Showing papers by "Royal Central School of Speech and Drama published in 2020"

Performing care : New perspectives on socially engaged performance

Abstract: This edited collection brings together essays presenting an interdisciplinary dialogue between theatre and performance and the fields of care ethics, care studies, health and social care. The book advances our understanding of performance as a mode of care, challenging existing debates in this area by re-thinking the caring encounter as a performed, embodied experience and interrogating the boundaries between care practice and performance. Through an examination of a wide range of different care performances drawn from interdisciplinary and international settings, the book interrogates how performance might be understood as caring or uncaring, careless or careful, and correlatively how care can be conceptualised as artful, aesthetic, authentic or even ‘fake’ and ‘staged’. Drawing on interdisciplinary debates and discussion, the book considers how the field of performance and the aesthetic and ethico-political structures that determine its relationship with the social might be challenged by an examination of inter-human care. By placing socially-engaged performance in dialogue with theories and practices of care, the contributors consider how performance operates as a mode of caring for others and how debates between the theory and practice of care and performance making might foster a greater understanding of how the caring encounter is embodied and experienced.

BRIGHTLIGHT researchers as ‘dramaturgs’: creating There is a Light from complex research data

Abstract: BRIGHTLIGHT is a national evaluation of cancer services for young people aged 13–24 years in England. It is a mixed methods study with six interlinked studies aiming to answer the question: do specialist cancer services for teenagers and young adults add value? http://www.brightlightstudy.com/ . Young people have been integral to study development and management, working as co-researchers, consultants and collaborators throughout. We aimed to share results in a way that was meaningful to young people, the public, and multidisciplinary professionals. This paper reports the development of ‘There is a Light: BRIGHTLIGHT’, a theatrical interpretation of study results by young people, and offers insight into the impact on the cast, researchers and audiences. The BRIGHTLIGHT team collaborated with Contact Young Company, a youth theatre group in Manchester. Twenty members of Contact Young Company and four young people with cancer worked together over an eight-week period during which BRIGHTLIGHT results were shared along with explanations of cancer, healthcare policy and models of care in interactive workshops. Through their interpretation, the cast developed the script for the performance. The impact of the process and performance on the cast was evaluated through video diaries. The research team completed reflective diaries and audiences completed a survey. ‘There is a Light’ contained five acts and lasted just over an hour. It played 11 performances in six cities in the United Kingdom, to approximately 1377 people. After nine performances, a 30-min talk-back between members of the cast, creative team, an expert healthcare professional, and the audience was conducted, which was attended by at least half the audience. Analysis of cast diaries identified six themes: initial anxieties; personal development; connections; cancer in young people; personal impact; interacting with professionals. The cast developed strong trusting relationships with the team. Professionals stated they felt part of the process rather than sitting on the periphery sharing results. Both professional and lay audiences described the performance as meaningful and understandable. Feedback was particularly positive from those who had experienced cancer themselves. Using theatre to present research enabled BRIGHTLIGHT results to be accessible to a larger, more diverse audience.

Walk in/Walk As My Shoes: Puppetry and Prosocial Empathy in Healthcare

Abstract: This article explores the connections between puppetry performance practice and the activation of empathy, considering the synergies between puppetry and medical practice where empathy is a key factor in healing. I draw on a consideration of the place of puppetry within ritual transitional and healing practices to develop an examination of contemporary modes of performance which require deep listening, response and attention. I examine the connections between neuroscience and puppetry which suggest that attitude-taking engenders empathy, and compare this to my puppetry training practice to suggest that training for and engaging in puppetry practice can encourage and stimulate empathy. This has significance for practitioners of puppetry working in healthcare contexts, and for medical practitioners who undertake some form of puppetry, either within their training or as continuing professional development. Although the different forms of empathy are connected in practice, the article focuses especially on affective (emotional), cognitive and social empathy.

Chapter 2: The Context for Our Place, Our Stage

Abstract: This chapter shares a history of the emergence of the South African nation, including an analysis of apartheid before discussing three areas of South African life: health, crime and safety, and South African theatre. The focus of this analysis moves to a consideration of Nyanga, the township in which the OPOS project was based. Here, Nyanga’s experiences under apartheid and during democracy are described and the chapter examines how the Etafeni Trust was established to address the challenges facing the community. Finally, the OPOS project’s relationship with Etafeni and its positioning within Etafeni’s Fit for Life, Fit for Work programme is described. Such an understanding is paramount to appreciate how and why resisting the status quo by expressing one’s own meaning and understanding on one’s own terms of a situation can be considered a radical act.

Intergenerational process drama: Practitioner reflection on creative adventures in an acute hospital context

Abstract: This reflection will offer insights into the methodology of process drama as a tool for intergenerational connection, co-intentional pedagogy, and playfulness for children collaborating with older ...

Crossing over: Choreographing audiences over borders ‐ Forms and problematics

Abstract: This article considers the potential of participatory artistic practice that debates borders through dance. It also asks why so many dance artists choose this form to debate borders, and what practices are typical of participatory dance investigations of borders. I discuss the range of border debates in works investigating dance and borders, and I begin to consider how privilege is dealt with by the work. I examine how dance works with participation and, alongside, look at the choreographic embodied invitation concerned. Particularly, I examine these questions through the dance work Rope Piece and consider how this dance practice as research generates a collective and participatory process in relation to borders and privilege.

