Arts Praxis Volume 4
Arts Praxis Volume 4
Arts Praxis Volume 4
ISSN: 1552-5236
EDITOR
Jonathan Jones, New York University, USA
EDITORIAL BOARD
Amy Cordileone, New York University, USA
Norifumi Hida, Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music, Japan
Byoung-joo Kim, Seoul National University of Education, South Korea
Ross Prior, University of Wolverhampton, UK
Nisha Sajnani, New York University, USA
Daphnie Sicre, Borough of Manhattan Community College, USA
Prudence Wales, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Hong Kong
James Webb, Bronx Community College, USA
ARTSPRAXIS provides a platform for contributors to interrogate why the arts matter and how the
arts can be persuasively argued for in a range of domains. The pressing issues which face the
arts in society will be deconstructed. Contributors are encouraged to write in a friendly and
accessible manner appropriate to a wide readership. Nonetheless, contributions should be
informed and scholarly, and must demonstrate the author’s knowledge of the material being
discussed. Clear compelling arguments are preferred, arguments which are logically and
comprehensively supported by the appropriate literature. Authors are encouraged to articulate
how their research design best fits the question (s) being examined. Research design includes
the full range of quantitative-qualitative methods, including arts-based inquiry; case study,
narrative and ethnography; historical and autobiographical; experimental and quasi-experimental
analysis; survey and correlation research. Articles which push the boundaries of research design
and those which encourage innovative methods of presenting findings are encouraged.
This issue of ARTSPRAXIS builds upon the issues raised during The NYU Forum on Educational
Theatre (2016). This forum was part of an ongoing series NYU is hosting on significant issues that
impact on the broad field of educational and applied theatre. Previous forums have been
dedicated to site-specific theatre (2015), teaching artistry (2014 and 2005), developing new work
for the theatre (2013), theatre for young audiences (2012), theatre for public health (2011),
citizenship and applied theatre (2010), theatre pedagogy (2009), Shakespeare (2008), drama
across the curriculum and beyond (2007), ethnotheatre and theatre for social justice (2006), and
assessment in arts education (2003). The NYU Forum on Educational Theatre invited the global
community to propose workshops, papers, posters, narratives, and performances around one of
the following topics:
Applied Theatre (i.e., studies in community-based theatre, theatre of the oppressed, the
teaching artist, diversity and inclusion)
Theatre for Young Audiences and Play Production (i.e., studies in acting, directing,
dramaturgy, playwriting, dramatic literature, theatre technology, arts-based research
methodologies)
Editorial correspondence should be addressed to Jonathan Jones, New York University, Program
in Educational Theatre, Pless Hall, 82 Washington Square East, Rm 223, New York, NY 10003,
USA. Email: jonathan.jones@nyu.edu
Cover Photo © Jonathan Jones, 2010
Layout for this 2nd Edition revised and edited by Jonathan Jones, 2018.
From Les Mis to Annie, Jr.: A discussion of dramaturgical adaptation for 124
musical theatre in education and accessibility of musical theatre to youth
Sean Mayes
i
ArtsPraxis
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
Editorial
JONATHAN JONES
jonathan.jones@nyu.edu
ii
Jonathan Jones
IN THIS ISSUE
In the Applied Theatre section, Kay Hepplewhite investigates the
applied theatre artist’s praxis, attending closely to their responsivity to
participants. John Somers identifies the unique features of community
theatre in the UK and the role it plays in fostering community cohesion.
Linden Wilkinson documents her experience developing an
ethnodrama about efforts to create a memorial for the Australian
Aboriginal massacre at Myall Creek focusing on trauma and
reconciliation. Finally, Kaitlin O. K. Jaskolski chronicles her experience
utilizing applied theatre practices to teach life skills to adolescents and
young adults in Lagos, Nigeria.
In the Drama in Education section, Scott Welsh reflects on his
experiences teaching monologue workshops and interrogates the
relationship between education and theatre.
In the Theatre for Young Audiences section, Jessica M. Kaufman
unpacks dramaturgy-as-research, specifically looking at her work in
devised theatre for young audiences. Dennis Eluyefa provides a brief
overview of children’s theatre in the UK, navigating both the educative
and entertainment values of the work.
In the final section on Youth Theatre, Clare Hammoor employs
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Editorial
LOOKING AHEAD
During the next few months, we will invite Joe Salvatore, Chair of the
2017 NYU Forum on Ethnodrama, to serve as co-editor, looking to
identify highlights of the diverse offerings at the Forum for inclusion in
a special edition of ArtsPraxis (Volume 4 Number 2). Following that
issue, we will again engage members of the Educational Theatre field
who may or may not have been present at the Forum yet want to
contribute to the ongoing dialogue around our three areas of
specialization: applied theatre, drama in education, and theatre for
young audiences. The call for papers will be released concurrently with
the next issue (November 2017) and the submission deadline is
February 1, 2018.
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ArtsPraxis
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
This article outlines a research project investigating the expertise of
applied theatre practitioners. Summarising some of the research
approaches and findings, a conceptualization of ‘responsivity’ is
proposed to encapsulate the blended expertise of those artists that
work in community, participatory and applied settings. The ‘practice
responsive’ research methodology utilizing ‘reflective dialogues’ with
practitioners is explained and the resulting artists’ commentaries are
embedded throughout. I outline how reflection and response thread
through a conceptualization of applied theatre in literatures, and
discuss how these themes informed both the method and the findings
of my research. Whilst offering namings for patterns found common to
practitioners operating across diverse contexts, the article also
acknowledges how naming can close down understanding of the
complex operations and qualities of the practitioner. I suggest a
theoretical proposition of ‘__’ (underscore) to open up understanding of
the workers and the work of applied theatre, in order to allow further
insight to their expertise. The proposal concludes by arguing how the
1
Responsivity in Applied Theatre Practitioner Expertise
INTRODUCTION
The qualities demanded of a practitioner in applied theatre are
notoriously difficult to describe and can appear daunting. Their
expertise is made up of a combination of qualities and skills that build
on a foundation of art form knowledge, blending the ability to guide
creative performance activity with facilitation of positive engagement
through interactive exchange, which in turn, ethically takes account of
context and objectives. To manage these multiple demands, a
practitioner develops holistic expertise in response to the work.
Building on this premise, my paper will introduce a concept of
'responsivity' as a way to identify patterns within the enigmatic
sensibilities, revealed through analysis of a number of applied theatre
practitioners. Responsivity is a way of discussing how in-the-moment
choices are made and how, whilst acknowledging a focus on the
participants, the practitioners also develop within the practice.
The commentaries included in this article are drawn, with full
agreement, from ‘reflective dialogues’ (see also Hepplewhite, 2016)
undertaken with a number of senior practitioners in the UK, which
contributed to the research for my PhD thesis investigating applied
theatre practitioner expertise. Helen Nicholson (2005) highlights the
important pattern of self-reflection within the field: ‘Applied drama has a
reflexive ethos, a tradition of creative and critical questioning’ (p. 166).
A ‘reflexive ethos’ was a key informant in the structure of my research
methodology and has informed my proposed concept of responsivity.
This paper cites extracts from the 'reflective dialogues' with artists
operating in applied, participatory and community contexts. The
process used video-recordings to capture moments of workshop or
rehearsal, allowing both researcher and artist to co-reflect on the
detailed navigation of practice decisions. The transcribed dialogues
highlighted their concerns and values about the work, aiding analysis
and pointing to a set of patterns that emerged as a fundamentally
responsive expertise.
Responsivity is a route to explaining the expertise of applied
2
Kay Hepplewhite
3
Responsivity in Applied Theatre Practitioner Expertise
allowed for the work to be creative for the participants. This trope of
open-ness informed my way of conceptualising the work. The article
returns later to illuminate some of these patterns with material from the
reflective dialogues.
5
Responsivity in Applied Theatre Practitioner Expertise
7
Responsivity in Applied Theatre Practitioner Expertise
9
Responsivity in Applied Theatre Practitioner Expertise
The potential for the facilitator also to be enriched and sustained by the
work was evident, illustrating my proposal of a feature of respond-
ability as a motivator for the work. In his commentary Pady O’Connor
valued an ability to be open about qualities needed in the role; he was
open to growth and new knowledge in himself. Tim Wheeler articulated
an important ethos of being open to possibility and the ‘unknown’:
Actually the reason I’ve been doing it is because it feeds me, I feel
a bit more connected to the world (Annie Rigby).
11
Responsivity in Applied Theatre Practitioner Expertise
SUGGESTED CITATION
Hepplewhite, K. (2017). Responsivity in applied theatre practitioner
expertise: Introducing identifying patters and names. Arts Praxis, 4
(1), 1-13.
REFERENCES
Bailes, S. J. (2010). Performance, theatre and the poetics of failure.
London and New York: Routledge.
Balfour, M. (2009). The politics of intention: Looking for a theatre of
little changes. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of
Applied Theatre and Performance, 14 (3), 347-359.
Cohen-Cruz, J. (2010). Engaging performance: Theatre as call and
response. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Derrida, J. (1995). On the name. Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press.
Hepplewhite. K. (2015). The applied theatre practitioner as dialogic
hero. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied
Theatre and Performance, 20 (2), 182-185.
Hepplewhite, K. (2016). More than a sum of parts? Responsivity and
respond-ability in applied theatre practitioner expertise. S. Preston
(Ed.), Applied theatre: Facilitation: Pedagogies, practices,
resilience. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama.
Nicholson, H. (2005). Applied drama: The gift of theatre. London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Nicholson, H. (2010). The promises of history: pedagogic principles
and processes of change. RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre
and Performance, 15 (2), 147–154.
Prendergast, M. and Saxton, J. (2013). Applied drama: A facilitator’s
handbook for working in community. Bristol and Chicago:
Intellect.
Prentki, T. and Preston, S. (Eds). (2009). The applied theatre reader,
London and New York: Routledge.
Taylor, P. (2003). Applied theatre: Creating transformative encounters
in the community. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann.
Thompson, J. (2015). Towards an aesthetics of care. Research in
Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and
Performance, 20 (4), 430-441.
12
Kay Hepplewhite
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Kay Hepplewhite is a Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University,
Newcastle upon Tyne England, teaching undergraduate and
postgraduate programmes in Drama and Applied Theatre. Kay has a
background as performer, theatre maker and facilitator in community
theatre and TIE. She has published in Theatre, Dance and
Performance Training journal (2013) and Research in Drama in
Education: Journal of Applied Theatre (2014 and 2015) and has a
chapter in Applied Theatre Facilitation: Pedagogies, Practices,
Resilience edited by Sheila Preston (2016), published by Bloomsbury
Methuen. Kay is undertaking a PhD at University of Manchester.
