Applied Theatre Research Articles

Teaching as a performative art

This paper reports on diagnostic workshops conducted at a teacher training centre in Istanbul focusing on how Applied Theatre methods can support English Language Teacher Education in the areas of self-awareness and self-reflection. The workshops provided 12 participant English Language teachers experience of Applied Theatre methods and techniques to elicit feedback on their pedagogic value and efficacy in teaching. Through dialogue and reflection, participants identified the performative and meta-performative skills they valued from the workshops. While Applied Theatre methods have a proven track record in many contexts, they are rarely utilized in teacher development programmes. Feedback from the workshops revealed that Applied Theatre methods, notably Forum Theatre, provide embodied, participant-led, solution-oriented, multiple voiced opportunities for reflection and dialogue on critical incidents teachers’ face. In addition, participants highlighted performative skills pertaining to developing awareness of self, others and setting that are disregarded in current competence-based teacher education programmes. Participants also uncovered meta-performative skills reflecting on why teachers act in the way that they do. The workshops provide an initial template to create teacher development programmes incorporating Forum Theatre and other Applied Theatre techniques.

Enacting Social Justice: Exploring Applied Theatre’s Influence on Anti-Oppressive Social Work

As a profession committed to social change, social workers must engage in practices that encourage clients and communities to reflect on oppressive conditions to later envision and create new equitable and inclusive possibilities. Applied theatre, such as theatre of the oppressed, is an interactive theatrical approach that engages in ‘world-building’ across space, time, issues, and emotions. The embodied nature of applied theatre allows social workers, clients, and communities to imagine, dream, and practise new possibilities for social change. This paper offers a review of existing literature on applied theatre and theatre of the oppressed that promotes social justice and liberation in social work education and practice in the United States and globally.

Applied Theatre: Research-Based Theatre, or Theatre-Based Research? Exploring the Possibilities of Finding Social, Spatial, and Cognitive Justice in Informal Housing Settlements in India, or Tales from the Banyan Tree

This article draws on a twenty-year relationship of short-term interventions with Dalit communities living in informal settlements, sub-cities and urban villages in Mumbai, that have sought to create public theatre events based on research by and with communities that celebrate, problematise and interrogate sustainable urban living. In looking back over the developments and changes to our working methods in Mumbai, I explore how the projects priorities the roles of the community as both researchers and artists. I consider where a specific applied theatre project, which focuses on site specific storytelling with Dalit communities in Worli Koliwada and Dharavi, functions on a continuum of interactive, participatory, and emancipatory practice, research and performance. Applied Theatre practices should not and cannot remain static, they need to be constantly reformed and as practitioners and researchers we need to constantly re-examine the ways in which we work. This chapter poses two central questions: firstly, can this long-term partnership between practitioners, researchers and artists from the UK and India working with community members genuinely be a space for co-creating knowledge and theatre? And secondly, if so, is this Theatre-based Research or Research Based Theatre? I interrogate Applied Theatre’s potential to create a space of cognitive justice, which must be the next step for applied theatre, along-side its more widely accepted aims of searching for social and spatial justice and which places the community as both artists and researchers. The Dalit social reality is one of oppression, based on three axes: social, economic and gender. The chapter explores how working as co-researchers and the public performance of their stories has been a form of ‘active citizenship’ for these participants and is a key part of their strategy in their demand for policy changes. In looking forward I ask how working in international partnerships with community members can promote cognitive justice and go beyond a merely participatory practice. I consider why it is vital for the field that applied theatre practice includes partners from both the global south and north working together to co-create knowledge, new methods of practice to ensure an applied theatre knowledge democracy. In doing so I will discuss if and how this work might be considered to be Theatre-based Research.

Exploring the Possibility of Integrating Opera with Applied Theatre

Opera, as an art form, boasts a rich historical legacy while simultaneously confronting distinctive contemporary challenges. The evolving landscape of performance arts and audience engagement has unveiled unprecedented possibilities through the progression of applied theatre. Thus, in today's dynamic artistic milieu, there arises a compelling need to invigorate opera performances by harnessing insights from applied theatre methodologies. This endeavor hinges upon a comprehensive grasp of the theoretical underpinnings of applied theatre, contextual understanding within the theatrical domain, and a meticulous deconstruction of opera's intrinsic characteristics and mechanisms. This article commences by scrutinizing the defining attributes and current state of both opera and applied theatre. It meticulously dissects the impediments that hinder their harmonious amalgamation. Subsequently, this paper posits multiple potential avenues for experimental exploration. These avenues encompass restructuring the dynamics between audience and performers, redefining expectations, fostering intercommunication among diverse stakeholders, and crafting immersive experiences tailored to specific requisites. In doing so, this research endeavours to enrich the opera milieu by infusing it with the innovative vitality of applied theatre, thereby securing its relevance in the evolving cultural landscape.