Dance History and Digital Humanities Meet at the Archives: An Interim Project Report on Dunham's Data

Abstract: This interim project report addresses the ongoing work of Dunham's Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance Historical Inquiry. The project centres choreographer Katherine Dunham's tran...

The Antidote: theorising recovery engaged theatre-making as a process of affective attunement and agonistic activism

Abstract: Reflecting on The Antidote, created with performers in recovery from addiction, this paper theorises theatre-making practice that attends to being as formed through affective and emotive relation w...

Chapter 3: Applied Theatre: A Space ‘Safe Enough’ to Take Risks?

Abstract: This chapter engages with the concepts of space using three different conceptualisations: physical, virtual, and metaphorical spaces. Examining a series of exercises and performances created by the participants, I argue that the participants developed an understanding of spatial practices and a verbal and embodied vocabulary about space from their re-enactments, which enabled them to make links between safety from crime and sexual safety, as well as exploring positions of resistance in later exercises. It notes how the performance-making space enabled better understanding. By creating a space for new knowledges to emerge, knowledges developed on the participants’ own terms. The chapter addresses the idea that a site of resistance can create different perspectives from which to consider other alternatives.

Chapter 4: ‘If You Want to Be Safe, You Must Stay at Home’: Dialogical Spaces and Repressive Outcomes

Abstract: This chapter addresses the concept of risk-taking in applied theatre practice. Drawing from an example from the OPOS project, where a scene exploring the negotiation of safe sex led to the establishment of a moral discourse, this chapter asks key questions about the role of the applied theatre practitioner in these settings, ultimately considering if the practice is a form of ‘nudging’ towards more acceptable behaviour. It also considers the tactical possibilities inherent in applied theatre practice and the risks facing both the participants and the facilitator. These discussions are contextualised within a consideration of sexual transactions in South Africa. Placing these concerns within the challenges of working in a neoliberal climate, I consider how we, as applied theatre practitioners, negotiate the impulse to nudge our participants and how we consider the intentions of our practice.

Puppet theatre under COVID-19. (Special Issue: Puppetry, disability, health and well-being.)

Abstract: Puppetry is a resilient art form, as has been evidenced by the response of puppeteers to the recent COVID-19 pandemic Perhaps this is fitting, as puppeteers have a long history of travelling to perform and adapting their performances to changing circumstances In this report, we provide a sample of puppetry projects that are taking place around the world and some insights from puppeteers on how they are working through COVID-19;using puppetry to teach about COVID-19 and teaching puppetry in general;to entertain and to perform puppetry that is offered as ritual at a time of crisis

'Mine are the Dead Spaces': A Discussion of Bunker Work's Atmospheres, Limits and Routines

Abstract: The abandoned bunker is burdened with dereliction, haunted by catastrophe averted. Yet a repurposed former place-for-war can facilitate a peaceful working afterlife. Here, the nature of this afterl...

Chapter 1: HIV/AIDS and the Challenge for Socially Engaged Theatre-Making

Abstract: This chapter contextualises sexual health communication specifically within the context of HIV in Southern Africa. It addresses my motivation for theatre-making within the field of sexual health communication as a way to respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to do something that was effective and meaningful. It notes the understandable desire within the fields of sexual health education and socially engaged theatre-making to evidence impact, a process which has historically proven to be challenging. The chapter considers how theatre has been used to address social concerns through different approaches including Theatre for Development and Theatre in Health Education. It contextualises how the OPOS project was established as a research project. It then addresses a key question in applied theatre around impact and value; the analysis of which informs the thinking in this book.

Chapter 5: Apertures of Possibility: A Subtle Form of Resistance?

Abstract: This chapter argues for the recognition of more delicately complex outcomes that can emerge from applied theatre practice, of being more than the ideals of empowerment and transformation that are sometimes ascribed to in the literature. It considers the applied theatre space as a thinking space, within which, by recognising and noticing things that take place, a moment of meaning-making for participants on their own terms is possible. The term apertures of possibility is used to describe these moments. It considers how the applied theatre space can create embodied moments of resistance and discusses what the potential impact and/or value of these apertures of possibility could be. It concludes that, in this instance, for some participants, the opportunity to continue reflecting and sharing ideas about sexual health concerns and building informal networks of social communication are both radical and revolutionary.

Voicing Pride and Futurity in the Age of A.I.: An Interview with Playwright Pao-Chang Tsai on Solo Date

Abstract: This interview deals with the question of queer Sinofuturisms through the works of Pao-Chang Tsai, a Taiwanese performer, playwright, and director who became renowned for exploring the Taiwanese theaterscape with new media and novel performative techniques. With a special focus on his acclaimed theatrical productionSolo Date(2016), the conversation inquires into themes of artificial intelligence, queer futurity, and transcultural performance featured in this one-man show. Linking the representation of A.I. interface as queer body with the demand for LGBT rights in Sinophone contexts, Tsai’s innovative solo performance has examined changing discourses toward queerness and futurism in the age of advanced artificial intelligence. The touching story of how a gay man struggled to process his grief after losing the love of his life further raises critical ethical questions, since the protagonist’s true identity is an A.I. robot.

Collaborations Between Surgery and Puppetry: Rachel Warr

Abstract: An interview with Rachel Warr of Dotted Line Theatre on the synergies between surgery and puppetry