ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the learning to be gained from the collective experience of composing tableau. It explores the human experience of being ‘one among many’ alongside the philosophies of Jean-Luc Nancy and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The chapter deals with descriptions of how tableau has been used in three different teacher education contexts. Tableau is presented as a medium for reflection, a tool for imagining improved teaching and learning outcomes and an approach to examining private conflicts that impact the public nature of teaching. The role of transformation is pivotal in each example and tableau is positioned as a co-constructed art form that ‘unlocks’ difficult teaching experiences by identifying the problem and thereby opening the possibility of a solution. To suggest one’s subjectivity is developed through co-expression and constriction inverts the idea of the arts being a means for channelling self-expression.
