In the wind clothes dance on a line : performative inquiry--a (re)search methodology : possibilities and absences within a space-moment of imagining a universe

in the wind clothes dance on a line is the conceptualization and articulation of performative inquiry as a research methodology within the field of education. Performative inquiry invites innovative and non-linear investigations, playing upon the multiple realities and interpretations of co-evolving worlds realized and recognized through creative action and interaction between researcher/teacher and participants/students within individual and shared, existing and imagined environments through motivating (im)pulse(s) of inquiry. Performative inquiry is elusively and momentarily balanced on the "edge of chaos" within the interstices of enactivism, complexity, interpretation, and performance. In articulating an ecological-cognitive reading of performance, I am in company with curricular theorists who envision curriculum as a journey and expression of students' and teachers' shared investigations within co-evolving landscapes of action and interaction., in the wind clothes dance on a line is a playfull response to current conversations among researchers seeking recognition and articulation of arts-based processes as legitimate site(s) and praxis of research. Performative inquiry offers researchers —- in drama education, in particular, and in education, in general, — a theoretical and practical venue to investigate their fields of inquiry through an integrated vehicle of body, mind and imagination. This dissertation is informed by a three year science education research project (1995- 1997) conducted with science educator, Karen Meyer. Our research investigated the teaching and learning of science education through drama and storytelling, culminating in a performance piece, Light Sound Movin' Around: What Are Monsters Made Of? Follow-up interviews with pre-service teachers speak eloquently to the possibility and power of performative inquiry as a research tool and learning vehicle in science education, in the wind clothes dance on a line has been imagined "in the air" through moments realized and recognized during the science education research project and through my work as a performing arts educator. And it is these moments that set the clothes dancing in the wind. in the wind clothes dance on a line is a conceptual piece, a performative work through which the reader will hopefully realize and recognize his or her own imaginings and interstandings of possible universes within education.Education, Faculty ofLanguage and Literacy Education (LLED), Department ofGraduat