The elephant in the room – Becoming a Sikh dramatherapist: An a/r/tographic journey of utilising an intersectional feminist approach with Landy’s role method to challenge power and privilege in dramatherapy

Abstract

This critique is an arts-based, a/r/tographic research inquiry, focusing on my experiences of racism and oppression through my identity as a Brown, Amritdhari (initiated) Sikh woman. This piece will offer insights into how, over an 8-month period, my 20-minute performance was devised, a process intensified through two characters concerning embodied role-play. To aid my research I considered an Intersectional Feminist Approach, which recognises how a person can experience oppression through complex intersects of identity. The conflicts I experienced were contained through roles and enhanced by Landy’s Role Method to provide dramatic distance from the subject. This also offered an objective stance through the nature of relational inquiry, a concept intrinsic to the a/r/tographic process. Through this, I was able to consider and validate the suppressed parts of myself and bring my shadow to consciousness. In addition, Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed techniques were utilised to deepen the revelatory journey. Consequently, I recognise how power and privilege can be acknowledged and challenged in the therapeutic relationship through the use of embodied role-play. They can offer containment for shame and internalised oppression, helping to shift the self’s narrative. As a result of this exploration, I feel more equipped to work from an anti-oppressive and de-colonised stance in clinical practice.