13
ArtsPraxis
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
Traditionally, theatre was created and performed in communities to
celebrate religious and other significant aspects of shared community
life. Many such customs possessed a quasi-religious identity in which
theatre depictions were thought to appease those spiritual forces which
controlled the lives and fortunes of mere humans. In the UK and the
Western world more generally, the cohesiveness of community life has
lessened as families become more self-sufficient. Until relatively
recently, rural communities in South West England were dominated by
the farming industry. The land of many farms has been merged and
the farmhouses sold to relatively well-off incomers. They often operate
a self-sufficient life, sending their children to private schools outside
the community and engaging in leisure pursuits which take them out of
the community in which they live. Thus, community cohesion is
weakened and the opportunities for cooperative and communal action
lessened. Theatre has the potential to bring disparate members of a
community together in common purpose, providing a forum in which
new and lasting relationships can be formed. If the dramatised stories
14
John Somers
have their roots in the identity and history of the community in which
they are made, long-term residents have ways of sharing their
knowledge with the ‘newcomers’.
15
Making Theatre in Communities
5 The company’s name based on the statistic that 7% of the world’s population own
84% of the wealth.
6 See McGrath, J. (1981). A good night out. London: Methuen.
16
John Somers
17
Making Theatre in Communities
7 David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation said in a press
release, "Unless we act now, we will create a rural theme park, where only the very
wealthy can live” (National Housing Federation. (July 25, 2006). Rural housing crisis
forces unprecedented alliance.
18
John Somers
migration and high levels of homes that are sold for cash. (Ibid,
p. 37)
19
Making Theatre in Communities
PERCEIVED IMPACT
I have many testimonies from participants to bear out the positive
outcomes which many experience having taken part in this form of
theatre. More generally, it is clear that individuals who have been
preoccupied with their careers and home life, find involvement in this
theatre form and its creation from scratch, invigorating and enriching.
This is particularly so with women who, having dedicated important
energies to their paid work, domestic life and the creation of a ‘family’,
rediscover their largely dormant creative urge and abilities. Several
women of this nature have written proposals for new projects and in
several cases, complete scripts or scenarios. Over three years, one
retired policewoman who had never written a script before, researched
the history of a local house from the 13th Century onwards and, with
assistance, created scenarios for nine site-specific scenes. In several
cases, those who journeyed to Payhembury to take part in projects
have established theatre companies in their own communities.
Numerous men who regarded drama-making as socially ‘above them’
have become and remain involved as they come to realise that their
local knowledge is valued in such enterprises. Some dip in and out of
projects, others are regular participants in workshops, creative
meetings and productions. Several teenagers have followed drama
degrees and the lead boy in the WW1 production has been accepted
at and will attend RADA. At many levels and ways, Community Theatre
has impacted on the community and individuals and families within it.
Since its inception in 2000, thousands of audience members have
witnessed the outcomes of our work.
Examples of the work referred to in this article can be seen at the Tale
Valley Community Theatre website. For further details of the work,
please contact the author.
21
Making Theatre in Communities
SUGGESTED CITATION
Somers, J. (2017). Making theatre in communities: A search for
identity, coherence, and cohesion. Arts Praxis, 4 (1), 14-23.
REFERENCES
Commission for Rural Communities. (2008). The state of the
countryside. Cheltenham: Commission for Rural Communities.
Etzioni, A. (1997). In Arthur, J. (1998). Communitarianism: what are
the implications for education? Educational Studies, 24 (3), 3352-
368.
Grayling, A. C. (2001). The meaning of things: Applying philosophy to
life. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Jellicoe, A. (1992). Community plays and how to make them. London:
Methuen.
Kershaw, B. (1992). The politics of performance. London, Routledge.
McDonnell, B. (2006). Theatre, resistance and community – some
reflections on ‘hard’ interventionary theatre. In M. Balfour & J.
Somers (Eds.), Drama as social intervention. North York: Captus
Press.
Nogueira, M. P. (2006). Taught only by reality, can reality be
changed?. In M. Balfour & J. Somers (Eds.), Drama as social
intervention. North York: Captus Press.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of
American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
22
John Somers
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
An Honorary Fellow at, Exeter University, England, John Somers is
Founding Editor of the journal Research in Drama Education. He
created Exstream Theatre Company which specialised in interactive
theatre in non-theatre sites. His play On the Edge won awards for its
contribution to a better understanding of mental health issues. He has
worked extensively internationally. He won the American Alliance of
Theatre and Education Special Recognition Award in 2003. Books
include Drama in the Curriculum (1995), Drama and Theatre in
Education: Contemporary Research (1996) and Drama as Social
Intervention (2006). His research interests focus on Applied Drama
and the role of narrative theory in drama.
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ArtsPraxis
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the evolution of significant findings made within
the context of a doctoral research project and the structures that
developed to share these findings through workshops for students and
teachers. As the research concerned an 1838 Australian Aboriginal
massacre and the construction of a memorial to commemorate this
event one hundred and sixty-two years later, the aim of the project was
to locate a reconciliation narrative. The project failed to do so, because
ultimately in the words of the participants the memorial was seen as a
beginning and not an ending.
Nevertheless this understanding did deliver powerful insights into
the complex nature of reconciliation within a dominant settler culture.
And it was felt that sharing these insights was worth pursuing.
Central to the doctoral research was the creation of a verbatim
theatre play, therefore the workshops relied on drama techniques to
establish through affect new ways of knowing shared history. However
the execution of the content proved challenging. Because of the way
settler history continues to be understood, engagement with the
intellect via political correctness as opposed to the imagination was
24
Linden Wilkinson
INTRODUCTION
This paper begins with a discussion focusing on the development of a
cross-cultural verbatim play about an Australian Aboriginal massacre
at Myall Creek and the building of a memorial one hundred and sixty-
two years later to commemorate the atrocity. As a non-Aboriginal
playwright and researcher I assumed at the outset that the memorial
signified a story about closure. However the play, a doctoral project,
failed to find a reconciliation narrative, as intended, but the research
that contributed to the play’s developmental process revealed there did
exist a reconciliation preposition: the word ‘with’. This discovery, the
importance of the preposition ‘with’, resolved the thesis and arguably
advanced a more accessible and therefore more powerful bridge-
builder in the decolonizing space than the investigation of an existing
story (Aigner et al, 2014; Wilkinson, 2014). Reconciliation cannot be
just one story.
Because this discovery occurred through performance, a
collaborative arts practice, the opportunity arose to construct and
deliver a series of drama workshops for drama teachers and students.
The workshops were designed to explore the reconciliatory possibilities
suggested by the research findings and were to be delivered by myself
in partnership with Drama Educator Hannah Brown. Therefore after
addressing some pivotal moments in the journey towards the
recognition of ‘with’ in the research field, this paper then considers the
content, the intent and the efficacy of the workshops.
Finally this paper concludes with a reflection on those cautionary
responses to the workshop exercises, which, when they did arise, in
effect inhibited collaboration. Passivity fuelled by divergent
interpretations of political correctness proved challenging, particularly
when cognition was allowed to dominate affect and debate diffused the
workshop exercises. The cross-cultural field in the colonizer/colonized
context is undeniably one of confrontation but also one of humour and
hope; it is, I suggest, the very lack of safety in this space that, with
trust, speeds connectivity. The question this paper therefore considers
25
The Long Game
27
The Long Game
WAKING UP TO HISTORY
My doctoral play, Today We’re Alive, was first read publicly at Myall
Creek on a Sunday morning in 2011 in an isolated tin shed situated in
north-west NSW, thirty-five kilometres from the tiny township of
Bingara and over six hundred kilometres from Sydney. The tin shed
has great community significance: it is the memorial hall built in 1923
on the banks of Myall Creek and it is dedicated to the local men of
another century, who never returned from World War 1.
Just five hundred metres away from the memorial hall, the
memorial to the Myall Creek massacre of 1838 snakes its way along a
ridge. The massacre, the slaughter of twenty-eight Weraerai old men,
women and children, is said to have taken place on the slopes below.
It is the only Aboriginal massacre in Australian history where some but
not all of the perpetrators were punished. Eleven of the twelve
perpetrators were arrested and seven of those were hanged; the four
who survived custody were released quietly back into society two
months after the hangings, so great was the uproar caused by the
unique judgement that called for white lives for black deaths.
All subsequent massacres went underground and despite the
existence of court records, it took over one hundred and sixty years for
this massacre site to be openly recognised. The committee of
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members, who created this memorial
over an eighteen-months’ period from 1998 to 2000 remain passionate
about its significance and its contribution to the national psyche.
The doctoral play was, and remains, verbatim text derived from
interviews with twenty Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants, most
of whom are still committee members. The play’s story, in this first
draft, arced from first contact in 1788 to the first commemorative
service at the memorial in 2000. The words of the play text faithfully
conveyed different versions of events but through performance it
became clear not all events had equal, linear, causal significance. For
this first reading the performers embodied culture not characters; with
occasional exceptions when documentary tracts were included, the
voices of the actors were the voices of the characters. Despite being
buried in the data the brutal truth of colonization emerged during this
28
Linden Wilkinson
8 “Letitia” and “Sally” are not the research participants’ real names. As an undertaking
for research purposes, their privacy was protected. However in the script extracts
included in this paper the actors’ real names are used, as the script at this early point
did not have characters.
29
The Long Game
Gen: When Letitia met Sally not one person didn’t cry.
Anna: Sally told me when we were alone, she said: I’ve never had
a sister but I consider you now my blood sister. So that was
special; that was really special.
Lily: You know, you don’t expect things to be done for Aboriginal
people.
Anna: Somebody said it must have been very cathartic for you,
but not really, no. My family broke up over it. They wouldn’t accept
it. They didn’t want people to know they were descended from a
murderer…My first response was I didn’t want to know, it was
shameful but I knew I couldn’t let it alone. There was something in
me that had to do something about it. I did feel that very, very
strongly.
Lily: So what I thought when Sally hugged Letitia was like the
occupants of the house, the descendants, the ones who we’d
come in and done a home invasion on actually in that embrace
was like reconnecting with the land. It’s like through that embrace,
it’s like through that, connection and belonging to Australia is
really established. And it can only be done through Aboriginal
people.
30
Linden Wilkinson
31
The Long Game
instruments of inclusion.
The second exercise involves a verbatim speech from Today
We’re Alive, a story about an experience of Aboriginal spirituality from
the perspective of a non-Aboriginal man. It happens to be a beautiful
speech, rich in hesitation, filled with awe. Participants are grouped in
pairs and are invited to re-interpret this speech, filling in the hesitations
with internal dialogue. This exercise reflects those learnings from the
research field, which convey new understandings about the
relationship between the spoken word and silence in mapping cultural
change. Articulating what is unspoken opens participants up to the
possibilities of uncertainty as being a site of transformation; discoveries
made in this exercise, experienced as shifts in body language, in facial
expression, in breathing, flow into the workshop’s conclusion.
