Social Theatre Research Articles

Between Representation and Reality: Zhao Chuan’s World Factory as Social Theatre

ABSTRACT Zhao Chuan’s play World Factory continuously introduces reality into the theatre by resorting to the creative techniques of documentary theatre, epic theatre, and theatre of the oppressed in left-wing theatre, thus constituting a blurred boundary between the reality and the representation, and also forming a mode of discussion of social issues in theatre. The tension between reality and representation allows Zhao Chuan’s theatrical production to be understood not only as aesthetic theatre but also as social theatre. With the help of sociological methods, Zhao Chuan’s social theatre creates a “theatrical public sphere,” and the reality of this sphere constitutes a Habermasian place of prudent and equal public opinion. At the same time, the representation of the theatrical public sphere creates the emotional space of physical presence. It imaginatively constructs another reality, and its representation quality can avoid the direct criticism of the reality, which makes the relatively free public sphere speech possible.

Nafplion Blues: Prison Stories. The Prisons of Nafplion as Brutal Scenographies

The prison sites and their timeless presence in the city of Nafplion were the starting point for two workshops for students of the University of the Peloponnese. The result of these workshops titled Nafplion Blues: Prison Stories, was presented in the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023 as part of the Greek student exhibition. Students of the module “Performance and space” created the site-specific performance Listen-Watch-Βe Silent in which performers and spectators participated in a pilgrimage procession to former prison sites in Nafplion. The module “Social Theatre” was held at the Agricultural Prison of Tiryns. After a series of theatre workshops, the inmates and the students presented the devised performance The Journeys of the Potato, from Andes to Tiryns: Legends and Truths to only two spectators and the prison guards. In the present paper, the authors focus on the use of the prison – in the present and in the past – as performance space. Prisons function as the absolute dystopian places that oscillate between private and public space: from the Agricultural Prison of Tiryns’ hermetically sealed, private space to the open, public space of the historic city of Nafplion, where the buildings that once housed prisons are scattered throughout the city. In this type of found spaces, the spectators and the performers are moved both emotionally and physically. Through the brutality emitted by the real substance of the sites, the “scenographic city” reveals stories and traumas, while inviting spectators and creators to assume social and political responsibility. Keywords: performance space, found space, public space, private space, site-specific performance, social theatre.

Memetic commenting: Armenian curses and the Twitter theatre of Trump's deselection

On 7 November 2020, strange things were happening in the comments to @realDonaldTrump's tweet erroneously arguing that he had won the US presidential election, ‘BY A LOT’. Posting quote tweets and replies in Armenian in tandem with ‘cursed images’, memes, and creepypasta, users engaged in a spam-like trollish intervention, even as Twitter kept removing the said content in real time. Exploring this online incident through various analytical techniques, this article first attends to absurdity and ephemerality within the polarized social media event. Second, it makes an argument for the productivity of digital methods in cultural studies inquiry aiming to understand the temporal, contextual, and infrastructural aspects of memetic commenting. Third, by focusing on the social (media) theatre of Armenian curses, we make a case for the analytical importance of studying materials deemed niche and anomalous in networked exchanges.

Embodying the difference – Performing the experience (revised manuscript)

This article stems from the author’s experience as a performer, curator, and applied drama and social theatre actor, playwright and operator. It is based on his research “Inclusive Production Methodologies in the Performing Arts for Diversely-Abled Performing Arts Practitioners”, supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (DE). According to the author, disability is not a sign of a lack, but rather a way to encourage people to reduce distances between one another, live in solidarity, and break commonplaces. Considering authenticity as a fundamental quality for performing, he discusses that disabled performers have a genuine immediacy to immerse themselves in the nowness of the action because their vulnerability on stage is unfiltered. In that, he sees stigma as a source of creativity and a qualifying sign capable of eradicating preconceptions and biases. Performance practices are not just a question of ability and skills collection but rather, in Grotowski’s words, an eradication of blocks to adhere to one’s true self. The performer’s body is the prima materia to produce meanings that turn into living images and come into reality. This is regardless of the performer’s physical condition. The article offers examples of performers affected by different forms of disability, such as Felipe Monteiro, Nicola Fornoni and Enok Ripley who report on their specific clinical condition. A particular reference has been made to the collective performance opera Underscars conceived and organised by the author, his partner German artist Verena Stenke and their collaborators in Venice in December 2022.