The Curriculum Mode and Construction Principles of College English Education with Applied Theatre

In recent years, there has been a lot of overseas research on the applied theatre teaching method, especially the research on integrating applied theatre into English teaching in primary and secondary schools has attracted continuous attention. However, there are relatively few studies in Mainland China on applied theatre. Few professors studied the application of English teaching with applied theatre, but they always stop at the primary and secondary stage, lacking penetration into higher education. Moreover, there are problems such as arbitrariness and formalization of English education with applied theatre in practice. Therefore, the English curriculum construction of college English teaching in Mainland China is necessary and meaningful. This paper, which is based on the research and practice of applied theatre at home and abroad, discusses the curriculum mode from the four dimensions of objective, content, implementation and evaluation, and puts forward the three modes and construction principles of college English education with applied theatre.

A Museum Theatre Approach to Museum Communication in Durban, South Africa

This article explores how museum communication can be enhanced in museums in Durban, South Africa, using the Old Court House Museum (OCHM) in Durban, South Africa, as a point of departure for analysis and discussion. The aim is to close the gap between the humanities disciplines through disciplinary hybridisation while focusing on exploring the intersection of theatre arts and museums through applied theatre (AT) strategies to enhance museum communication. Grounded in Richard Schechner’s multidisciplinary approach to performance studies (PS), it incorporates the viewpoints of Dwight Conquergood on PS. The argument is that the humanities disciplines are historically and conceptually linked through cultural performance. The research employs qualitative methods, including historical-analytic analysis, key informant interviews (KIIs), and direct observation. The findings suggest the practice of the museum theatre (MT) concept in some parts of the South African cultural ecosystem, but with scant attention on Durban municipal museums.

Applied theatre training: theatre for Democracy and knowledge exchange

This article draws from a research project that sought to map knowledge exchange movements in student led projects delivered as part of a final year module of the Applied Theatre and Community Drama BA Hons course, Theatre for Democracy and Advocacy, at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA). As a practice, Theatre for Democracy attempts to create cultural spaces and activities that engender and promote dialogue between decision makers and the people they represent, with a view to influencing change, and since 2011 over 50 of these student led projects have been delivered at LIPA. This research sought to understand the ways in which knowledge is produced and shared through this process of practitioner training. The research mobilised a facet methodology, a mixed methods approach that allows different lenses or frames to speak to a central question, specifically engaging with the projects through observation, conversation, and documentation. This article narrates a unique model of applied theatre training that creatively brings together students, communities, and the decision makers in the public sector that act on behalf of those communities, naming some of the ways in which knowledge(s) can be created and shared through such student led projects.

Igniting transformational change through applied theatre: Jardim Romano's Floods and Estopô Balaio unleashing an overflow of possibilities

ABSTRACT Applied theatre extends beyond traditional performance and entertainment, using theatrical techniques to address social issues and engage communities. In this paper, we emphasise the importance of a socially and politically engaged approach to Applied Theatre (AT) using Paulo Freire's and Augusto Boal's works as primary references to support transformational change and bring about social resistance. A small-scale case study was carried out with participants and collaborators of Estopô Balaio, a collective theatre group in Brazil that has worked for over a decade with a community in a deprived peripheral neighbourhood, Jardim Romano, in São Paulo. Key findings highlight the concept of feasibility in AT, where the collective's efforts overflowed with possibilities for change and empowerment by embracing its residents as collaborators and agents of change in their realities, being thinkers, makers, and citizens through continuous work instead of isolated actions.

Teaching Drama in Education in the University of Ghana: My perspectives about Ghanaian indigenous games

ABSTRACT This proposal reveals the significance of Applied Theatre in Ghana, with special interest in Drama in Education (DIE) as a teaching tool for teachers and learners. As a teaching tool, Drama in Education places tremendous emphasis on Process, Performance and Skill oriented activities to achieve its teaching and learning goals. The dramatic experiences derived from the improvisations; creative dramatics, mime, role-play and other Ghanaian indigenous art forms such as games, symbols, proverbs, storytelling, etc. in the learning explorations expedite transformation in learners. In these dramatic developments, creativity helps to improve not only learners but society as a whole. This paper aims at exhibiting some of the games employed in various sessions with students in the University of Ghana.

Editorial

The first Applied Theatre Research edition of 2023 once again revels in the diversity of our field. It offers contributions from several geographic locations: Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada, with work in a variety of professional contexts: community theatre, education, social services and theatre in education. The projects involved canvass several social contexts, from the stigma associated with gambling and poverty to issues related to social media and mental health, and to a discussion of the importance of place and our environment. This edition also traverses a wide field of ideas.