The final exercise involves using verbatim text, interwoven as a
dialogue, which has been taken from the play and adapted for the
exercise. “Jayson” is an Aboriginal artist, “Peggy” a non-Aboriginal
activist and both want to build a memorial but at the scene’s opening
neither of them are looking for partnership with each other:
Jayson: You walk away. Close the door. But in their absence
you’re glad to get away from those eyes. Eh? Those eyes –
watching.
33
The Long Game
other.
Eager to pursue an outcome, we forgot that in trauma time there is
no closure; that reconciliation is a process. And it is through time,
through relationship and through the shared imagination in the cross-
cultural space that we find new ways of knowing.
CONCLUSION
What the workshops reveal is the challenge embedded in initiatives
that have a reconciliatory intent, where judgement, unexpressed anger,
unexamined arrogance and determined detachment can co-exist with
an expressed awareness of injustice and inequality. In terms of
attitudes and behaviours there could well be examined and
unexamined aspects of ourselves operating simultaneously. “Letitia”
might say: ‘There was something in me that had to do something about
it’ but in practice not everyone responds to the call in the same way.
What we discovered in the workshops is that creating a sense of
safety, where participants were free to express themselves through a
commitment to the tasks, does not reside in words. Our instructions as
facilitators, our reassurances, our shared dialogue with participants did
not always guarantee commitment. Safety, like trust, it seems, stems
from being given the freedom to imagine interior and exterior worlds
and the time to create them. On reflection, we recognise that there are
multiple possibilities influencing reconciliatory initiatives; part of the
reconciliatory process might well be a simultaneous reconciliation with
our divided selves. Because no-one starts as neutral.
SUGGESTED CITATION
Wilkinson, L. (2017). The long game: Progressing the work from thesis
to practice. In Arts Praxis, 4 (1), 24-37.
REFERENCES
Aigner, G. et al (2014). Lost conversations – finding new ways for
black and white Australians to lead together. Creative Commons.
Alexander, B. K. (2005). Performing ethnography: the re-enacting and
inciting of culture. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.),
Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.) (411-442). Thousand
35
The Long Game
36
Linden Wilkinson
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
After a three decade-long career as a performer and television writer
and editor, Linden Wilkinson returned to Sydney University in 2003 to
attain a Drama teaching diploma. She completed her Master’s degree
in 2008 using verbatim theatre as a research modality to investigate
long term trauma and commenced her doctoral study in that same
year. Now published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2016), her
doctoral thesis again uses verbatim theatre to explore cross-cultural
content in the Australian context. She is an independent arts
practitioner and teacher and is currently developing a performance
project about military personnel transitioning out of the Australian
Army.
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ArtsPraxis
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the on-going development of a Drama for Life-
Skills project in Lagos, Nigeria, which embraces aspects of applied &
educational theatre practices. Using neurodevelopmental disability
assessments and standards, the project creates a simultaneous
balance of teaching and learning life skills in the disability community.
It focuses on work currently being done with students of the Children’s
Development Centre Lagos, incorporating theatre practices into the
daily living activities of adolescents with disabilities with the goal of
gaining increased life skills. In developing their most recent production,
Discovering a Planet of Inclusion, members of the Centre team up with
teaching artists, therapists and community members to teach, learn,
practice and incorporate life skills with theatrical performances
designed for schools and community centers throughout Nigeria.
Company members with disabilities (including autism, cerebral palsy,
and various genetic disorders) perform with the hope of showcasing
their abilities, ending stigma, and inspiring opportunities for the
disability community throughout the nation. The paper will include
38
Kaitlin O. K. Jaskolski
The sun stabs through the open windows of a large community center;
the air is stale, humid and filled with scents of petrol, exhaust and the
sweat of the 300 or so people crammed inside its doors. Outside, the
Islamic Call to Prayer beacons from the patch of concrete being used
as a makeshift mosque, while sounds of a sermon are garbled
deafeningly through the amplifier of a Pentecostal church across the
street. The community center is surrounded by traffic “go-slows” (traffic
jams), with buses stuffed to capacity by people and goods to sell at the
nearby market. Hundreds, if not thousands of drivers, honking horns or
yelling out of the windows mix with the sounds of street vendors
hawking their wares in a multitude of languages: English, Igbo, Yoruba,
Hausa and a mix of Pidgin. Children in wheelchairs or homemade
scooters tap on the car windows, begging for food or money; they are
patently ignored or worse, berated. There are people everywhere. This
is Lagos. This is Nigeria.
The crowd inside the community center sweats patiently as a
father pontificates on the stigma of disability and lists all the things his
son cannot do. Suddenly, a blur of cell phones are raised and aimed at
5 Nigerian astronauts, donned in green and white papier-mâché
helmets, as they take the stage. The crowd goes wild: cheering and
yelling as the astronauts begin to train using physical therapy
exercises. The audience stands and sings along with the national
anthem before the astronauts ready for their first countdown to blast-
off. Three galaxies, dressed in black capes decked with stars, dance
and parade planet-lanterns as the astronauts leave earth and discover
a new planet: the Planet of Inclusion. The crowd cheers as the
Nigerian flag is wedged into the sand, and screams with laughter as
mysterious space creatures surprise the brave astronauts. The space
creatures are familiar, dressed in colorful Nigerian ankara fabric but
have a surplus of extra arms, legs, mouths and eyes. The astronauts
39
Discovering a Planet of Inclusion
are afraid at first, but show compassion to the space creatures and
soon the whole group is drumming, dancing, teaching each other to
cook, paint, clean or make beads. The audience is shocked; not
because of the extraterrestrial experience in front of them, but because
they have not seen an astronaut with Autism Spectrum Disorder teach
someone how to cook. Nor has a space creature with Down Syndrome
graced the stage with such incredible dance moves while an astronaut,
whose family believes she cannot speak, sings with heart and soul
over the cacophony of noise surrounding the community center. The
first performance of the Children’s Developmental Centre’s Planet of
Inclusion ends with a standing ovation.
The response of families, teachers and advocates after the first
performance is not typical in Nigeria. People with disabilities are
stigmatized, feared, and often kept separate from mainstream society.
The stigma of disability in Nigeria creates fear and misunderstanding
due to cultural and religious beliefs of sin, witchcraft and shame.
Therapist Maureen Chubamachie explains Nigerian stigma
surrounding disability: “To the elite, it is biological, genetic, but to the
common Nigerians, the masses, it is a curse, it is evil, it is punishment
for the sins of the parents or ancestors. It is believed that they bring
bad luck” (2016). In the commotion following the first performance, a
mother asks, “what juju [witchcraft] have you used to cure my child?”
then used to teach peers, families, and communities about the abilities
of the performance company.
Drama for Life-Skills overlaps methods of teaching life skills to
special needs populations, including applied and educational theatre
praxis and disability arts performance, without specifically fitting into
any precise category. Though the foundation of Drama for Life-Skills is
heavily weighted in Boal, there are many influences from Applied
Theatre and the Disability Arts Movement. It is important to
acknowledge areas of resonance and divergence within each method.
With this in mind, it is essential to stipulate three critical aspects of
Drama for Life-Skills: neurodevelopmental disorders, a definition of life
skills, and task analysis.
41
Discovering a Planet of Inclusion
42
Kaitlin O. K. Jaskolski
I=Imitative prompt
Objective: Able to independently take a bath
G= Gesture
3 Turn on water
6 Remove clothing
15 Open drain
18 Hang up towel
19 Put on pajamas
% Independent
Assessment for Functional Living Skills (Partington & Muller, pg. 50, 2012)
43
Discovering a Planet of Inclusion
45
Discovering a Planet of Inclusion
47
Discovering a Planet of Inclusion
student standing next to her mother, and asks her to tell her mom
about how the drama was practiced. There is only silence and nodding
of her head. It appears that the brave, beautiful astronaut is no longer
verbal and obviously uncomfortable with the present conversation. Our
work is not complete; the successful life skills demonstrated on the
stage must transfer to improving the quality of everyday life.
The significance of the Drama for Life-Skills process is its
contribution to establishing a basis for cross-cultural applications of the
drama process with special needs outside of the western context. The
nature of the work being done furthers the field by adding to the almost
nonexistent dramatic work with disabilities being done in West Africa.
The use of AFLS allows a standardized structure of tangible life-skills,
the ability to track and document what works and does not work with
each person, and a way to substantiate evidence for drama
intervention. We are still collecting qualitative and quantitative data,
receiving feedback from parents and the community, and analyzing the
AFLS data sheets in order to gain a full understanding of the outcomes
of Drama for Life-Skills interventions. Though the research is ongoing,
there are some outcomes that are already becoming apparent. Life
skills task mastery has risen exponentially at the CDC. The amount of
teacher and therapist turnover has decreased, and staff are more
engaged in lesson planning and assessments. Teachers and
therapists have confessed to increased levels of excitement in
planning tasks and lessons, in order to challenge students and add
more scenes to the performances. The school and preschool students
are forming bonds and relationships with their peer-mentors in the
adult unit. Parents have expressed their pride and support for the
program, some asking for the intervention performances to spread to
the younger units. And perhaps most notably, adults and adolescents
involved in the performances show increased signs of confidence,
community and self-advocacy throughout the school and curriculum.
As Drama for Life-Skills continues to develop and the
performances created from the process expand, the following
questions arise, guiding the next steps of research: Once these skills
are acquired, how do we break the barriers of stigma in Nigeria society
to allow these skills to flourish? How do we educate and inspire the
families and the communities? Nigeria has gained a passionate
disability inclusive theatre company full of potential. We are creating
opportunities for Nigerians with neurodevelopmental disabilities, and
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Discovering a Planet of Inclusion
SUGGESTED CITATION
Jaskolski, K. O. K. (2017). Discovering a planet of inclusion: Drama for
life-skills in Nigeria. Arts Praxis, 4 (1), 38-53.
REFERENCES
Akinadayomi, Y. (2016). Personal communication & CDC interviews.
Autism Speaks. (2016, December 12). Task analysis & applied
behavior analysis.
Bailey, S. (2010). Barrier-free theatre: Including everyone in theatre
arts—in schools, recreation, and arts programs—regardless of
(dis)ability. Enumclaw, WA: Idyll Arbor, Inc.
Benz, M. R. & Linstrom, I. (2003). Transition focused education. The
Journal of Special Education, 37 (3), 174-183.
Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the oppressed. New York: Theatre
Communications Group.
Boal, A. (1992). Games for actors and non-actors (2nd ed.). London:
Routledge.
Boal, A. (2006). The aesthetics of the oppressed. New York:
Routledge.
Campbell, A. (2013). Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company:
The politics of making. In C. McAvinchey (Ed.), Performance and
community: Commentary and case studies (75-104). New York:
Bloomsbury.
Cattanach, A. (1992). Drama for people with special needs. London: A
& C Black Limited.
Chubmachie, M. (2016). Personal communication & CDC Interview.