Contro il teatro sociale

In 1988 Armando Punzo, director, playwright and actor, entered the gates of the prison of Volterra to establish Compagnia Della Fortezza, today’s first and most famous theatre experience inside a penitentiary institution. It took thirty years to transform the prison into the avant-garde artistic research center of today. With its work the Compagnia Della Fortezza has inspired hundreds of art-based activities inside Italian and European correction facilities thus contributing to the spread of an exemplary practice both from the social and political standpoints. On the other hand, while not intending to, it has also engendered a widespread belief that there is a kind of theatre that can be labeled “prison theatre”, indicating that common characteristics are found and shared by the various experiences. Retracing the history of the Compagnia Della Fortezza and the studies dedicated to it, this paper aims to show the reasons why the categories of “social theatre” and “prison theatre” are inadequate to investigate the stylistic, formal, and pedagogical characteristics of this specific experience and, moreover, to demonstrate that the important results obtained on the social and political fronts are precisely the result of a project that has always been purely artistic.

The Use of Social Theatre along the Mediterranean

The challenge of this article is to explore the role of Theatre for Social Change (TfSC). Clearly, it is a very complex field of research. It is not one form of theatre but "a set of interdisciplinary and hybrid practices". It spans the participatory and professional arts sectors and the fields of arts and activism. Unlike other kinds of theatre, TfSC is a performance ensemble to raise awareness about the impact of social issues through the community engagement process. The article seeks to investigate connections between social theatre, social wellbeing and health. Few paragraphs are dedicated to the actual epidemic situation, social distance, mental health, self-care and new relations among people. Besides the work of Paulo Freire (Theatre of Oppressed), Augusto Boal (Forum Theatre), Dorothy Heathcote (Drama in Education), Theatre for Living etc. authors will present several projects and successful stories along Mediterranean, with focus on Italy, Spain and Malta.

Disrupting the hierarchy of knowledge production: the case of documenting social theatre in Palestine

ABSTRACT The field of social theatre is founded in community-engaged creative processes. It is inherently political, embedded in its geopolitical and social environment. Yet existing methods of documentation – the distribution and gathering of data and its output - do not always reflect this tradition. Methods related to documentation raise various concerns around consistent ways to gain and share knowledge if the meanings that we cultivate are not approached as an active, non-hierarchised exchange with and among communities, activists and practitioners we serve. In general form, these concerns are: a) What are the implications of needing to document social theatre; and b) What becomes of this knowledge? These two questions are demonstrated within the case of documentation in the occupied Palestinian territories. In a region containing the most documented and recorded conflict in the world (Debray 2007), academic research serves arguably to impose structure on a given phenomenon. Yet ‘imposing’ structure – or what one considers as such – raises additional concerns of perpetuating dynamics of colonial occupation amidst a population that is increasingly denied self-representation. Using this example, I argue that the future of our field risks data fossilising if it does not retain creative flexibility in crossing disciplines, in protecting grassroots and practice-based forms of knowledge cultivation, and in taking risks in permitting inquiries to test our scholarly expertise. This piece argues for an epistemological shift in our knowledge production – both its collection and distribution.

Newhailes: an 18th-century designed landscape in Scotland and its role in enlightenment social theatre

SUMMARY: Newhailes House on the outskirts of Edinburgh is surrounded by an 18th-century designed landscape which encapsulates the philosophical and aesthetic concerns of the Scottish Enlightenment. Through the use of excavation and building surveys this paper examines the surviving elements of this landscape and discusses how their design and function can be interpreted as tools to negotiate, create and sustain social structures.

