Browsing by Author "De Beer, Welma"

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Developing a Healing Arts Pedagogy and Practices (HAPPy) Training: An Arts-Based Curriculum for Trauma Stabilisation and Stress Alleviation in the South African Educational System
(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) De Beer, Welma; Draper-Clarke, Lucy
This paper discusses the theoretical foundations and pedagogical principles underlying the “Mas’phefumle” project, which explores healing arts practices and pedagogy as a response to trauma in South Africa. The authors propose that artistic research has transformed and advanced arts-based pedagogies in the country, offering impactful healing practices that can help communities during challenging times and regulate individuals after traumatic incidents. The curriculum developed, called Healing Arts Pedagogy and Practices (HAPPy), aims to establish culturally sensitive activities that promote resilience and create safe learning environments. The foundations of the curriculum are based on healing, the arts, pedagogies, and practices, integrating elements of polyvagal theory, psychotraumatology, and the African philosophy of Ubuntu. The paper describes the action research method used and presents the initial cycle of the curriculum’s development.
Honouring the life stage of the Crone: self-revelatory performance as rite of passage
(2016) De Beer, Welma
This study gave expression to my initiatory journey into the last life-cycle of my life, as archetypally represented by the Crone (Prétat, 1994:7–11). It is a personal journey that engages with a specific research question: In what ways can Drama Therapy facilitate the contemplation and initiation of the “Crone” as life stage through self-revelatory performance? Two essential questions frame this study: How can Drama Therapy help us to create a process that contains the inherent destruction that forms part of transformation? If so, what would be the elements and methods that can help facilitate such a process? These questions will be investigated through a creative project, using the method of Performance as Research and the form of self-revelatory performance. The self-revelatory performance engaged with autobiographical moments from my own life and focussed on the theme of transformation. This research report seeks to extrapolate and evaluate the process for the purposes of defining the role and function of drama therapy as self-revelatory performance. The work of Rene Emunah (2009) on the self-revelatory play as a tool for Drama Therapy serves as foundation for this research. Other writings which influenced the study were the work of Victor Turner (Schechner,1993) on liminality, Richard Schechner (1976) on ritual and performance, anthropology of performance and environmental space, Kabi Thulo (2009) on shamanism, Willmar Sauter (2000) on the Theatrical Event and Jacob Moreno’s idea of the Encounter (Kristofferson, 2014). Key concepts that will be investigated are: Jung’s concept of transformation and how it expresses itself through rites of passage, initiation and ritual, myth and storytelling, the crone archetype and self-revelatory theatre. The study’s research findings were derived from the processes of devising, performance and post-performance “insights” which form a part of this creative project. Essentially, this study suggests possible processes that can be used effectively in drama therapy to create a “rite of passage”, “honouring” a new life stage that can “reprogram” or transform us. The study posits that transformation is contained and facilitated when we are able to self-reflect on our history, thoughts, beliefs and cultural coding. Self-revelatory playmaking can be a valuable tool in drama therapy which holds the potential to assist cathartic self-reflection in a safe space (Emunah, 1994:225). This study provides a qualitative description of the phenomena of self-revelatory v playmaking and performance and grapples with how it creates a “rite of passage” to facilitate the transitioning into the last phase of life.