Nisha Sajnani

In this chapter, we provide an approach to deepening learning about cultural identity and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in the training of arts therapists. This chapter also provides a summary of a masterclass held as part of the 2017 European Consortium for Arts Therapies Education.

Depression experienced by older adults is proving an increasing global health burden, with rates generally 7% and as high as 27% in the USA. This is likely to significantly increase in coming years as the number and proportion of older adults in the population rises all around the world. Therefore, it is imperative that the effectiveness of approaches to the prevention and treatment of depression are understood. Creative arts interventions, including art, dance movement, drama, and music modalities, are utilized internationally to target depression and depressive symptoms in older adults. This includes interventions led by trained arts therapists as well as other health and arts professionals. However, to date there has not been a systematic review that reports effects and examines the processes (why) and mechanisms (how) of creative arts interventions are used to address depression in this older age group. This systematic review of studies on creative arts interventions for older adults experiencing depression examined: outcomes of four creative arts modalities (art, dance movement, drama, and music); with particular attention paid to processes documented as contributing to change in each modality; and mechanisms considered to result from these processes. Our analysis of 75 articles (17 art, 13 dance, 4 drama, and 41 music) indicates mostly significant quantitative or positive qualitative findings, particularly for interventions led by creative arts therapists. Mechanisms of change gleaned from the studies that were common across modalities include physical (e.g., increased muscle strength; neurochemical effects, such as endorphin release), intra-personal (e.g., enhanced self-concept, strengthened agency and mastery; processing and communication of emotions), cultural (e.g., creative expression, aesthetic pleasure), cognitive (e.g., stimulation of memory), and social (e.g., increased social skills and connection), that were all considered to contribute to reduced depression and symptoms. Recommendations for future research includes stronger focus on testing of processes and mechanisms.

Literature about the integral role of the arts in learning is widely available, but much less has been written about how the arts and aesthetics support education in the creative arts therapies, particularly in the online learning environment. This article introduces the concept of aesthetic presence within the Community of Inquiry pedagogical model in line with values espoused within a Universal Design for Learning framework. The authors contextualize this concept with examples of how attention to the use of aesthetic and multimedia strategies in the classroom and in the online learning environment may foster openness and connection, encourage flexibility, humor, critical thinking, and animate and facilitate conversations about emergent and emotionally difficult themes while increasing accessibility for different kinds of learners.

This chapter builds upon earlier writing about the need for a critical aesthetic paradigm in our field: a way of orienting our arts-based practice in relation to an understanding of power, present-day inequalities and humanity's struggle with diversity and coexistence. The full text with references appears in the International Handbook of Dramatherapy co-edited by Clive Holmwood and Sue Jennings, 2016.

This chapter explores the role of the audience in socially-engaged performance including therapeutic theatre. I examine opportunities for dialogue, coalition building and solidarity amongst witnesses to difficult stories; stories which emerge from dystopic, unsettled, disrupted and often violent realities in the context of public performance. The full chapter with references may be found in Drama as Therapy: Theatre as Living edited by Phil Jones, 2010.

Les chercheurs s’appuyant sur des pratiques artistiques comme média de création et de représentation des connaissances, requièrent et font preuve même souvent d’aptitudes essentielles à l’improvisation, telles que l’ouverture à l’incertain, une initiation à la différence et une intelligence esthétique. Cet article examine la recherche basée sur l’art à travers le spectre de l’improvisation, dans le but de mettre en lumière les opportunités et les défis fondamentaux que recouvre cette nouvelle approche d’étude.

Bringing feminism into conversation with drama therapy, this article explores the relevance of an intersectional framework for therapeutic performance research. The author analyzes the relationship between intersectionality, health, and performance ethnography and then discusses a past performance from an
intersectional lens to highlight the potential psychological, social, and political health benefits of performance research. The author concludes with a discussion of the implications of this analysis for a socially engaged, therapeutic, performance research practice in drama therapy.

Consistent with a shared objective to raise critical issues related to socially engaged arts-based practice, Engrenage Noir /
LEVIER initiated a collaboration between Creative Alternatives and Playback Theatre NYC to present a workshop on Playback
theatre and social justice from June 16 to 18, 2006. The workshop, held at Concordia University, was presented in English
and French, and the invitation was open for free to anyone interested in potential intersections of performance, dialogue
and social change. Approximately 30 educators, artists and creative arts therapists speaking a variety of languages and
representing a variety of ages and experience with Playback theatre attended the three-day workshop that culminated in a
public performance and dialogue about the opportunities, considerations and limitations of the Playback form in addressing
issues of collective oppression and social justice. In this chapter, I provide a brief history of Playback theatre,
share my thoughts on how this particular workshop unfolded and introduce several ideas regarding opportunities and
limitations of the Playback form in addressing issues of collective injustice and oppression.

Drama therapists reflect-in-action in that we use dramatic improvisation to elicit, organize and represent lived experience and to inform care. In so doing, drama therapists are practitioner researchers. Articulating our practice as research may aid us in improving our practice and extending the influence of our field as we demonstrate that the discoveries made through embodied, relational knowledge are useful in addressing current psychological, social and environmental problems. However, this articulation is rendered both necessary and difficult by the fact that drama therapists, like other creative arts therapists, work at the margins of traditional research culture. Internal and external shame dynamics may limit the creative risks that we take. Yet, there are practitioners amongst us who provide useful examples of how we might locate aspects of our practice as primary processes or adjunctive to traditional forms of quantitative or qualitative inquiry. Their work demonstrates that drama therapy may provide a unique perspective on pressing issues, shrink the research practice divide, and encourage effective care.

Playback Theatre is a widely used form of applied theatre that provides individuals and communities a method of telling and listening to stories of human experience. This article aims to examine Playback Theatre from the lens of two other forms of applied theatre ...