АКСИОЛОГИЧЕСКИЙ ПОДХОД В ПРАКТИКЕ ИНКЛЮЗИВНОГО ТЕАТРА

The paper briefly describes specifics of an inclusive theatre, which is direction of amateur theatrical activities that gains popularity aimed at assistance in rehabilitation and socialization processes of spectators with disabilities. Authors consider the key principles of arrangement of educational and cultural space adapted to realities of the modern social theatre for persons with physical and mental disabilities. Also, the article sums results of inclusive theatrical playing fields of the last years run on educational platform “Parus” (Eng.: “Sail”) within the frames of International Youth Forum “Altai. Points of Growth” (Altai Krai, Russia).

'Reclaiming place in a tourist town’: Preliminary findings from a social theatre research project run by young people during COVID-19

• The study presents findings on young people’s experiences during a pandemic. • Participatory social theatre is employed as a creative methodology. • Young co-researchers living in a host community express their connection to place. • Reclaiming place has provoked a desire for more socially and environmentally just tourism. • Co-researching is presented as an emancipatory method in tourism research.

On disability culture, performing arts, social theatre and the practice of beauty

This paper discusses performing arts in general and Social theatre in particular as art practices that most promote disability culture. Few significant examples of differently able performance artists are considered before analyzing the principles of Social theatre and the experience of Isole Comprese Social Theatre School (Florence, IT). From the propositions of American psychologist James Hillman, the school founded its teaching method on the practice of beauty, also defined as a poetic device serving as an antidote to contrast preconceptions, prejudices, stereotypes and stigmatizations that disable people often suffer in society.

Vicky Angelaki, Social and Political Theatre in 21st-Century Britain: Staging Crisis

Vicky Angelaki, Social and Political Theatre in 21st-Century Britain: Staging Crisis

Ethnodrama and ethnotheatre in tourism

ABSTRACT Ethnodrama and ethnotheatre are two ways of knowing that turn ethnographic work into drama scripts and theatrical productions. They have been employed within several fields of inquiry due to their propensity to interrogate and challenge existing socio-political power structures and promote political change. Moreover, they are effective approaches to convey meanings to academic and non-academic audiences. Despite this, they have been relatively neglected in tourism. By mobilizing seminal work in the social sciences, performance studies and theatre studies on performance texts and arts-based research, this paper presents and discusses ethnodrama and ethnotheatre as two alternative methodological approaches in tourism. This work contributes to tourism knowledge by partially addressing the need for methodological diversity advocated by qualitative tourism scholars.

Theatrical Activities in Primary School: Effects on Children’s Emotion Regulation and Bullying

Many social, cognitive, emotional, and motivational aspects intervene in promoting children’s well-being at school, or, conversely, in affecting their distress. It is, therefore, paramount to implement interventions addressing them in the classrooms. A workshop based on Social Theatre activities is proposed, with the aim of improving relational and emotional comfort by reducing bullying and bystanding behavior and increasing defending behavior and emotion regulation. The sample included 96 children (51 girls, mean age: 7.75 years), who were randomly assigned to an experimental group (EG, n = 49, two classes) and a control group (CG, n = 47, two classes). The EG participated in a 4-month theatrical workshop, in which games and exercises were proposed to work on poetry, improvisation, and to create small plays and a final performance. The CG did not participate in any activity. Questionnaires were administered to both groups before (T1) and after (T2) the workshop to assess bullying-related behaviors (bullying, victimization, outsider behavior, and defending behavior; students’ self-reports) and emotion regulation and lability/negativity (Emotion Regulation Checklist; teachers’ version). Results showed that the workshop contributed, although modestly, to stable emotion regulation and to reduce outsider behavior in boys. In addition, a decrease of emotion regulation in the CG was associated with an increase of outsider behavior at T2. Although further studies are needed, these findings are promising in demonstrating the effectiveness of the Social Theatre workshop for improving well-being at school.

Vicky Angelaki. Social and Political Theatre in 21st-Century Britain: Staging Crisis. London: Bloomsbury, 2017, Methuen Drama Engage, 266 pp. £65 (hardback), £19.99 (paperback), £18.99 (PDF ebook).