15Theatre and Performance

Abstract It’s a cliché, of course, to open an annual review by pointing out how the texts under discussion reflect our contemporary moment. And none of the books reviewed here are modish responses to passing scholarly fads. All speak first and foremost to concerns located at the very heart of the theatre medium itself: the imaginative construction of alternative shared worlds, and the exploration of our hopes and fears around modes of interpersonal touch and intimacy. So, forgive me just one brief reflection on how it is surely no coincidence that the books that intervene most excitingly and meaningfully in the scholarly field this year are also those that speak to some of the most pressing anxieties and desires in the broader world as well, in the wake of pandemic contagion, the #MeToo movement, a cost-of-living crisis, and continued dystopic crises in both the academic industry and in national and global politics. The first section of this chapter, ‘Utopia’, reviews three monographs that discuss the intersections between theatre, concepts of utopia and utopian thinking: Siân Adiseshiah’s Utopian Drama: In Search of a Genre, Selina’s Busby’s Applied Theatre: A Pedagogy of Utopia and Ryan Claycomb’s In the Lurch: Verbatim Theater and the Crisis of Democratic Deliberation. The second section, ‘Touch and Intimacy’, reviews two books that cast an eye on questions of touch and intimacy onstage, from a contemporary practice-based and historical scholarly perspective respectively: Supporting Staged Intimacy: A Practical Guide for Theatre Creatives, Managers, and Crew, co-authored by Alexis Black and Tina M. Newhauser, and Alex MacConochie’s Staging Touch in Shakespeare’s England.

Invading Capitalist Ageism in Applied Theatre through Anti-Ageism Praxis

This article highlights how in the UK ageism derives from invasive and pervasive capitalist practices, where our cultural understanding of ‘being old’ is driven by institutional exit from the labour market. The article explores how ageism has bled into applied theatre practices and problematizes the widespread use of reminiscence theatre as an ageist methodology, as it restricts older people’s experiences to the past. Issues of power between the facilitator and practitioner are also explored by questioning the exclusive nature of reviewing and editing older people’s personal recollections and who determines what memories have creative value. This article advocates that the field must now fracture away from reminiscence models and instead I propose an Anti-Ageism Praxis (AAP), which functions as a resistance against the invasion of capitalist informed ageism and oppressive ageist theatrical engagement. Instead, AAP places emphasis on shared power, co-collaboration, being present and creating theatre that is informed by real time moments, feelings and thoughts.

Applied theatre with students with refugee backgrounds: Pedagogical considerations for TESOL settings

This article presents select findings from a case study about applied theatre at a school for girls with refugee backgrounds in the United States. The data were collected through direct observations, semi‐structured interviews, and analysis of students' work. The study uses an intersectional analysis to explore relationships between gender, race, heritage cultures, and language use in arts‐based activities. The author describes one assignment in which students researched a woman from history and then wrote and performed a first‐person monologue from this person's point of view. The researcher discusses ways that the assignment's structure limited students' choices about whom to learn about and portray. In particular, the assignment centered gender over other aspects of students' identities related to heritage cultures, heritage languages, and race. Findings are also reported from interviews with students about how they navigated these parameters and their experiences as writers and performers. Finally, the author considers ways audiences may shape the narratives students are encouraged to tell. Findings highlight ways arts‐based practices directly and indirectly influenced the narratives students with refugee backgrounds created and performed in their resettlement community. The author concludes by discussing implications for arts‐based practices for teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL).

Creating Supportive Feedback Practices to Address Applied Theatre Students’ Anxieties in a Higher Education Course

This article explores the ways in which two years of increased isolation due to COVID affected a cohort of applied theatre students and how their instructors addressed students’ elevated anxiety and disconnection from community. In the spring semester of 2022, I was working as the teaching intern for the course Applied Theatre Praxis taught by Professor Joe Salvatore at New York University. The students—who ranged from undergraduate upperclassmen majoring in Educational Theatre to doctoral students in various arts disciplines—were required to facilitate an applied theatre residency project with a community to which they were connected in some way. Students responded to having to work with one of their own communities with acute anxiety: many claimed they were not part of a community. This group response was due to a complex web of factors stemming from two years of increased isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, I will describe the teaching strategies Professor Salvatore and I used to help students overcome this anxiety by creating opportunities to rehearse and reflect on their facilitation practices and grounding student-facilitators in their values.

