In an era characterised by impacts of cuts and austerity in the UK, this study is positioned at the interface between two socio-cultural institutions against which societies are judged: the arts and criminal justice. Within this field, the thesis investigates the ways women in prison are positioned in a carceral performance that is cyclical and inevitably ‘tragic’. The argument considers the tactics women use in order to firstly, survive their incarceration, and sometimes, resist, the institution. The theoretical frame is drawn from feminist criminology and Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’ to examine everyday performances as well as theatrical works by and about incarcerated women. This project adds to the field by locating performance practices in and of prison within wider social contexts of the politics of carceral spaces. The main questions posed by this project were ‘what does theatre/ performance offer to challenge stereotypes of ‘the cage’?; and to what extent and in what ways does performance in (and of) prison challenge/ subvert/ augment/ transform the site itself’? The research sought to understand to what extent women’s articulations of subjectivity could be a radical alternative to the logocentric and discursive prisons of sentences and prison records. The study was developed as an ethnographic examination of performance in and of prison, alongside exploring how contemporary performance modes are implicated in defining, containing, and correcting (criminal) women’s everyday performances. The thesis is primarily concerned with a critical reflection on theatre practices in prison, with particular emphasis on the political implications of the effects of prison as/and performance. The study makes claims for a radical practice in and about prisons that is distanced from current applied theatre practices, and as such points towards a more troubled rehearsal of how punishment is performed.

This thesis critically interrogates the practice of artistic directors within applied theatre companies in the United Kingdom. ‘Applied theatre’ describes the process of theatre-making in which commitment to ethical, pedagogical, philosophical and social priorities are integral dimensions of theatre-making designed for specified participants, communities and locations. The research views the term director as encompassing any individuals with designated responsibility for the artistic coherence of theatre in both community and rehearsal room contexts. It argues that directorial processes in applied theatre have rarely been the focus of systematic research and that a theoretical framework to conceptualise practise will contribute new knowledge. The research design gathers evidence of directorial contributions, examining ‘why’ and ‘how’ interventions are constructed. The various theories, techniques and methods used by directors to shape and effect positive interventions are observed and interrogated, through a systematic research approach, in five director case studies. The case studies reflect discrete areas of theatre practice. Published research is sparse and literary evidence is occasionally drawn from historical, cultural and mainstream theatre contexts, from developments in Alternative and Political theatre and from Drama in Education praxis. The thesis concludes with a theoretical framework that articulates applied theatre directing as a process that shares some common ground with mainstream theatre directing, but which retains discrete alternative practices and philosophies that define an alternative directorial model.

Apocryphal Theatre: Practising Philosophies is a practice-based research project that consists of examples of my theatre practice (as research) and a written thesis. In this thesis, I argue that theatre can be seen to be an act of philosophy, by tessellating Maurice Merleau-Ponty's definition of philosophy as consisting of relearning to look at the world and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's proposition that philosophy is the creation of concepts, and pointing to post-WWII theatre artists whose work both fulfill this definition of philosophy and have informed Apocryphal Theatre's work. Included is an analysis of interviews with three contemporary theatre artists, Richard Foreman, Chris Goode and Ivana Muller, which explore their relationship with philosophical ideas in their work and how that informs their ability to create acts of philosophy. In practice, the research questions that underpin Apocryphal Theatre's research in labs, rehearsals and performance, are philosophical and create the potential for collective acts of philosophy. Apocryphal's practice as research as manifest in its ongoing lab and in the two productions included as part of this thesis, The Jesus Guy and Besides, you lose your soul or The History of Western Civilisation, will be analysed for the historical and philosophical bases of the primary concepts we have created through our research and the tools with which we embody them. The concepts and tools, which are used to address the research questions, are the witness, the grid, cutting up, levels of address and levels of presence. This thesis concludes that theatre and philosophy whilst separate disciplines can overlap in such a way that acts of philosophy can occur in the theatre, and that Apocryphal's theatrical project, which is collaborative, polyvocal and in performance invites the audience to be active witness/participants in the creation of the event, can be viewed as a collective act of philosophy.

