 2015; Harnden, 2014; Sajnani, 2012). While these form differ from one another, they all involve an interlacing of clinical efficacy and artistic accomplishment or what I have referred to elsewhere as relational aesthetics (Sajnani, 2012). This chapter expands upon this concept from an interdisciplinary perspective in order to advance a poetics of performance in drama therapy in which ethics and aesthetics are seen not as competing objectives rather than contiguous processes that are mutually supportive. In particular, I will focus on how viewing the performance of personal story through the prism of relational aesthetics may contribute to our understandings of the self, healing, artistry, ethics, and audience in this practice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Nisha Sajnani PhD, RDT-BCT

  2. New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Nisha Sajnani PhD, RDT-BCT

  3. University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Nisha Sajnani PhD, RDT-BCT

Authors
  1. Nisha Sajnani PhD, RDT-BCT
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Correspondence to Nisha Sajnani PhD, RDT-BCT .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Social Sciences and Humanities, Tel Hai Academic College Social Sciences and Humanities, Upper Galilee, Israel

    Susana Pendzik

  2. California Institute of Integral Studies , San Francisco, USA

    Renée Emunah

  3. Yale University , New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    David Read Johnson

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Sajnani, N. (2016). Relational Aesthetics in the Performance of Personal Story. In: Pendzik, S., Emunah, R., Read Johnson, D. (eds) The Self in Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53593-1_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53593-1_6

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54153-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53593-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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