Performance Elicitation: A Method of Embodiment, Reflection, and Reflexivity

The purpose of this manuscript is to explicate the need for a newly defined research method, performance elicitation, within academia and qualitative research. Drawing from Performance Theory and Visual Arts Methods (photo elicitation), performance elicitation aims to increase the prevalence of performance methods within the academy. Performance elicitation also provides a platform for the participant(s)/performer(s) to make meaning through the aesthetic mind-body connection often marginalized in most methodological approaches. Conquergood (2002) posits performance studies as a borderland discipline. Pineau (1995) notes performance scholars are in a constant battle of legitimizing performance as a legitimate form of scholarship but ensures performance “…is no less rigorous in its methods than more traditional forms of published research” (p. 43). Yet when performance(s) in the form of productions end, the sphere of influence of those performance(s) is diminished, as only those bodies who were a part of the performance(s), or an audience member of the performance(s) have the agency to distribute that knowledge. The distribution of such knowledge is rarely in the form of published scholarship, which then blinds the academy to the transformative, epistemological, ontological, and pedagogical work that may have transpired during the performance(s). Interviews elicited from such performances will provide rich qualitative data, which can be utilized in research publications. While on the margins, or borders, performance methods provide the platform to examine what Jon McKenzie (2004) coined as the “liminal-norm”, the in-between. Conquergood (2002) notes, “…performance studies manifests itself more powerfully in the struggle to live betwixt and between theory and theatricality, paradigms and practices, critical reflection and creative accomplishment” (p. 151). Performance elicitation will allow for the performer(s)/participant(s) to identify, and articulate those liminal spaces. The liminal-norm being exposed—discovered—and shared has a high ceiling of potential in contributing to contested topics of research, seeping into multiple disciplines, and encouraging the possibility of building interdisciplinary coalitions (Dolan, 1996)