Permission to speak?

Abstract

Everyday Theatre is a theatre in education programme delivered by Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd most recently in Tai Tokerau, the northernmost region of New Zealand, where the largest ethnic group after Pakeha (a non-Maori New Zealander) is Maori. Everyday Theatre provides a space for children's voices around issues of family violence, abuse and neglect. Dealing with sensitive issues, using drama processes that are generally not part of the school mainstream, we have encountered some resistance to our state-funded programme. However, resistance is not directed at the programme's content or process, nor does it come from those who have received the programme. It has come from some of the organisers of community and tribal groups who have rejected the programme not on the basis of what it does but on where we come from. All facilitators of Everyday Theatre are New Zealand-born, so nationality is not the issue. This paper investigates an intersection of sociological theories of ethnicity and New Zealand's history of colonisation with the practical experiences of delivering Everyday Theatre within an assets-based community development framework.