Practice as Research project: Not Yet: Memory, the Loss of Biography and the Fall of the Berlin Wall (2009 - )

Play Script. DVD Film of the Production. The play Not Yet and the translation of the play were published online by The Goethe-Institut (2009) After The Fall Goethe Institut project and play text www.goetheide>Home>Authors www.shared_voices.net/wp/wp_content/.../02/script_not_yet.pdf http://www.goethe.de/kue/the/prj/atf/stu/not/enindex.htm. www.hullstudent.com/news/index.phppagesarticles&news_id Key Note paper: Dickenson, Sarah Jane. Not Yet: The Berlin Wall & the Loss of Biography. Delivered as the key note presentation at the conference, Germany Today: Zwanzig Jahre Nach Dem Mauerfall. the Goethe - Institut. 4th July 2009. Die Mauer. Multimedia Resource for students studying AS/A2A level German : Created by: Maria Cerny, Sarah Jane Dickenson, Daniela Schwark & Bettina Steurer. 2011. The screening of the film of the Play Not Yet was shown on the giant external screen in Hull City Centre by the BBC. Not Yet: the loss of Biography: Exploring Cultural & historical Translocation I was commissioned to write a play for the Goethe-Institut as part of the After the Fall project which was set up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I aimed to explore the theme of the loss of biography experienced by many East German Berliners and their children with the fall of the Berlin Wall both at the time and in the present, but dramatically connecting the findings to the loss of biography experienced by East European migrants and their children in Britain today. The play was performed in both Berlin and in Britain to groups of the target audience (age 12 – 17) by near peers. My primary aim when writing a script for applied drama practice is the “understanding that narratives can be changed.” (Nicholson 2005: 63) It is the exploration of creating effective structural and thematic manipulation of such narratives that lies at the heart of my playwriting research practice. Drawing on, amongst others, the work of Ricoeur (2004), Margalit (2002) Favorini (2008) Mazzoni, Scoboria & Harvey (2010) and Coulson (2001), my research explored the inter- connectedness of false autobiographical memories, collective historical memories, and forgiveness as part of memory acts. I aimed to creatively accommodate and reflect a recognition that recall is often shifting, developing and refocusing. Therefore in the play Not Yet my aim was to:“Attempt to structure work which permits multiple and diverse readings of human affairs,” (Taylor in Bolton 2003: 177) whilst establishing that positive change, although often difficult is possible.