Corbett, B. A., Key, A., Qualls, L., Fecteau, S., Newson, C., Coke, C. &
Yoder, P. (2016). Improvement in social competence using a
randomized trial of a theatre intervention for children with autism
spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental
Disorders, 46 (2), 658-672.
Corbett, B. A., Swain, D. M., Coke, C., Simon, D., Newsom, C.,
Houchins-Juarez, N., Jenson, A., Wang, L. & Song, Y. (2014).
50
Kaitlin O. K. Jaskolski
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Discovering a Planet of Inclusion
52
Kaitlin O. K. Jaskolski
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Kaitlin Kearns Jaskolski is a PhD candidate at the University of Cape
Town, South Africa. She received her MA in Educational Theatre at
New York University in 2013 and her BA in Directing and Design at
Pepperdine University in 2008. Her research reflects interests in cross-
cultural inclusive theatre, with a focus on teacher training and cognitive
benefits of theatre intervention for adolescents with developmental
disorders. Since 2013, Kate has been a teaching-artist and educational
consultant in Lagos, Nigeria. Prior moving to the African continent,
Kate founded the Westside Inclusive Theatre in Houston, and trained
with inclusive theatres in Los Angeles, New York, the Dominican
Republic, and around West Africa.
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ArtsPraxis
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
Performance is social theory, or it can become so, when we use it as a
means to understand social phenomena rather than merely viewing it
as a spectacle or for entertainment (Brook, 1972). Theatre that
explores domestic violence (Welsh, 2014), homelessness (Welsh,
2014) or the plight of refugees (Robinson, 2015) are all examples of
dramatic processes becoming social theory. There are many more
examples such as the work of Lloyd Jones or Pina Bausch, both of
whom use experimental theatre as a means of educating,
understanding and criticising society (Marshall, 2002; Pendergast,
2001). This article explores the relationship between theatre and
education in three somewhat diverse contexts. Firstly, the
autobiographical monologue, The Outcaste Weakly Poet Stage Show,
describes experience in a conversational style. Experience and
conversation are inevitably educational, that is, being is learning and
listening is learning. Secondly, I explore the practice of monologue
writing with a sample group of Australian school students on the
subject of social labelling, reinforcing the idea that theatre practice is
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Scott Welsh
55
The Evolution of Monologue as an Education
for student learning in the drama classroom but also expands the
potential of drama to act as education, building on the work of
McKenna (2003) and Haseman (2006) and the tradition of Brecht.
McKenna, for example, claims that ‘the embodiment of being and
performance’ ought to be viewed as ‘ways of being and knowing’
perhaps implying performance can be ontological and epistemological
(McKenna, 2003, p.2). He describes his methodology as performance,
that is, an action method or practice-based research. I claim, however,
throughout this article and in other aspects of my practice, sitting and
writing real fiction in fact involves reflecting on our personal experience
and our engagement with the world. It could be considered mere
journal writing, were it not for our attempt to hear the voice of an ‘other’
in the writing process and document this ‘hearing’ in a performance
context, whether that be a theatre or a drama classroom.
The importance of lucid, vibrant and meaningful Arts practice in
education is broadly recognised in contemporary drama education
literature (Ewing, 2010). In his article exploring the potential of
practice-led research, Haseman makes this assessment regarding
‘reflexive research’:
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The Evolution of Monologue as an Education
colleagues about what theatre ought to be doing and that, rather than
merely entertaining, it can also seek to invite a community
contemplation of the issues a play explores. This echoes the concerns
of many other practitioners, including Kaufman, referred to above
(Kaufman, 2001). To this end, Peter Brook’s argument against the form
of theatre and what he perceives as an over-emphasis on production
concerns (Brook, 1972), in favour of the literary tradition of ‘drama’,
plays with and shifts inherent power structures in contemporary theatre
practice. Like Brecht, I claim that the purpose of theatre performance
should be to educate ‘consciously’, ‘suggestively’ and ‘descriptively’
(cited in Willett, 1974, p.26).
Monologue
People, people, they think I’m stupid, not smart they think. He’s
dumb, they say. But they don’t know man. They have no idea. I
just can’t say what I want to say the words they hard not easy to
understand. In my own language, I could be a smart person, very
famous. But in English not much makes sense. In my own
language I could write anything I want to or I could say things to
make them make sense to you.
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The Evolution of Monologue as an Education
struggles with the sense that others perceive him/her as ‘stupid’ but the
narrative quickly turns its attention to the perceptions of the student,
who declares him/herself misunderstood, ‘They have no idea’. The
problem is then identified as belonging to language, or the ‘words’ of
others. Finally, as an audience, we find ourselves becoming more and
more distant and alien, as the student explains an unfulfilled desire to
be understood and how the familiar world of home becomes a symbol
of one’s own alienation, ‘No-one speaks this language at home.’ This
denotes the student experiencing social alienation like two ends of a
burning candle. He/she simultaneously identifies the world of school as
foreign and, through this sense of social distance comes to know that
his/her familiar world at home is in fact foreign, at least in the eyes of
others and indeed in the world in which he must now survive.
This raises several questions: How is the playwright’s practice in
the theatre educational? How can monologue-writing, for example, be
used in educational settings not just to learn about theatre and drama
but to learn about the world, ourselves and others? I believe there is
certainly educational value in the form of documentary theatre referred
to above, where we used the street poet example, but this becomes
quite another process when we contemplate the formal transformation
of the theatre-making/monologue-writing process from an arts-context,
that appears to educate in the manner that is referred to by Brecht and
others when they explicitly state that the purpose of theatre is to
consciously educate (Willett, 1978), to an educational context where
artistic processes are used to educate.
The process of collecting material from the drama educational
setting of the classroom and transforming it into a play can be
conceived in the same way as the poet example, where material is
collected from experience on the street and then written into a
theatrical presentation. In the drama classroom, the context is one of
learning. From the perspective of the classroom teacher or the
students, the goal of participating in the activity of monologue writing is
not in fact to create a monologue. The educational process is
paramount and one of the selling points of the process in terms of
pedagogy was how it facilitated learning about the self, in a space
where participants were free to express themselves with minimal
consequences. We had created a space where the distinction between
what was real and what was fictional had been blurred. When
participants spoke, it may have been their own voice or it may have
60
Scott Welsh
been one they created. In what follows, the student participant speaks
of an adolescent girl and her own relationship with her body:
Student Monologue 7
Student 7: My brother calls me fat. He’s a li’l shit. I get in trouble
for calling him a li’l shit but how much damage is done by that
compared to him calling me fat?!?! It’s not his fault. He’s nine. He
probably doesn’t even know what ‘fat’ is. Do I really know? Why
does it hurt so much, being called ‘fat’? I mean do I feel fat?
Sometimes. Am I really fat, though? I look in the mirror at myself
sometimes and I can hear a little voice in my head saying ‘Fat, fat,
fat…’ and then I’ve got him in the background right behind me and
just as the imaginary voice fades out, I hear the little shit and see
him smirking behind me in the mirror. So I’m not even looking at
myself in the mirror. I’m looking at him! And maybe I’m seeing
what he thinks!! He says I’m ugly but it doesn’t matter because
he’s nine! He calls me lazy because I sleep til midday. But one
day he will grow and so will I and I will shed my puppy fat and see
myself as beautiful. He will want to know me because I’ll be very
cool and I’ll want to know him because I’ll need my brother. But
what if he’s gone too far for me to love him anymore? What if I just
can’t trust him? I get in trouble for sleeping so late. Nobody would
even notice if he didn’t bring it up! He knows this. He thinks it’s
funny. Because he’s nine.
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The Evolution of Monologue as an Education
It’s me that does the hurting in my own thoughts about myself, not
his names or labels. I remember being nine. I remember seeing
my mother look at herself in the mirror, back when I was a child
and she was a woman. Before I entered this, this age of
uncertainty. Anyhow, she’d stare at herself and describe herself
as fat, grab tiny handfuls of skin and call them flab, call herself
ten-tonne Tessy when she was all skin and bones!! What I can’t
work out is when I turned from being nine and knowing the
objective truth of what the image in the mirror looked like!
CONCLUSION
The relationship between education and theatre in my practice appears
to exist at its very foundations. This is apparent in the example from
direct practice, explored at the opening of this article. That is, the
practice is educational a long time before it enters educational
contexts. However, the processes involved in collecting primary
materials, whether they be from experience on the street or from
educational encounters in a drama classroom, are remarkably similar
and support Brecht’s claim that theatre ‘educates; consciously,
suggestively descriptively’ (Willett, 1978). To this we could add that it
also educates practically or in practice.
Particular performance types are, by their nature, social theory.
The practice of some forms of theatre such as social or documentary
theatre, embodiment or ‘real fiction’ is about making an impact in a
social and conversational context rather than creating an artifice or
‘entertainment’ (Brook, 1972). Education occurs in these contexts
because theatre is educational. Therefore, it seems a natural part of
theatre’s evolution from the stage to education for performance to be
incorporated into social learning in secondary school classrooms and a
teacher-training context.
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Scott Welsh
SUGGESTED CITATION
Welsh, S. (2017). The evolution of monologue as an education. Arts
Praxis, 4 (1), 54-64.
REFERENCES
Brook, P. (1972). The empty space. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Cerabona, R. (2015, March 20). Ian Robinson play The Process
ridicules harsh refugee policies. Sydney Morning Herald.
Depalma, R., & Atkinson, E. (2009). Interrogating heteronormativity in
schools: The no outsiders project. London: Trentham Books.
Kaufman, M. (2001). The Laramie project: Alexandria, VA: Alexander
Street Press.
Marshall, J. (2002). La Mama: Psycho-physical. Real Time Arts, 51.
Pendergast, D. (2002, October 10). Derrida and writing: Notes on Pina
Bausch [Web log post].
Welsh, S. (2009). Barcode 30!!7 307.
Welsh, S. [TheBadgerscott]. (2012, November 8). The Outcaste
System Smith-Dundler-Welsh [Video file]. YouTube.
Welsh, S. (2014). The outcaste weakly poet stage show. La Mama
Winter Season.
Welsh, S. [Scott Welsh]. (2014, November 19). The Outcaste Weakly
Poet Stage Show Part 1 @ La Mama Theatre 2014 [Video file].
YouTube.
Willett, J. (1978). Brecht on theatre. London: Eyre Methuen.
63
The Evolution of Monologue as an Education
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Scott Welsh is a poet and playwright. He combines his role as a social
theorist with practice as an actor and playwright. His plays have been
performed at Fringe festivals, La Mama Theatre, on ABC Radio
National (‘The No Teeth People’ with Dusk Dundler 2007/2012), The
Sydney Fringe Festival, Arts Victoria’s Testing Grounds, Geelong After
Dark, The Newtown Socialist Bookshop and on the streets under the
Martin Luther King Sign in King Street, Newtown. He holds a Master in
Philosophical Studies from Deakin University and recently submitted
his PhD thesis in Education at Victoria University.
