The Pragmatics

Moving on from the successful experience of the visual arts workshops, and with an interest in how spectators' abilities to talk about their dance watching experiences might be enhanced, the idea of using creative writing based research workshops developed.

All research with people is determined as much by pragmatics - what can be done and how - as by more conceptual methodological questions. In this instance the pragmatic proposal is to do the following:

Conduct two creative writing based workshops, one with participants who are experienced in or students of creative writing; the other with participants who are experienced dance spectators.

Each workshop would be half a day long and co-facilitated by Sherry Ashworth, a lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. The workshops would take place soon after the participant attended a dance performance, which was to be Rambert Dance Company at the Lowry Theatre, Manchester in September 2010.

Writing exercises might begin before the workshop and continue afterwards and the writing would be both a window into the participants' experiences in their own right and a focus for conversation about the performance. Beyond that however, the exact nature, feel and content of the workshops is still to be developed.