Vicky Angelaki. Social and Political Theatre in 21st-Century Britain: Staging Crisis. London: Bloomsbury, 2017, Methuen Drama Engage, 266 pp. £65 (hardback), £19.99 (paperback), £18.99 (PDF ebook).

La educación artística: un recurso imprescindible para la Educación para la Ciudadanía Global

El artículo trata el potencial de la educación artística como canal de reflexión, expresión y creación de conocimiento en los procesos socioeducativos. Lo hace a través del análisis de caso de dos procesos de trabajo con jóvenes; uno en España y otro en Nicaragua, en los que se utilizó el teatro social como metodología grupal para trabajar sobre temáticas relacionadas con la convivencia, cultura de paz y la prevención de la violencia de género.

Dealing with stress using social theatre techniques with young Syrian students adapting to a new educational system in Turkey: A case study

After a migration process, people begin to yearn for the settledness of their previous lives; this includes those in the education process. After the crisis in Syria, millions of refugees came to Turkey, in that, many of whom were students. The students started to enrol and although the schools’ curricula are in Arabic, students of these schools must pass a university entrance exam in the Turkish language to apply. There is also a quota limitation imposed on foreign students in universities. As these obstacles evoke extra-migratory stress among young refugees, the psychosocial support (PSS) needs become even more pronounced. The PSS workshop series outlined in this field report was conducted for Syrian students as they prepare for university admission. The series aimed to support participants to deal with this stressful process through six sessions using art and creativity methods and social theatre tools, including drama therapy games and forum theatre techniques. Through such techniques, the participants were encouraged to express their fears and future anxieties as well as find solutions for self-defined obstacles.

Marginalidad y vanguardia en la posguerra: los inicios del teatro crítico en Chile (1883-1913)

Nuestra investigación analiza las características definitorias de un formato teatral alternativo, surgido en Chile tras el término de la Guerra del Pacífico, paralelo al de los circuitos obreros y de sectores aristocráticos Invisibilizado en su época, sin estar sujeto a presiones comerciales, o a la observancia de la crítica, su importancia debe dimensionarse tanto en su connotación testimonial, como por su aporte a la renovación de las artes escénicas nacionales Estas se expresaron en el desarrollo de nuevas técnicas de representación y, en particular, en una profunda innovación a partir de la escenificación de lo cotidiano, sentando las bases del teatro social chileno.

Social work and applied theatre: creative experiences with a group of homeless people in the city of Seville

ABSTRACTThis article presents a series of creative social intervention experiences developed with a group of homeless people in the Spanish city of Seville. These experiences are part of an applied research project that uses theatre as a tool to aid social work, and they are led by a group of homeless people who have become actors through this initiative. The group is known as ‘Theatre of Inclusion’ and has been running for a decade now. Using group social work and applied theatre techniques, this initiative creatively exposes the needs of this collective and also generates spaces in which they can reclaim their dignity. The systematisation of these experiences highlights the potential of combining disciplines such as social work and theatre to work with vulnerable collectives, in the same way Jane Addams did. The aim is also to move beyond the dominant welfare proposals in place in Spain currently, which are intended to meet the needs of homeless people.

The anthropologist as jester, anthropology as jest?

This article argues that anthropologists in the field are often attributed the role of jester. Anthropologists are transient figures in the societies they study, and they stand out in behaviour or in physical appearance. Society symbolically resolves their strange presence with humour: anthropologists involuntarily elicit joking remarks and laughter. Over time, the role of jester may shade into one of accepted outsider, and that promotes direct observation. There is, however, a false romanticism attached to anthropological fieldwork that overlooks the anthropologist's role as jester. Such romanticism is reproduced by the forces of rationalisation in higher education that threaten students' exposure to genuine anthropological fieldwork, and this compromises the depth of anthropological inquiry. Anthropology thus risks becoming the jest in the social scientific theatre: an exotic anecdote that is nice over drinks, yet without real scientific punch.