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ArtsPraxis
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
Dramaturgy is often considered the work of the ‘neutral outside eye’,
but in devised theatre, the dramaturg is embedded within. This
requires creative solutions for how a devising dramaturg might
navigate engagement with the totality of their work—the piece, the
devising process, and the context—from their own position within all
three. In this article, I will recount and re-examine my work as
dramaturg-researcher devising Martha and the Event Horizon. The
research inquiry suggests a praxis of dramaturgy-as-research inspired
by Home-Cook’s model of noise as a function of attention and
Sullivan’s (2003) poststructuralist analysis of queerness as both being
and doing, wherein the devising dramaturg embodies the queer doing
to take an external perspective on their work via the critical context.
Examinations of the devisor’s relationship to spectators by practitioner-
researchers Goode (2011) and Reason (2010) respond to the research
question and suggest a non-linear model within which the audience
experiences meaning through Boenisch’s (2010) reflexive parallax.
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Noise as Queer Dramaturgy
9 This breakdown of dramaturgical tasks comes from White (1995). This breakdown is
not well-suited to the dramaturgy practiced by dramaturgs in today’s (often non-textual)
performance contexts. It is, however, useful here as this article focuses on the
relationship between audience reception and the creative process. It is worth noting
that in the United States in particular, dramaturgy is fused with textual theatre to the
point that, even in the thorough What is Dramaturgy? (Cardullo, 2000), not once does
an American dramaturg discuss their work outside the context of plays and text.
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Jessica M. Kaufman
10 Martha and the Event Horizon was devised by [Alter] (brackets are part of company
name) at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and performed at the
Camden People’s Theatre in August 2015 as part of the Camden Fringe Festival.
Martha was directed by Roxana Haines and performed by Jess Kaufman and Griffyn
Gilligan, devised by all three.
11 For this project, I defined children as under age 12, teens as 12-19, and adults as
20+.
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Noise as Queer Dramaturgy
12I attended Goode’s “Make a mark, make a mess, make amends” workshop at the
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in October 2014. Citations referring to
mark-mess-amends are taken from my personal notes on the workshop (Kaufman,
2014) including direct quotes from Goode which are marked as such.
68
Jessica M. Kaufman
on prompts I had prepared such as, “My work is ___”, “My audience
is___”, and “___ is crucial in devising”. We then isolated what was
meaningful to us as a group from the bank, our field of noise. Words
like “challenge” and “questioning” led us to “queerness”, and “access”
and “self-sufficiency” led us to young audiences; after lengthy
discussion, “collage”, “constellation”, and “post-dramatic theatre” were
left off our final list (Kaufman, 2015). We learned what was going to be
part of our process and work by actively attending what was outside it:
the noise. Whether aural, linguistic, or dramaturgical, noise reflects and
clarifies structures of meaning, as it did for [Alter] when we discovered
our initial intersection of noise, queerness and young audiences.
A brief foray into queer studies via Sullivan’s (2003)
poststructuralist analysis reveals how one might take this approach—
defining a structure by examining what was excluded—as a model for
meaning-making in the dramaturgy-as-research process. Queer
theory, as analyzed by Sullivan, offers a further consideration of noise
as not just a dramaturgical being but a dramaturgical doing, as
reflected in Goode’s practice and mine. Sullivan analyses queer theory
in the context of Foucauldian poststructuralism, arguing that because
power and resistance (in queer theory, normalization and queerness)
cannot exist except in relation to each other, the “queer” is both that
which is excluded from a structure (a being) and a positionality that can
be taken with regard to a structure (a doing) (Sullivan, 2003, p. 56).
Thus, noise is not just that which is outside the dramaturgical structure,
but a queer dramaturgical action. For example, in mark-mess-amends,
Goode generates ‘noise’ (a being) and then tries on the ‘noise’ material
in order to clarify his values in the work (a doing). In my earlier
example from my devising process with Martha, I noted that “post-
dramatic theatre” was intentionally left out: Martha was driven by
narrative, a decision I was not consciously aware we had made until
several weeks after that initial meeting (Kaufman, 2015). The bank of
rejected values (i.e. post-dramatic theatre) is noise, being. My act of
examining that noise and noting how that clarifies our group
dramaturgical structures (i.e. practicing dramaturgy-as-research) is a
queer doing that allows me to challenge and clarify the structures of
meaning at hand. Naming the noise and then taking a queer
positionality to attend to it deconstructs and clarifies my practice with
[Alter] as a dramaturg of devised TYA.
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Noise as Queer Dramaturgy
71
Noise as Queer Dramaturgy
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Noise as Queer Dramaturgy
CONCLUSION
When beginning the analytical phase of my research into the
dramaturgy of Martha and the Event Horizon’s devising process, I
turned to the themes of our piece, noise and queerness, for inspiration.
Following Home-Cook’s (2011) model where noise and sound are
interdependent structures defined by attention, I began to re-examine
the structures in Martha’s devising process. Then, turning to Sullivan’s
13See diagram on p. 37, followed by in-depth discussion of the key terms on pp. 40-
47.
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Jessica M. Kaufman
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Noise as Queer Dramaturgy
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Research was originally conducted at the Royal Central School of
Speech and Drama under the supervision of Lynne Kendrick, Nick
Wood, and Mischa Twitchin. Additional thanks to Deirdre McLaughlin
for her mentorship, and to Roxana Haines and Griffyn Gilligan, co-
creators of Martha and the Event Horizon, for their immeasurable
contributions to this research.
SUGGESTED CITATION
Kaufman, J. M. (2017). Noise as queer dramaturgy: towards a reflexive
dramaturgy-as-research praxis in devised theatre for young
audiences. In Arts Praxis, 4 (1), 65-78.
REFERENCES
Boenisch, P. M. (2010). Towards a theatre of encounter and
experience: Reflexive dramaturgies and classic
texts. Contemporary Theatre Review, 20 (2), 162-172.
Bryon, E. (2014). Integrative performance: Practice and theory for the
interdisciplinary performer. London: Routledge.
Cardullo, B. (2000). What is dramaturgy? (3rd ed.) New York: Peter
Lang International Academic Publishers.
Goode, C. (2011). The audience is listening. Contemporary Theatre
Review, 21 (4). 464-471.
Home-Cook, G. (2011). Aural acts: Theatre and the phenomenology of
listening. In L. Kendrick and D. Roesner (Eds.), Theatre noise:
The sound of performance (pp. 97-110). Newcastle upon Tyne,
UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Kaufman, J. (2014). Term one. Unpublished personal journal. Royal
Central School of Speech and Drama.
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Jessica M. Kaufman
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Noise as Queer Dramaturgy
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jessica M. Kaufman is a theatre and performance artist with credits
ranging from Off-Broadway and US national tours to the Camden
People’s Theatre (UK). Current projects include a musical adaptation
of the graphic novel series Hereville, a performance intervention for the
U.S./Mexico border with Mexican puppeteer Ana Diaz, and a deaf-
accessible play for families with The Deaf + Hearing Ensemble (UK).
Her writing has been published in Theatre and Performance Design
and she co-edited a special issue of Connection Science on Embodied
Cognition, Acting and Performance (2017). BFA University of Miami,
MA Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
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ArtsPraxis
Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
There are several theories as to what constitutes children’s theatre.
This diversity exists because the term is used as a literal description of
theatre that involves children in one way or the other – theatre for
children, theatre with children, and theatre by children. This complexity
means there is a need to specify the sense in which the term is being
used. There is no universal agreement within academic discourse on
the parameters in which the term should be defined. While some
scholars suggest age as a defining factor, others think it should be
decided by the performers who design a piece of theatre based on
their knowledge of the children audience. What is children’s theatre?
What should be the level of involvement for children? This paper is not
a systematic review of the discipline and it is not an attempt to
re/define children’s theatre. Rather, it is about a pedagogical approach
to creating a piece of theatre for children between the age of 4 and 10
that can enable them to learn and be morally developed while being
entertained at the same time. In this paper children’s theatre is the
term that will be used throughout.
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Children’s Theatre
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Children’s Theatre
Wood and Grant charge the children’s theatre practitioners to give their
audience the best experience possible. Children’s theatre needs to be
seen as a discipline itself, and as a result, a high level of
professionalism must be part of its creation by employing all the
techniques and principles in theatre generally. There is a generally
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Children’s Theatre
accepted view that children will not tolerate ‘poor’ production (Klein &
Schonmann, 2009). Children are open-minded. They do not sit, listen
and decode the performance as adults do. They can release their
feelings openly by reacting to a change in anything that interests them.
Children do not pretend. They will react if they are bored. An
awareness of this is therefore important for children’s theatre
practitioners. If we think that children’s theatre is not as challenging as
adult’s theatre, this does not only suggest that we do not value that
particular area of theatre, but that we do not value children and their
experience of their world (Gardner, 2013). If we spend too much time
and money in creating, writing and putting an adult theatre together,
the same must be done for children’s theatre.
may end up sending their children to schools that reflect their lifestyle.
Children who frequently travel abroad with their parents on vacation
may be exposed to a new way of thinking. There are some
communities that are more multicultural, made up of different races,
ethnics and religions, often with their own cultural values, belief
systems, myths and fairytales. In some family, religion is a sensitive
and serious issue and children are brought up within a strict religious
practice, which cannot be compromised. The religious and global
views of parents are likely to shape the life of the children, and thus
play a key part in the things that interest them.
Ethical factors are things that can be seen as morally right. Ethics
simply means doing the right thing. However, what is morally right for
one family may not be necessarily morally right for another.
Furthermore, our understanding of rightness varies. Consequently,
there is no clear-cut blueprint of ethics that can cater for all children
audience and their behaviour. Some ethical issues are religiously,
spiritually, culturally, and socially constructed, and this varies from one
family to another. How children talk and react to one another is guided
by the ethical factors that surround their upbringing. All these are likely
to contribute to children’s interests, and as a result, should reinforce
the purpose of a children’s theatre. Therefore, it is vital for professional
adult actors and practitioners to be aware of the social and ethical
factors of a group of children so as to produce a piece of theatre that
interest them. To this end, they must see themselves as researchers
and not just as entertainers so that they can learn more about their
audience and also improve their own practice.
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Children’s Theatre
other task is to identify the target group – children that will benefit from
that project, including their age range. With this level of differences,
what is the strategy for creating a piece of theatre for a children
audience? A piece of research may be necessary as to understand
what interests a particular children audience. Children’s theatre
practitioners need to be skilled researchers. This can help them to plan
the best performances and experiences for their audience.
The research methodology can be decided by the group, but an
interview with the children, however stressful, is likely to lead to an
honest opinion. Practitioners decide on the number of research
questions but these should be comprehensive. Children are usually
honest, and if given the opportunity, they will speak their mind freely.
