Where is Your Home? Thesis Performance

My thesis was an autoethnographic performance titiled “Where Is Your Home? 归途何处?”: An Exploration of How Role Theory in Drama Therapy Supports Third Culture Kids in Navigating Their Experiences with Identity Displacement, and it was where my search (and research) for “home” as a TCK landed at that brief moment and began again. In collaboration with a drama therapist as my director, and four TCK drama therapists as my supporting actors, I identified the tension in my role system and utilized performance to find novel ways out of stagnation.

The performance and the production process thereof allowed me to explore four roles connected to my identity as a Third Culture Kid: the Lost Daughter, the Lover/Outcast, the Model Minority, and the TCK/Drama Therapist. Through the play, I was able to reflect on past experiences, begin to release three socially prescribed roles, and at the same time explore how my TCK identity has shaped and will continue to shape my development as a clinician.

My story was about searching for belonging and home in the liminal space in between cultures, and role deduction reduced both mental and physical tension in my body, which allowed my home-searching process to be less rigid.

📸 Courtesy of Bochen Du