This thesis is a study of the contemporary forms of trance-possession rituals performed in Thai Buddhism. It explores the way in which the trance-possession rituals are conceptualised by Thai Buddhist people as having therapeutic potentiality, through the examination of the ritual efficacy that is established through participants’ lived experience. My main research question focuses on how trance-possession rituals operate within a contemporary Thai cultural context and what are the contributory factors to participants’ expressing a sense of efficacy in the ritual. This thesis proposes that applied drama can be used as a ‘lens’ to examine the participants’ embodied experiences, particularly in relation to the ritual’s potential efficacy. In addition, the thesis also draws on discourses from anthropology, to enable a clearer understanding of the Thai socio-cultural aspects. I proceed to examine the efficacy of trance-possession ritual by focusing on the Parn Yak chanting ritual and rituals in sak yant, the spiritual tattoo tradition, as the two examples. Through the interdisciplinary study as mentioned above, these rituals are investigated and interpreted through several aspects. This study uses interviews with monks, participants and people involved with rituals as well as documentary and archival research. As part of my research, I also critically reflect upon my ethnographic experiences, between 2006-2012, of a variety of these rituals that are performed in temples around central Thailand. My attendance at the Parn Yak rituals in and around Bangkok involved both complete participation as well as observation. For the rituals of sak yant tattooing, I observed a tattoo master’s practices at Wat Bang Phra temple in Nakhon Pathom province. This thesis intends to offer an alternative approach to examine participants’ experiences of efficacy during and after the rituals. The research examines the therapeutic transformation of participants through the embodied process during rituals, and suggests that participants’ embodiment during lived experience in ritual together with their historical and sociocultural context influence the ways that they articulate their sense of efficacy in the ritual. The thesis offers insights and ideas for further exploration of Thai Buddhist rituals as culturally therapeutic performances.

This qualitative study reflects on my experiences as a queer pedagogue developing a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered/Transsexual, Questioning/Queer, and Ally (LGBTQA) youth theatre ensemble, Outside the Lines. Through the analysis of my pedagogy and the pedagogy of three practitioners affiliated with the Pride Youth Theatre Alliance, I explore how my queer culture, language, expression and politics influence my Applied Drama & Theatre practice within educational and community spaces. It is hoped that by inviting other practitioners and allies into my process this document will generate constructive dialogue around queer pedagogy and its fluid performance. Furthermore, this document aims to serve as a reference for future practitioners that work with queer youth and in queer spaces. / text

Studien undersöker hur fysisk gestaltning i pedagogiskt drama formas under ett lärotillfälle i skolmiljö. Studien använder sig av ett socialsemiotiskt synsätt och en multimodal ansats för att undersöka eleven som utövare av fysisk gestaltning. Fysisk gestaltning betraktas som ett medium och sammanhanget analyseras utifrån ett designteoretiskt perspektiv på lärande. Två grupper elever i 10 års-åldern har filmats och observerats. Resultaten visar att påverkan från regler i skolan, instruktioner och pedagogen beskriver elevernas formella design. Influenser från elevernas värderingar av fysiska egenskaper, teman från deras vardag, från styrande elever och från det sociala samspelet beskriver elevernas informella design. Design i fysisk gestaltning uppstår i kroppsliga uttryck, i tempo, i rum och i material. Formell design, informell design och mediet fysisk gestaltning samspelar i förklaringen av hur elever ordnar sin design i fysisk gestaltning och hur semiotiska resurser används och förändras i fysisk gestaltning. / This is an examination of how embodied communication transforms during a session of drama education set in a school environment. Social semiotics and multimodality are used in order to examine the students as users of embodied communication. Embodied communication is treated as a medium and the context is analyzed through a design theoretic perspective on learning. Two groups of 10 year old students have been video recorded and observed. The results show that the students’ formal process of designing embodied communication is influenced by existing rules in school, the teacher and the instructions. The informal process of designing embodied communication is affected by social interactions among students, student leaders, the students’ bodily values and themes from their everyday life. Embodied communication, and in part the designing of it, is described as an interaction between body expressions and the use of time, space and materials. How the students designs the embodied communication and how it transforms during the examined session is explained in combining the analytical themes ”formal design”, ”informal design” and ”embodied communication”.

This thesis is a theoretical-empirical study divided into nine chapters. After the introduction, the second chapter focuses on the theoretical basis, defines the terms applied theatre (drama) and social theatre, which relates to the empirical part, and presents them in a broader context. The third chapter then provides an overview of projects implemented in the Czech Republic. The fourth chapter defines the immigrant experience and the psychosocial events connected with immigration. The fifth chapter provides a brief overview of the practical use of applied drama in the Czech conditions, in the Archa Theatre. The sixth chapter contains qualitative research on the theme of formative influences of theatre-music projects at the Archa Theatre and on several immigrants who participate in them. The seventh chapter is an empirical survey that profiles the audiences of these performances and describes their motivation for attending theatre projects with social outreach. The final, eighth chapter, provides a concluding overview of the whole work. The ninth chapter contains a bibliography and list of sources. KEY WORDS Applied drama, applied theatre, formative influences, immigration, immigrant, social theatre.