They need to approach this from the perspective of a researcher.
Therefore, they should be mindful of the research ethics, thus the
consent of the parents must be sought. Though children are the
primary focus, a piece of research can also be conducted among the
parents and teachers. Practitioners can gain a deeper understanding
of the children and their current thinking by watching, listening and
talking to them and their families. The nursery rhyme or fairytale books
they enjoy reading or listening to can be useful in gathering the
information. Practitioners also need to be skilled observers and
listeners. A visit to the playground to watch how children behave in a
free environment can also be helpful.
The outcome of such research can prove invaluable. A piece of
theatre can then be devised based on their findings. Another aspect of
the research is script development. Both the practitioners and the
children can work in close collaboration on the script. This is
particularly vital in theatre with children and the outcome, from
experience, has always produced an outstanding performance.
Theatre itself is a collaborative form of art work. Children can be
exceptionally active when they are involved in the planning and
developmental process of a programme that interests them. Clinton
also shares this view:
Where young people have been fully consulted and are involved
in developing a programme of arts activity their interest spans the
range of art forms and their commitment is high (1993: 12).
speaks to their world. They can feel empowered when they know that
they are valued. They can be exceptionally active, jumping up and
down, making noise, turning chairs and tables to drums, willing to go at
any length, showing interest in various arts form, singing and dancing.
They do so with great enthusiasm, inspiration and talent. Children are
impressionable. With their minds already set at the theatre they co-
developed, any moral lesson can be embedded in the piece. Moreover,
almost every fairytale teaches some form of morality one way or the
other.
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The morality in children’s theatre can be more effective than the one
learnt in the book. For example, the moral in a children’s theatre could
be that it is always good to be honest with one another. The children
should be able to connect with the performance to be able to learn
from it, hence the need for the entertainment value. Morality can be
taught within the context of entertainment by embedding it in the
conventions. Therefore, some conventions, which are vital to capturing
children’s attention and that, are necessary for children’s theatre as
both entertainment and education or in the 21st century should be
employed. Some of the conventions will be discussed briefly. They can
be embedded in the piece of theatre whether they are part of the
storyline or not. Though some practitioners may or may not include all
of them for their own reasons. They are important and must be studied
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CONCLUSION
The pedagogical approach to creating theatre for children between the
age of 4 and 10 has been briefly discussed. The argument is not that
children’s theatre has to be always educational. Practitioners can
create theatre that entertains only. The overarching argument is that
children’s theatre can be educational and entertaining at the same
time. Children can learn about social and ethical issues and develop
some social skills through the medium of theatre, either by watching or
taking part in it. Moreover, moral lessons are often part of almost every
fairytale. In the same vein, moral lessons can be embedded in
children’s theatre in the context of entertainment. The paper also
suggests that practitioners start to see themselves as educators and
researchers and not just as entertainers. Through research – working,
observing and talking with the target children – they will be able to
have an understanding of what interests the children and plan and
devise a piece of theatre accordingly. Both the practitioners and the
children can learn from each other in the process. The practitioners
can learn more about how children think and speak in different
situations. Children also can begin to learn to develop their
communication skills during the interview session. By working
collaboratively, it is possible that some of the children might develop
their interest in theatre and take it up as a future profession. An
opportunity for children to discuss the morals at the end of the
performance, talking to their favourite characters can also be part of a
children’s theatre. It is high time that children’s theatre is taken
seriously and seen as another medium through which children can be
entertained and educated.
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Eluyefa, D. (2017). Children’s theatre: A brief pedagogical approach.
Arts Praxis, 4 (1), 79-93.
REFERENCES
Bennett, S. (2005). Theatre for children and young people.
Twickenham: Aurora Metro Publications.
Clinton, L. (1993). Community development and the arts. London:
Community Development Foundation Publication.
Dockett, S. (1999). Play with outcomes. Every Child, 5 (3).
Evans, J. (2000). Play to order is no longer play. Every Child, 6 (2).
Gardner, L. (2013). Why children’s theatre matters. The Guardian.
Goldberg, M. (1974). Children’s theatre: A philosophy and a method.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Hamilton, N. & McFarlane, J. (2005). Children learn through play. In
Putting Children First, the Newsletter of the National Childcare
Accreditation Council (NCAC).
Klein, J. & Schonmann, S. (2009). Theorizing aesthetic transactions
from children’s criterial values in theatre for young audience.
Youth Theatre Journal, 23 (1), 60-74.
Maguire, T & Schuitema, k. (2012). Theatre for young audiences: a
critical handbook. London: A Trentham Book, Institute of
Education Press.
Okafor, R. C. (1989). Of ditties, needs and amnesia – music and
primary education in Anambra State, Nigeria. British Journal of
Music Education, 6 (3), 280-303.
Polka Theatre (2017). About us.
Reason, M. (2010). The young audience: Exploring and enhancing
children’s experiences of theatre. Staffordshire: Trentham Books.
Rosenberg, H. S. & Prendergast, C. (1983). Theatre for young people:
A sense of occasion. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston.
Roussou, M. (2004). Learning by doing and learning through play: An
exploration of interactivity in virtual environments for children.
Computers in Entertainment (CIE) – Theoretical and Practical
Computer Applications in Entertainment, 2 (1).
Schonmann, S. (2006). Theatre as a medium for children and young
people: images and observations. Dordrecht, The Netherlands:
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Springer.
Tambling, P. (1990). Performing arts in the primary school. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell Ltd.
The Prince Foundation (2017). Taking children and young people to
the theatre.
Twain, M. (2014). Mark Twain’s letters & speeches. Jazzybee Verlag.
Unicorn Theatre (2017). About us.
Wood, D. & Grant, J. (1997). Theatre for children: A guide to writing,
adapting, directing and acting. London, Faber and Faber Limited.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Dennis Eluyefa is a performing artist from Nigeria. He worked for
many years with Dr. Hubert Ogunde, the acclaimed father and founder
of Nigerian contemporary theatre, and had in-depth training in acting,
voice and movement with him. He also performed, danced and
choreographed for many top musicians in Nigeria. He played the
Yoruba talking drums professionally with the Nigerian Navy band 3, Sir
Oladiran and His Best Organisation and Sir Akin Erifeyiwa and His Juju
Dance Band. Dr. Eluyefa lived in Hungary for many years before
moving to the United Kingdom in pursuance of his academic career.
He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Drama at Bishop Grosseteste
University, Lincoln in the United Kingdom.
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Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
This auto-ethnographic inquiry explores found and constructed
apparatuses in the production of a devised clown show with 3rd-6th
grade children at Blue School in New York City. Through a playful
negotiation between artifacts, theory, and memory, this essay works to
untangle the production of meaning and the possibilities of children’s
theatre. Drawing from Agamben’s theorizations of apparatus,
Hammoor writes into knowing and understanding the frameworks he
built and discovered in directing a sad clown show with children.
DISPOSITIF
Clowning, circus, magic, side shows and variety acts make up forms of
populist theatre that are incredibly exciting to me. When they are
combined with children’s interpretations of New York City’s downtown
aesthetics, I have discovered explosive possibilities. It is with this in
mind that I proposed creating a sad clown show at Blue School, an
independent school in Manhattan founded in collaboration with the
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WHAT IS AN APPARATUS?
Perhaps it is first important to describe the ideation of the word
apparatus before attempting to dismantle and examine this one in
particular. I am drawn to the profundity of Agamben’s definition of the
term because it pulls from a Foucauldian genealogy while opening up
new possibilities for exploration and playfulness. In doing so, he
proposes “[N]othing less than a general and massive partitioning of
beings into two large groups or classes: on the one hand, living beings
(or substances), and on the other, apparatuses in which living beings
are incessantly captured” (2009, p. 13). Agamben goes on to prescribe
the characteristics of an apparatus as “[L]iterally anything that has in
some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model,
control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions or discourses of
living beings” (2009, p. 14). The breadth and potential depth of this
definition opens possibilities for its direct application into work in
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the self. And while no one subject position defines a being, certain rich
potentialities are surely rehearsed by the “stubbornly purposeless
expertise . . . of clowns” (Horkheimer and Adorno, p. 114, found in
Simon, n.d.). Meanwhile, Adorno also nods to a problem of sensibilities
that results in adults pushing away possibilities of complicity with
clowns and animals imaginably in favor of a force that is somehow
more modern, refined and civilized. Adults’ work to “drive out” (Adorno,
2004, p. 159) these potentialities is wrapped up in the production and
re-production of their own assessments of meaning, learning and ideas
of what is appropriate for children. The implications of fears motivating
such forces will be teased out in the upcoming sections.
CONSTRUCTING AN APPARATUS
Examining the plethora of factors that influenced our production could
not be contained in the scope of this paper. Instead of gathering
motivations, inspirations, and restrictions broadly, I will attempt to
examine a few of them that involve my own positioning, institutional
and community expectations, and collaboration/collusion. Intertwined,
these headings represent elements of a “para-choreographic
apparatus” (Marquié, 2007, p. 36) which I consciously and
unconsciously deployed from Feeling Blue’s initial description to its
closing night. In this way, not only did the frames, rules and obligations
of my community foreclose certain choices while supporting others,
written and verbal expectations and descriptions of the work equally
influenced the possibilities of Feeling Blue’s reception.
Positioning
As noted earlier, I am passionate about making work with children that
springs from clowning. The joy of this work is life-giving to me. It
invigorates my notions of what art is, what an artistic practice does and
how art-making lives in the greater world. My glamorization of
downtown theatre devices and designs draws energies from decades
of queers, outsiders and weirdos before me. It’s inspired by current
clowns including Jennifer Miller and her raucous troupe, Circus Amok!.
It is both present in the messiness of theatre today and connected
through genealogies of storytelling, live performance, film,
photographs, scripts and artifacts. While that may sound sexy, it is not
a set of tastes often welcomed in the world of education, especially not
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Hammoor, C. (2017). Feeling blue: An investigative apparatus. Arts
Praxis, 4 (1), 94-107.
REFERENCES
Adorno, T. (2004). Aesthetic theory. London: A & C Black.
Agamben, G. (2009). What is an apparatus?: and other essays.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things.
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Clare Hammoor is a theatre practitioner, the Primary and Middle
School Drama Specialist and Director at Blue School, and the Director
of Education at Brooklyn Acting Lab. He facilitates theatre and drama
with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated folks in New York State as
a college instructor with Hudson Link and as the Artistic Director of
(re)emergent theatre, which he co-founded. Clare holds a MA in
Educational Theatre from New York University where he is an EdD
candidate.
