Applied Theatre Research - Volume 7, Issue 1, 2019

Organized around five characteristics of applied theatre that situate it in terms of bridging distances, this article draws on the author’s experience in order to make larger points about nowhere being too distant to make theatre; the idea that theatre must be done one place rather than another, distancing us from ourselves and what we have to say and do in the world; and the concept that specialness is a matter of innate worth and not celebrity. The five characteristics are that applied theatre is more than plays, is frequently aligned with a counter-cultural or movement context, shrinks distance between people in diverse circumstances, encourages consistency between one’s inner values and outer actions, and renews a relationship to one’s geographic, cultural and/or spiritual roots.

When undertaking teaching as an embodied pedagogy, the teacher understands the body as a site of risk and possibility as well as a site of knowing – of self, of others (empathy) and of the world. This article focuses on research undertaken by the authors in the International Centre for Classroom Research at the University of Melbourne into the pedagogical and creative learning practices associated with an embodied approach to teaching, and draws on a growing body of research undertaken by cognitive scientists investigating the role of the body in thinking, learning and problem-solving (Glenberg 2008), and by drama education researchers into the ways that embodiment can substantially enhance learning (Ewing 2010). The authors contend that researchers have focused principally on the processes and characteristics of embodied learning and have given less attention to the pedagogical practices employed by drama educators as facilitators of embodied learning. This article addresses this gap in the research by examining the role of the drama educator in facilitating the conditions for aesthetic embodied learning experiences in a classroom environment. The authors propose a set of principles of embodied pedagogies for implementation in and beyond the drama classroom.

In the last decade, death boats in the Mediterranean have stolen the lives of thousands of people escaping wars in Iraq, Syria and Gaza. Immigration in Palestine started in the twentieth century with young people escaping to Western countries to dodge forced military service imposed by the Ottoman Empire during World War II, while tens of thousands of Palestinians found themselves forced to leave their cities and villages to dwell in refugee camps still exist today. I worked on a drama with students and teachers that arose from this complex and multifaceted historical context. It is a subject that influences and is influenced by people’s lives. Travelling between different geographies has changed our perception of identity through deconstructing and re-examining it. In light of this, the drama on which I worked was able to explore the concepts of place, distance and the ‘other’ in relation to people’s fate. We explored the meaning of identity as a ‘cultural and historical definition of the individual or group of people’ and as an individual’s identification card (passport), then looked at the relationship between them.

Governments globally are wrestling with the growing challenges of radicalized thinking and violent extremism. How can participatory drama or applied theatre processes be used to address radicalized thinking in young people? This article reports the findings of a pilot study conducted with two Australian secondary schools – one government and one Muslim – implementing an education resource focused closely on critical thinking and participatory drama to explore the themes of choice and consequence. The project was created in response to a film – The Dury’s Out – which was made by young Melbourne Muslims wishing to highlight the role of the media in shaping Australian’s thinking about Islam and radicalization. The project included federal, state, community and academic partners.

Taking as its theoretical starting point Sheila Preston’s (2013) discussion of emotional labour and the applied theatre facilitator, we examine how emotional labour in the applied theatre space might manifest through the experiences of not only the facilitator, but the participants as well. Our investigation is based on the work of The Community Theatre (TCT) project, a drama-based group in Singapore that enlists youth volunteers from low- and middle-income backgrounds to co-create shows that reflect on the social challenges faced by children and families from low socio-economic backgrounds. Drawing on interviews, reflective journals and workshop notes, we identify two significant moments that emerged out of TCT’s work, where the practice of emotional labour by the facilitator and participants became evident. We suggest that the implications of participants managing their emotions during the applied theatre process can offer some insight into the need for facilitators to create opportunities for suppressed feelings experienced by both facilitators and participants to be critically engaged with. We begin to articulate the importance of a critical emotional praxis (Chubbuck and Zembylas 2006) to navigate what we have termed the ‘tyranny of emotional distance’ in applied theatre work – the perceived negative effects caused by constant emotional management.