Estopô Balaio, a case of a socio-political engaged approach to Applied Theatre

Estopô Balaio, a case of a socio-political engaged approach to Applied Theatre

Applied theatre as transdisciplinary research: JustUs and the quest for second-order change

ABSTRACT This article advances transdisciplinarity as a potentially useful applied theatre theory and method. It maps the ways transdisciplinary research principles informed and framed an applied theatre project and suggests that making applied theatre explicit rather than implicit as a transdisciplinary research process may help practitioners conceptualise and manage projects. In our case, it also increased our ability to contribute to second-order (systemic) change. I argue that applied theatre was always-already transdisciplinary research but articulating this alignment may be helpful to both practice and analysis. The project presented here implemented applied theatre in a university-community partnership addressing youth justice.

Performing at the Intersections: A Literature Review of Applied Theatre, Climate Change, and Their Impacts on Mental Health Among Indigenous Youth

Introduction: Theatre is infrequently used as a method to research experiences of climate change and its mental health impacts among Indigenous youth. It is unclear, however, what the central qualities are that render theatre an appropriate or inappropriate medium to investigate the intersections of these three topics.Objectives: The primary objective of this literature review is to identify the strengths and challenges of using applied theatre as a method when discussing the effects of climate change and mental health among Indigenous youth.Methods: This review was guided by a narrative approach. Literature was identified using digital databases including PubMed, Elsevier, WorldCat, JSTOR, Project MUSE, ERIC, and Google Scholar. Articles were selected depending on their relevance and contributions to the discussion of the central topics. Inclusion was contingent on publication in a peer-reviewed journal and whether the articles discussed applied theatre, climate change, and mental health. A total of 17 articles were included in the final review, which were further analyzed to identify overlapping themes. It is worth noting that this narrative review is not a comprehensive review of research on Indigenous youth, mental health, and/or climate change. Rather, it is a focused investigation of the role of theatre in addressing the intersections of these subjects.Results: This literature review found that there are significant linkages between climate change and mental health. Three central strengths emerged from a review of existing projects that used applied theatre to discuss climate change or mental health with Indigenous youth. The exploratory nature of theatre, its flexible temporality, and its capacity-building qualities are all overarching themes that render theatre pertinent to discussing climate change and its consequent mental health impacts among Indigenous youth.Conclusion: The emergent findings are important when considering applied theatre as a medium to facilitate discussions. There are certain challenges that also arose, such as a lack of youth interest and a need to conduct theatre activities over longer periods of time.Keywords: Indigenous youth, mental wellness, climate change, applied theatre, arts-based approaches

“We Can Speak for Ourselves”: An Applied Theatre Workshop About Decolonization for Judges

This article is about how we developed and delivered a full-day applied theatre workshop about decolonization for judges. The workshop first provided a framework for judges to take into account Canada’s colonial history and the ongoing colonial ideas that manifest within us at the individual level. Next, the workshop offered judges an opportunity to step outside of their usual professional roles and consider how the needs of an Indigenous youth are addressed in court from the perspective of the young person and their grandmother. The purpose of our workshop was to collectively consider what it means to decolonize ourselves and our justice system. This case study demonstrates that “rules of engagement” are flexible, yet must be supported with cultural knowledge, respect for cultural protocol, reflection, respect for lived experience, and an openness to learning by all.

Polski krytyk teatralny Andrzej Wirth – mistrz przemieszczania się i jego rola w kształtowaniu nowego oblicza teatru w Niemczech

Andrzej Wirth, a 20th century Polish essayist, philosopher and theatre critic, is one of the often forgotten theatre and drama scholars in Poland, perhaps due to his long life in exile. A recognized expert in theatre studies and philosophy, he has lectured at many universities around the world, especially in the United States and Europe. He gained particular recognition as the founder and director of the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at the University of Giessen in Germany. The aim of this article is to introduce Wirth’s personality, outline his life between cultures and highlight his importance for the development of theatre studies in Germany, as well as his great contribution to the promotion of Polish literature in Germany in the mid-20th century. Andrzej Wirth’s life was beyond borders and divisions, although with a particular attachment to the culture of his homeland and Germany; he was rooted in childhood memories and a desire for theatre as a liberated art in an age of evolving media technologies.

Selina Busby. Applied Theatre: A Pedagogy of Utopia. London: Methuen Drama, 2022, xv + 247 pp., £72.00 (hardback), £22.49 (paperback), £57.60 (PDF ebook).

Article Selina Busby. Applied Theatre: A Pedagogy of Utopia. London: Methuen Drama, 2022, xv + 247 pp., £72.00 (hardback), £22.49 (paperback), £57.60 (PDF ebook). was published on November 1, 2022 in the journal Journal of Contemporary Drama in English (volume 10, issue 2).