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Volume 4 Number 1
© 2017
ABSTRACT
In this paper the notion of a participatory aesthetic is developed by
exploring how a collaborative and creative process provides
opportunities for young people to engage in an act of becoming in
relation to one another, building powerful and affective art work that is
not bound by the conventions of traditional forms of theatre and art
making. The paper begins with a discussion on the role of affect and
participation in applied theatre, offering a theoretical framework that is
used to analyze two case studies. The first is a project in Accra, Ghana
that resulted in a youth-led documentary film about HIV/AIDS and
gender relationships. The second is a YouTube based applied theatre
project with LGBTQ youth in Toronto, Canada. In both case studies the
paper demonstrates the power of dialogue in building a participant
driven aesthetic rendering of theatre for social change. The paper
concludes stating that a participatory aesthetic is a deeply visceral and
vulnerable encounter that builds important pedagogy through affective
artistic engagement.
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INTRODUCTION
I had a meeting recently to discuss the implementation of a digital
storytelling project in a classroom setting. I was there as a consultant
to share my experience in digital storytelling and help work through the
pedagogical shaping of such an undertaking. I began by asking a
number of questions about the goals of the project and one of the first
responses was, ‘I want it to be good, I don’t want the videos to be bad.’
This surprised me and I wanted to respond by saying ‘Can it be bad?’
but I bit my tongue, because I understood what was meant; the goal
was student-led, but also achieving certain aesthetic standards, even if
this meant taking some authorship away from the students. We would
be ‘setting them up for success.’ This conversation was brief, but it
brought up a number of questions I have been sitting with for years.
What constitutes good and bad art in student-led or participatory
creative work? Are participation and aesthetics at odds with one
another? Must we judge creative beauty solely on the product that is
created? How can we reimagine the notion of aesthetics through the
power of participation?
In my experience as an applied theatre artist and scholar, common
project goals such as anti-oppression education, social engagement,
social change, youth participation, and youth empowerment often sit in
tension with the goals of aesthetic quality and authorship (Gray, Baer,
& Goldstein, 2015; Goldstein et al. 2014; Snell, 2013). This requires
artist-educators to navigate competing interests throughout the
creative play-building process and work to understand how important
outcomes are negotiated. The field of applied theatre has begun to
explore these tensions (Collins, 2015; Gallagher, 2014; Goldstein,
2012; Prentki & Preston, 2009; Thompson, 2009; White, 2015),
however a great deal of the literature still focuses on the possibilities
for applied theatre as a form of anti-oppression education rather than
exploring the tensions that arise when drama is used as a form of anti-
oppression education (Anderson & O’Connor, 2013; Boal, 2000;
Cohen-Cruz, 2006; Neelands, 2009; Nicholson, 2005; Prendergast &
Saxton, 2009; Woodland, 2012). Affect has also been taken up by
applied theatre scholars in recent years building the argument that the
affective realm of theatrical encounter is as important to the political
work of applied theatre as any other component, and that the political,
aesthetic, and affective cannot sit at odds with one another because
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PARTICIPATORY AESTHETICS
As mentioned above, there is widespread belief within the field of
applied theatre that projects must produce work that meets prevailing
notions of artistic merit, based on cultural and professionalized norms
of the theatrical form (Prendergast & Saxton, 2010; Neelands, 2008;
Thompson, 2009). This belief creates an opening for tensions to
emerge around anti-oppression education, because ethical
commitments to authorship and participation sometimes waver in
response to the need for a specific aesthetic standard – that is
governed by socio-cultural-political ideas of theatricality. This takes
away power from the people whose stories, ideas, and representations
are informing the theatrical performance, grooming their work to be
taken over by a professional artist in the final stages of presentation.
Most often the work that unfolds in this way is unaware of it’s own
limitations. As an alternative, a participatory aesthetic builds a deeply
visceral encounter through affective artistic engagement. A
participatory aesthetic does not occur solely in a completed
performance event, but rather is a collaborative process-based
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The journey that was undertaken by the youth was one of personal
exploration. They learned about themselves and their community
through creative conversations. As an example there were a number of
sessions where the young men and young women created separate
performance work that addressed all the things they felt they could not
say in front of members of the opposite sex. They filmed these
performances, shared them with one another, and then created video
responses. This dialogue continued for a number of weeks and opened
up conversations that the youth had never had before. What does it
mean to negotiate sex and relationships within the constraints of their
cultural context? What are the expectations put on people of different
genders? How do you begin to have conversations across these
differences? These questions were asked not as a direct address, but
rather through music, performance, poetry, and dance.
The pedagogy that emerged in and through this exchange was
intense, and the pieces that were created (and included in the final
documentary) offer an interesting social critique. In moments such as
this the aesthetic qualities of the artwork are embedded in their
pedagogical importance. What developed is a dialogic aesthetic, where
the process of dialogue is in itself the work of art, and an
understanding of that aesthetic lives in the space between the creative
works where the performers bodies speak to one another through
movement (Collins, 2015). Participants were affecting and being
affected by one another while simultaneously interfering with shared
assumptions about gender relationships through acts of spontaneity.
This spontaneity as it emerges, entangles, and intra-acts with other
bodies in movement creates a relational aesthetic that is always in
process (Dewey, 2005; Rotas & Springgay, 2013). Movement in this
sense is not about bodies on a trajectory from point A to point B, but
rather bodies that exist in relational movement with other people and
things. Here, aesthetic qualities emerge through embodiment, coming
to know through the body as it moves in relation to the wider world
(Manning & Massumi, 2014). This aesthetic act is an embedded and
relational emergence of power and knowledge, where movement
creates unpredictable compositions. When understood in this way,
audience members are invited into the dance of dialogic aesthetics,
and provided the opportunity to continue to (un)tangle what is known
through the creative work while simultaneously continuing to create
ephemeral moments of encounters through the act of witnessing. This
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three groups. At the beginning of the project each group of youth made
a video exploring the theme of identity. The videos were then posted
online and viewed by one of the other groups who in turn created a
video response based on their reaction to the content and ideas
proposed by their peers. The videos document the dialogue and an
exploration of queer identities through drawings, acting, puppetry,
dance, history, music, storytelling, playfulness, and personal narrative.
Each video is not only a response to the video before it, but also a
catalyst to the video that comes after it. Twenty-one short videos were
created during the project each with their own artistic story, yet what I
want to discuss here is the process of creation and dialogue between
the videos as aesthetic quality.
In this project there was an ongoing process of making the private
public. The youth found different ways to share their experiences and
stories, some directly and others through metaphor and imagery.
Applied theatre often draws on personal stories to build some form of
public engagement. This engagement is political in nature, and
interested in a social change agenda (Cohen-Cruz, 2006). The very act
of making the private public is a political act as our personal
experiences impact the public sphere, but in a discussion of aesthetics
the act of making the private public is also a sensory act of
vulnerability. To engage the senses in a political becoming in this way
is an act of interference and disruption to the status quo. It is an
emergent politic that attunes to the ephemeral and sensational,
creating openings for affect. To lump the twenty-one videos of this
project together in this discussion is difficult because they each engage
their own aesthetic qualities, but through those qualities every single
one of the videos engages with affection through personal narrative
(real and imagined). Therefore, the embodiment of the private made
public through vulnerability, wherein our bodies enfold their context
onto themselves (Alvarez, 2014), makes personal story, told and
performed by its creator a powerful aesthetic of its own. As an
example, one of the videos created for the Queer Connections project
uses stop motion animation to explore queer identities post-coming
out. The group described the video as follows:
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questions: what happens after one comes out? Where would you
take yourself next? This video is part exploration and part
celebration of the various queer narratives and its different roles
and dynamics. Be fierce! (TaKe Out, 2012).
The video itself has no dialogue, the youth participants move around
the frame in a jolted manner, due to the stop motion animation, their
bodies playfully engage with one another as they try on wigs, make-up,
and fitted baseball caps. The youth embody different identities as they
spontaneously respond and react to their peers. This unscripted
performance is an embodied and relational site of becoming, where the
youth shift from fixed coming out narratives to queer possibilities, all
the time only ever existing in the moment (Mazzei, 2013). It is this
moment, the moment of engagement that brings forth the private to an
affective place of encounter. It is through the relational aesthetic of the
performers with one another that we as viewer are invited into the
narrative. John Dewey (2005) believes that we cannot discuss an
artwork without discussing what that art work does. In this case the art
that was created is a contested site of political becoming, where
groups of people engage with one another in an exchange of
vulnerable self and exploration. This ‘doing’ in relation to others,
becomes the aesthetics of the work of art, the stop-motion video is not
a piece of art on its own but rather a sampling of a larger piece that
can only be understood through the way it engages the videos that
came before and after it. The participatory aesthetic emerges in the
space between the twenty-one videos, providing each piece of the
dialogue an opportunity to find its own unique portrayal of encounter as
the youth navigate making the private pubic, vulnerability, personal
narrative, and becoming in relation to the other groups across the city.
DISCUSSION
Thompson (2009) argues that applied theatre practice is focused on
effective social outcomes and that we need to reimagine the aesthetic
and affective engagement of our efforts. The concept of participatory
aesthetics, as proposed here, is a site of affective encounter that
enables us to reimagine how applied theatre work can be effective
pedagogically, ethically, socially, and artistically.
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Pedagogy
As a pedagogical engagement a participatory aesthetic provides
participants with ownership and agency over their own learning. Rather
than a prescribed outcome that is required to engage with a dominant
aesthetic frame or even a specific goal-oriented outcome, a participant
driven process focuses on the emergences in the spaces between the
participants and the art. This unknown space presents a site of inquiry
for participants to work through on their own terms and in their own
ways – challenging, exploring, and creating movement together as
their bodies entwine and entangle, push and pull, and emerge a new.
This is evidenced in both case studies with the Ghanaian participants
decision to turn the camera lens on themselves and their own learning
journey as a culturally specific site of vulnerability and change, and
with the challenge Toronto participants faced in artistic interpretation of
difficult topics with peers they have never met. Both projects required a
re-thinking of pedagogy, not as a pre-determined approach to a
specific learning outcome, but rather as a journey through which
participants would learn about themselves through their encounters
with others. This dialogic artistic rendering is the very essence of a
participatory aesthetic – where the encounter is the artistic artifact in
and of itself.
Ethics
A participant-driven project that enables communities and individuals
to express, examine, and explore within their own cultural context
works to undermine the status quo by subverting and reimagining
euro-centric, colonial, and even oppressive frames of knowing. While
acknowledging that a facilitator or professional artist will undoubtedly
hold power within the context of an applied theatre project, the choice
to engage in dialogic art-making from the hearts and minds of
participants is a step towards acknowledging and diffusing this power
differential. A participatory aesthetic demands that ownership of both
the process and product remains entirely in the hands of participants
and that in doing so a new aesthetic quality emerges that can be
recognized, valued and assessed through a matrix of affective
encounter. For both case studies this emerges through the process of
encounter – with one another, with me as facilitator, and with
audiences; wherein the artistic product and aesthetic judgment shifts to
a site of becoming in relation to those around us.