This article discusses the use of drama as a method for teaching and learning using two case studies from different geographical locations and teaching contexts in Australia. The first, from the University of Newcastle, is in the field of enabling education that supports students to gain the knowledge and skills required to continue their journey to a higher education degree. The other, from an existing university pre-service teaching programme at the University of Melbourne, supports students to gain the knowledge and skills required to enter the teaching profession in an Australian context. Both case studies, which are also part of a broader, ongoing research project, examine the role drama can play in the creation of supportive dialogical spaces for learning in higher education contexts, where the students come from a diverse range of socio-cultural backgrounds. The qualitative research is framed by practitioner research, pedagogical methodology and ethnodrama. Dramatized dialogue is used to share our findings. To date, our research has revealed that drama education techniques and activities, and the use of ethnodrama, can both enhance student participation and engagement, and contribute to successfully achieving the aims and objectives of the respective programmes.

How do drama and theatre contribute to developing a democratic process at the intersection between production, activity and way of working? This article examines how artistic processes can shed light on, investigate and comment about moral dilemmas based on Nicolai Gogol’s dramatic script from 1836, The Government Inspector, a Russian farce about corruption. A Nordplus-project designed in 2013 made it possible for drama students, both in Norway and in Tanzania, to establish platforms enabling the students from each country to freely investigate and interpret their own ideas of corruption through process drama activity by exploring Gogol’s original text. This article also investigates whether and how the students’ cultural identity affected their own perspectives on the matter by pinpointing the aftermath of corrupt activity through dramatic depiction and activity.

This article outlines research that intersects the fields of drama and science education. It highlights the value of using positioning theory and figured worlds to illuminate how the concept of Mantle of the Expert supports science learning. Drama has been found to enhance engagement and learning in science, but its use is uncommon. This article reports on a mixed-methods action research project that examined whether Mantle of the Expert supported or constrained the learning of science with 29 New Zealand students in Years 7 and 8. Data generated from students pre- and post-unit assessments, observations of classroom episodes, student and teacher interviews, and classroom artefacts were analysed statistically and thematically. The positioning triad of position, storyline and speech acts was used to show how the different components of Mantle of the Expert supported science learning. Examining the different figured worlds within which the students operated illuminated the different affordances of each learning space. In addition, the data showed that the students improved significantly in their conceptual understanding of the science taught and provided an opportunity to work within an expert scientist role.

In this reflection, I critically examine two moments in the ten-year practice of the Winter/Summer Institute (WSI) that illuminate the complexities of working across multiple layers of distance – geographic, cultural, linguistic, racial and educational. WSI, an applied theatre project co-founded by eight artists and educators from the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Lesotho, Southern Africa, has provided a space for exploration, interaction and collaboration with participants from vastly different cultures. It began in 2006 in Lesotho, in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and has brought people together to question assumptions and biases, engage in problem-solving, improvise ideas and create exciting theatre. Using WSI’s Lesotho work as its foundation, I seek to explore a number of key questions: How, in taking up contentious social issues, can participants – including facilitators – be pushed to grapple with embeddedness in our own cultural landscapes? How does one prepare to work across huge differences while refraining from imposing our own normative outcomes? And, in collaborative theatre working across distances and differences, how do we weigh and address conflicting claims to truth, particularly when so much is at stake? This reflection describes how, in grappling with these kinds of questions, the best preparation for our applied theatre work is that which allows us to think deeply ahead of time and to be as nimble as possible in navigating the moment to moment, the unexpected. This article points to the importance of recognizing the rich potential that exists for competing narratives and for multiple interpretations, and the value of being critically aware of our own discomforts and of trying to step back from them.

Applied Theatre with Looked-After Children: Dramatising Social Care, Claire MacNeill (2018) Oxford: Peter Lang, ISBN: 9 7817 8707 0714, 287 pp., £40.00

Applied Theatre: Economies, Molly Mullen (ed.) (2018) London: Bloomsbury, ISBN: 9 7813 5000 1725, 280pp., US$76.99

Web of Performance: An Ensemble Workbook, Monica Prendergast and Will Weigler (eds) (2018) Victoria, BC: University of Victoria Press, ISBN: 9 7815 5058 6220, free e-book, https://dspace.library.uvic.ca//handle/1828/9426