This thesis examines the use of actor-based Applied Theatre methods within the workplace. Typically such methods are employed for behavioural skills training with the intention of enabling staff to effectively perform their work roles in a context of rapid and fundamental change to work practices and structures. This research uses case studies and mixed methods and finds that whilst work-based Applied Theatre may be commissioned for reasons of efficiency, in practice there is also the potential for individual efficacy. Whilst competitive forces drive the imperative for increased efficiency, the practice opens a space where the human consequences of this pressure can be explored. Studies of Applied Theatre have ignored or excluded the workplace as a site of research and consequently applications of these methods are under researched and little understood. This thesis questions the exclusive assumptions of the academic field, presenting a more complex picture of the practice than currently appears in the literature. Whilst the workplace presents many tensions that must be negotiated, this research finds that the participative, embodied and dialogic qualities of the practice can enable a space for catharsis, negotiation, expression and learning not possible through other methods. These dialogic and participatory qualities are found to promote a social model of leadership and interaction that is progressive, facilitating a shift away from pervasive mechanistic command and control approaches to management and leadership. A central quality of this efficacy and impact was found to be the role of the workplace actor which has evolved beyond the delivery of performance and into innovative approaches that aim to increase the actor’s contribution to learning. This emerging hybrid role is defined here as the ‘pedagogical actor’, drawing on skills of calibration, feedback and facilitation in addition to delivering a credible performance. Case Studies include an examination of the use actor-based role-play within financial services company Friends Provident and Forum Theatre used by the multi-national 3M, in addition to numerous case examples.

This essay aims to begin to fill a potential gap in previous research when it comes to studying the political content of specific cultural practices, in this case the Freedom Theatre in Jenin. The theatre expressively refers to itself as a political theatre, calling themselves freedom fighters and places itself at the forefront of they call "cultural resistance". The creation of this cultural resistance is investigated here. This essay aims to explores, through examining the theatre's methods of practice, how cultural resistance could be transformed into political action and what problems that may hinder their political aspirations from becoming a true potential for political influence. The essay concludes that the theatre uses identity and narrative for political purposes in order to unite and strengthen the Palestinian collective identity, creating a civil resistance towards the Israeli occupation. This is however not an unproblematic process, and many of the same problems facing other nonviolent resistance movements are also present within the theatre. / Minor Field Studies, SIDA

Adolescence is a turbulent time and a critical transformational phase during which major physical, emotional, cognitive and social shifts occur. The objective of this study is to explore ways in which female adolescents can acquire anger management skills. The study proposes that emotional competency is cultivated as a result of the neurological plasticity of the brain and by applying learning material based on the work of scholars in the fields of neuroscience and Applied Drama. Adolescence is an opportune time for girls to learn emotional competency skills as the incomplete development of the prefrontal area of the brain makes them more inclined to risk taking and less aware of logical thinking processes. The study indicates that anger floods the body with secretions like cortisol and adrenaline, blocking logical thinking. Angry incidences can have destructive consequences for relationships. The empirical study includes discussions of training levels for anger management, such as the identification of anger-related emotions and anger styles, understanding anger, and curbing angry expressions through assertive communication. As anger management is a practical aptitude, the empirical study applied selected Process Drama conventions (as modes of Applied Drama), specifically role play, tableaux, Mantle of the Expert and dramatized poetry. The benefit of these conventions lies in the facility with which they can alternate between dual modes of engagement and learning content. Process Drama launches the workshops’ participants into a make-believe world in which they can identify with a situation from the inside out while simultaneously observing the situation from the outside in, a phenomenon called metaxis. The female adolescent, while protective of her social relationships, can safely enter a fictitious world and face the problems raised by anger without jeopardizing her privacy or dealing with real-life emotions. The convention of dramatized poetry enabled creative expression as the participants wrote their own poems to personalize their insight into their need for anger management. While the methodology was being practised, it was also assessed. As the outcomes of the learning objectives were the participants’ responsibility, I could assess during the activities if they accommodated learning objectives in their biography. In this study the participants were, for example, not able to fully utilize the skill of assertive communication. The integrity of the methodology of Process Drama for girls was affirmed when it was successfully combined with the principles of brain-based learning. The literature review and the outcomes of the empirical study confirmed that Process Drama adheres to the principles of brain-based learning which is, inter alia, physiological, social and emotional, and occurs in tandem with the developmental phase of the participant. The research study is the culmination of various disciplines and an endeavour to present a multimodal anger management programme that incorporates the adolescent female on a cognitive, emotional and physical level, and in a sound collaborative environment. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lk2014 / Drama / DPhil / Unrestricted