ABSTRACT

This chapter gives a brief example of bifurcation as proposed by David Read Johnson, before proposing a model for looking at the liminal space between drama education and Dramatherapy. It looks directly at the Arts Therapies' relationship to the liminal debate, followed by a Dramatherapy and drama education point of view. In a conversation with David Read Johnson, he suggested that there might be time during the flow of a session where drama and therapy 'bifurcate'. From the applied theatre perspective, Neelands has argued about the distinction between 'prosocial theatre that seeks to ameliorate the psychological harm caused by social and economic injustices and political theatre seeking to directly challenge the causes and class interests, which underpin these same injustices'. From an anthropological perspective, Turner describes a liminal space as being a threshold, doorway or crossing place from 'limen' a place that is neither one nor the other, a space separate or apart from the world around it.