Liminality, longing, love: the reflections of in-between times and liminal personae

As we head towards the end of 2021 and areas in Australia set to break world records for most days spent in hard lockdown (Bond, 2021), it has been sobering to realise the whole world has now discovered liminality (Wayland, 2021). The liminal space is one that has long fascinated theatre practitioners, artists, philosophers and researchers. The liminal space is a space of transition, of being on the threshold, in-between, a space of disruption and uncertainty, a space of possibility. These spaces and states of intrigue and tension are ones we play with in drama and theatre, dancing between the real and imagine, the ‘real’ and the fictional, the embodied, the virtual, the here and now and the not yet realised. For good or ill, many of us have now become what Victor Turner – whose seminal work has often been drawn upon by drama researchers – called, ‘liminal personae’:

The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae (‘threshold people’) are necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these personals elude or slipe through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space. Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed …. (Turner, 1969, p. 95)

… during the intervening liminal period, the state of the ritual subject … is ambiguous; he [sic] passes through a realm that has few or none of the attributes of the past or coming state. (Turner, 1987, p. 47)

It seems that much of the world has come to live in a perpetual liminal space – a COVID-inspired space of in between, where normality is a perpetual state of uncertainty, of being stuck, physically grounded and bounded. As our physical bodies have been confined to countries, states, regions, zones of 10 kms, 5 kms, a house or room, our minds have wandered and wondered. We can still wonder what we can be, how we might be, look forward to a new state of being. This wondering and wandering has also been directed towards the past, sometimes looking back with longing, not sure where or how to look ahead, cautious about anticipating anything too much in case it is once again cancelled or curtailed.

Our memory worlds have become increasingly precious, sources of solace and joy, reconnecting us with past loves and inspirations. As the press pause state of living in 2020 stretches into 2021 and beyond, while our physical worlds have shrunk, our minds and imaginations may still travel back and forth across worlds, space and time. Both of us have found great solace through ‘travel’ and art making that focuses on our local worlds and areas. Sue has become immersed in searching for native wildflowers blooming within her local area and capturing aspects of experience with inks and watercolour (see Figure 1). Jo has made a biker jacket that records her 5 km from home (see Figure 2). She embroidered patches of all the places she has visited on the ‘5 km tour’. In the 250 days and more of lockdown in Melbourne, she’s been almost everywhere – including such noted landmarks as her back yard, the park across the road and the semi-industrial zones of Blackwood, Burwood and Box Hill(see Figure 3). New shifts, insights and imaginings have emerged from these times of limitation and liminality.

Figure 1. Sun orchid by Susan Davis

Figure 2. 5 km COVID jacket by Joanne O’Mara

Figure 3. Patches from Jo’s 5 km tour

In this collection of articles in this edition of NJ: Drama Australia Journal, while our authors have not directly referenced the COVID situation and state, they have used the space of liminality of such as productive spaces of inquiry and reflection, for generating new insights and understandings. A number have revisited work from the past, reviewing and reassessing its value to the present, re-imagining how it might impact on the future.

The first article ‘Has not yet mastered headstands and other accidents in learning’ is a transcript of Sandra Gattenhof’s keynote presentation for the 2020 Drama Australia National Conference, 2020 Vision. The conference had already been postponed to 2021 but just days before it was due to be staged in April, the program shifted online due to social distancing restrictions related to more COVID outbreaks. Sandra occupied an in-between space of presenting live to a very small group of conference delegates in Brisbane while being live-streamed in real time across the country. She reflected upon key experiences from her past that in retrospect signalled the shape of who she would become and what mattered to her. She used the opportunity of the keynote to define new ways we talk about the value of the arts and cultural engagement with children, young people and their communities. She argues that in this time of change we might move to using the language of social impact, creative placemaking and storymaking to advocate about the value of arts encounters to decision makers and other audiences.

Claire Coleman adopts a liminal personae herself with the article Seal Wife saga: Rewriting O’Neill’s Melbourne workshop in role. Using ‘rewriting in role’ as a methodology, Claire revisits what has become a quite ‘famous’ workshop conducted by Cecily O’Neill in Melbourne in 1992. Claire was not herself an attendee at that workshop, but has researched the accounts, and ruminated on what it might have been like, adopting the personae of an early career academic, fairly fresh from the world of teaching. The result is a factionalised dramatic text, accompanied by an introduction to the research and approach with connections made to the wider methodology of critical arts based research.

The following article is certainly one that emerges out of reflections from the in-between space of now. Here Robin Pascoe revisited past works and Australian Drama conferences, and realised that Wayne Fairhead’s keynote from 1994 had never been published, but contained within it prompts and insights worth revisiting now. With the focus on ‘Empowerment and a changing curriculum: Keynote address NADIE conference, July 1, 1994ʹ the concepts of empowerment in drama and theatre education are explored and contextualised within Australian and Canadian experiences. In 2021 it gives us pause for thought as we see the revision of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (ACARA) and there is certainly much scope for ongoing questions about the idea of empowerment through education.

The article by Aikaterini Asimidou, Antonis Lenakakis, Asterios Tsiaras arises out of work from Greece, and investigates the evidence base for what has often been a foundational claim in drama education, that drama pedagogy can improve young people’s self-confidence. In their case study, they use a mixed-methods approach to analyse the impact of weekly drama workshops upon senior high school students. They used existing quantitative survey tools as well as observations and semi-structured interviews with results confirming that all students improved self-confidence across general and specific domains.

The final article aims to look forward by looking back, through reviewing a program that has been operating for ten years with ‘The Suitcase Series: An enduring participatory theatre making program in even more urgent time’s by Meg Upton. The ‘Suitcase Series’ participatory theatre program was initiated by Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne and engages a different contemporary playwright every two years to write a new script, with related stimuli and provocations. The scripts all explore sustainability in some form, and as well as being performed by professional actors, are explored, interrogated and presented by young people in schools. The review of the program impacts across the ten years offers critical insight into the program, the process, and multiple impacts of this important educational theatre initiative.

The issue concludes with the review of a work that pays tribute to special moments and people from the past, providing an artefact of ephemeral moments, in a form that can inspire critical work into the future. Carol Carter’s review of Alice Hoy is Not a Building: an ethnographic performance about women in academia by Jane Bird, Kate Donelan, Chris Sinclair and Prue Wales, introduces the most recent Drama Australia monograph. The monograph marks a milestone with the publication of the ‘Alice Hoy’ script – a creative work which was the outcome of ethnographic research, creation and multiple iterations of presentation and reflection. Connecting back to conferences past, many of us experienced the ‘Alice Hoy’ work at a previous Drama Australia conference and had strong connections to the work as well as those who created it. In reading, the review Carol shares that ‘This monograph is coloured by both immense joy and sadness’ as since that time we have not only lost Christine Sinclair from this world, but so much more. There is joy to be found however in celebrating the outcomes of this collaborative performance-making.

The works we create, the processes we engage in, through drama, through creative work, through love – these are the things that are still important. We are passing through a realm of becoming that feels as if it will never end, but we can use the tools we have, the memories and imaginings to make something of it, creating the models and markers of meaning making of today, and for tomorrow.