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Social Change
Art for social change is often cited as a way to bridge empathetic
understanding, to see the world from another’s point of view (Mitchell,
2001; Rivers, 2013; Shapiro & Hunt, 2003; Wang, 2010). However, this
has the potential to reproduce a Self/Other binary, which can
contribute to the repetition and circulation of harmful and oppressive
discourses, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia (Kumashiro,
2000). It is therefore necessary to use the theatrical form not only as a
site of empathy, but also one in which we can complicate ideas, feel
with and through one another, attune to the way that affect is
circulating through bodies, and respond with a willingness to explore
the unthinkable (Gallagher, 2016). In applied theatre the artist is not a
sole muse - rather the artist is a community of learners who work
together to reflect on their own experiences and knowledges, to
transform harmful practices by engaging with what is silenced, hidden,
or unsaid. This reflexivity provides space for artists to engage with an
audience in a raw and gritty approach to artistic creation. Complicating
theatre in this way means that at times seemingly different approaches
to theatrical presentation are potentially intertwined and overlapping:
participants may subvert the dominant through the traditional and vice
versa. This emerges in both case studies as participants draw on their
own knowledges, contexts, and bodies to create and explore ideas
through an artistic process. This collaborative art making is not
polished and complete, but rather a process of performance, creation,
and presentation that is designed to ask questions, to open up
dialogue, and to reveal what is often unspoken or unknown.
Building on Helen Nicolson’s (2005) idea of transportation (in
contrast to transformation) as a momentary and often fleeting state of
change, a participatory aesthetic relies on the ephemeral encounters of
bodies in motion as a site of social change. When bodies are impacted
by one another, even if just momentarily, a shift occurs - the trajectory
of that body has been altered. Within the Queer Connections project
this is seen when the videos respond in unexpected ways – shifting the
dialogue to challenge the preconceived ideas of the group as the
conversation spirals in intricate new directions. Within Unwrapping the
Sweets this movement is altered through a block of affective energy
when the artistic artefact is denied within a different cultural context. In
both cases the aesthetic encounter has elicited a moment of
transportation – what comes next is unknown.
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Artistry
Conroy (2015) states “Aesthetics enables us to activate analysis of the
experience itself, to think in terms of our visceral and sensory
responses and to extrapolate these into understandings of human
agency and experience” (p. 2). This suggests that aesthetics are the
very thing through which we are able to encounter one another, they
are an ephemeral and embodied affection that emerges in and through
our experiences. In discussing a dialogic aesthetic, Collins (2015)
believes that one of the biggest challenges is “accepting the risk and
vulnerability that come with dialogue” (p. 123). This risk and
vulnerability provide the heart of a participatory aesthetic because they
position the sensory self as the site of artistic creation. In sharing
ourselves through others, by making the private public, a relational
aesthetic emerges and invites people into dialogue with one another.
This dialogical process is a site of aesthetic becoming. Dewey (2005)
offers an interesting metaphor to describe a processual aesthetic when
he says, “But if one sets out to understand the flowering of plants he is
committed to finding out something about the interactions of soil, air,
water, and sunlight that condition the growth of plants” (p. 2). In this
sense, we should not be evaluating art as a completed object (film,
performance, video), rather it is an experience through which many
components (story, politic, and experience) encounter one another
creating a new emergence that redefines our understanding of
aesthetics as something that can be understood through feeling and is
situated within a dialogic process of becoming.
CONCLUSION
Our cultural relationship to polished and professional aesthetics is
shifting through the emergence of participatory media. Cell phone
videos uploaded to YouTube have the potential to change the world by
eliciting debate and rendering powerful stories. Although not a
facilitated applied theatre process, this reimagining of the public
sphere, where the masses have shifted from cultural consumers to
cultural producers is engaging with a participatory aesthetic (Snell,
2014). Through our encounters, our becomings, and our narratives
people are capable of creating provoking and engaging artwork on
their own terms and for their own purposes. Applied theatre facilitators
and academics can use the concept of a participatory aesthetic to
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Baer, P. (2017). Participatory aesthetics: Youth performance as
encounter. Arts Praxis, 4 (1), 108-123.
REFERENCES
Ahmed, S. (2015). The cultural politics of emotion (2nd ed.). New
York: Routledge.
Alvarez, N. (2014). Affect management and militarism in Albert’s mock
Afghan villages: Training the “strategic corporal.” In E. Hurley
(Ed.), Theatres of affect: New essays on Canadian theatre.
Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press.
Anderson, M., & O’Connor, P. (2013). Applied theatre as research:
Provoking the possibilities. Applied Theatre Research, 1 (2), 189-
202.
Boal, A. (2000). Theater of the oppressed. New York: Pluto Press.
Cohen-Cruz, J. (2006). Personal storytelling as social intervention. In
M. Balfour & J. Somers (Eds.), Drama as social intervention.
Concord, ON: Captus Press.
Collins, K. (2015). “Don”t talk with strangers’ engaging student artists
in dialogic artmaking. Research in Drama Education: The Journal
of Applied Theatre and Performance, 20 (1), 117–124.
Conroy, C. (2015). Editorial: Aesthetics and participation. Research in
Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and
Performance, 20 (1), 1–11.
Dewey, J. (2005). Art as experience. New York, NY: Penguin.
Freire, P. (2009). Chapter 2 from Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
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Participatory Aesthetics
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Pamela Baer is a theatre and media artist with a focus on community
engaged work. Pamela has facilitated applied theatre projects with
diverse groups, and wide reaching themes. Her current work focuses
on LGBTQ families, stories, and representations in her role as
Research Manager on the LGBTQ Families Speak Out Project.
Pamela has a BFA in Theatre and Development, Concordia University,
and a MA in Theatre and Media for Development, University of
Winchester. Pamela is currently a PhD Student at The Ontario Institute
for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto and an Instructor
of Applied Theatre, Brock University.
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© 2017
ABSTRACT
As an arts educator, it is inspiring to have access to the spoils of the
art of musical theatre to engage and captivate young minds and artistic
hearts. In providing an artistic output, one affords both the satisfaction
of involvement in a collaborative art coupled with the lasting gift of
community and artistic inspiration. Regrettably, the endeavour towards
providing an accessible dramatic medium can prove challenging for the
best of theatre & music pedagogues and artists alike. Musical theatre
becomes increasingly more difficult as both musical and dramatic
requirements needed for its execution modify.
With these constraints, youth face obstacles in exploring many
works of the genre they love faithfully. As educators, the responsibility
in maintaining accessibility is tremendous. Improper attention to the
usage of the vocal instrument without regard of these developments
can cause irreparable damage. Limited access to works for youth and
negligible adaptation risk staleness and disinterest.
How might the educating artist continually provide an accessible
medium of musical theatre to the young performer? From a dramatic &
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From Les Mis to Annie, Jr.
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From Les Mis to Annie, Jr.
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From Les Mis to Annie, Jr.
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From Les Mis to Annie, Jr.
“It is all about telling a story – we stress that with students and
teachers; your job is to be a story teller. […] If you have the right
environment, the kids can learn and get something out of it in a
different way. […] I can honestly believe […] what I am going to
see […] as long as they are a good story teller.” (M. Johnson,
personal communication, February 17, 2016)
It was also important to emphasize that content suitable for youth was
a key proponent of the need for the School Version; however, artistic
license still requires that adapted or non-adapted musicals with what
may still be considered unsuitable requirements such as number of
cast and inappropriate material must be left unchanged in recognition
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of the original artist’s work and wishes. This may be a dilemma for the
arts educator faced with wanting to produce a full work that may be
considered questionable material. A proposal to this is indicated
towards the paper’s end.
Professionally, iTheatrics is in consideration of differences in the
abilities between adult & youth performers. Musically, iTheatrics
outlined that youth friendly considerations are undertaken with regard
to keys, difficulty of all songs (regarding range, tessitura, et cetera),
and show length (for vocal, physical & dramatic endurance). Specific
considerations of these guidelines are additionally offered at paper’s
end.
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From Les Mis to Annie, Jr.
towards success.
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Perhaps the one of the most difficult and vital aspects of selecting and
crafting material for youth is the aforementioned dilemma of copyright
and artistic license. Educators may seek to alter material in order to
increase accessibility. Regrettably, this creates issues as the material
being edited is under copyright, and artistic license remains with the
authors. It is worth considering that a simple change to a verse or an
edit of material is still copyright infringement and unlawful, despite
unlikely being done out of malice and only in best interest of the
performer.
What may the arts educator do about this, and what are some
tangible solutions for practice? In discussion on the issue with
copyright with iTheatrics, I have provided an optimistically
advantageous list for guiding principle.
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CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it is discernible that there is much work left to do in this
arena. Musical theatre continues to be an art by which young
performers appreciate, develop and grow. Musical adaptation has
helped in ensuring youth are able to access many pieces that may not
have been accessible prior. However, there is still work left towards
creating a foundational framework in providing access to the repertoire
and genre. Musically, scientific evidence is needed to supplement
vocal training, and further exploration into practice-as-research may
help to provide a clearer view into the minds of those working with
youth for specific technique. Further work is needed in analyzing the
process, training and development of the youth voice in application of
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Mayes, S. (2017). From Les Mis to Annie, Jr.: A discussion of
dramaturgical adaptation from musical theatre in education and
accessibility of musical theatre to youth. Arts Praxis, 4 (1), 124-
140.
REFERENCES
Bergman, A. & Moore, T. (2008). Acting the song: Performance skills
for the musical theatre. New York, NY: Allworth.
Catterall, J. S. (2012). The arts and achievement in at-risk youth:
Findings from four longitudinal studies. In National Endowment for
the Arts, Research Report #55. Washington, DC: National
Endowment for the Arts..
Chandler, K. (2014). Teaching popular music styles. In S.D. Harrison &
J. O’Bryan (Eds.), Teaching singing in the 21st century (35-51).
New York, NY: Springer.
Dal Vera, R. & Deer, J. (2015). Acting in musical theatre: A
comprehensive course (2nd ed.). Abingdon, Oxfordshire:
Routledge.
Dawson-Bowling, P. (2013) The Wagner experience. Brecon: Old
Street Publishing.
Dutton, S. E. (2001). Urban youth development – Broadway style:
Using theatre and group work as vehicles for positive youth
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
An active musical director, educator, teaching artist and organist from
Canada, Sean Mayes has professionally musically directed numerous
shows in varying venues throughout Canada and the United Kingdom.
Past work includes time with the UK Tour of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,
as well as work on the one-hour adaptation of a recent West End
musical.
In academia, Sean enjoys a busy career in both teaching and
writing, and holds degrees in Music & Education, as well as an MA in
Music Direction. Select work has been featured at recent & upcoming
engagements including the International “Putting it Together” UK
Conference -Investigating Sources in Musical Theatre, the NYU Forum
on Educational Theatre, and the Annual Conference for the
Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
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