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 thesis investigates the expertise of applied theatre practitioners and proposes a concept of 'responsivity' to define their skills, knowledge, qualities and understanding. Practice-responsive research methods were devised to analyse how artists make decisions in-action in a range of applied theatre practice in community, education and health contexts. Research included the use of reflective dialogues following observations of practice, stimulated by joint researcher-practitioner reflection on a video recording of the observed session. Working from detailed analysis of this observed practice and dialogic reflection, new vocabularies are introduced and developed, with the aim of better articulating particular skills and approaches. The role of applied theatre practitioners is multi-faceted and primarily focussed on facilitating positive outcomes for the participants. Planning activity is informed by projected outcomes for the work and the context of practice, such as environment, nature of the participants, individual identities, etc. Practitioner skills build on art form knowledge and the ability to guide activity to create performance outcomes, alongside a concern for aesthetic and ethical issues of the work, as well as social and political awareness of the context. Adaptations to moment-by-moment activity reflect their ability to facilitate engagement and nurture interactive exchange. I suggest that, to manage these multiple demands, practitioners demonstrate heightened attendance to issues of inter-subjectivity and empathy, thereby developing an enhanced expertise in response to the work and the people and contexts involved in that work. The thesis proposes that responsive approaches are common to practitioners and enable her/him to make good choices within the moments of practice. Applied theatre's responsive-ness is indicative of a prioritisation of participant experience, however, the research also revealed the way in which a responsive ethos impacted and enriched the practitioners through supporting their own generative engagement with the work. The critical framework of responsivity proposed in this thesis acknowledges the importance of impact for all participants, including the artists. Whilst the methods and outcomes of applied theatre have received scholarly attention, this research focusses on how practitioners themselves define their expertise, embracing a consideration of skills learning and development. The concepts of response and dialogue informed this investigation in a number of significant ways, and as a result responsivity is proposed as a key methodological imperative for applied theatre research as well as the substantive focus of my thesis. This mode of operating as artists and researchers is particular to applied theatre's overarching aims to be socially responsive, politically engaged, ethically considerate and emancipatory. Responsivity is offered as a way to distinguish applied theatre practice from other performance participation and as an underpinning ethos for understanding the expertise of applied theatre practitioners.

As a Rogerian mental health therapist, a personal journey was taken that establishes my practice ethics as an applied theatre practitioner. What was undertaken was the unpacking of a practice ethics gained through my training as an actor and therapist. This thesis examines the role of codes or standards of practice in humanistic counselling, applied theatre and a synthesized practice between both. Standards of practice shape these practices through the specific ideologies relevant within the institutional cultures in which the practice is applied. This is especially problematic when the institutional setting understands care delivery as practice shaped by problem identification, interventions and expected outcome goals. Further, the ideology that underpins the standard, becomes self-reinforcing and tends to exert influence over what type of practice is culturally relevant or considered best practice within the institutional setting. This is of concern for practitioners who practice from a different or multiple ideological base from the institutional setting in which they work. A shaping goal of the research was to test-out, through critical evaluation, if the American Counseling Association's (ACA's) standards of practice was relevant and applicable to a synthesized practice between humanistic counselling practice and applied theatre practice. The results posed by the critical evaluation suggest that the ACAs standard is not applicable because it promotes empirical, or rather, evidenced-based models of practice over humanist ones. Because of its limited scope of application, the ACAs model is not applicable to synthesized or dual practices that bridge particular fields. Through lines of valuing within bridged fields, usually represent multiple ideological drivers. It was found that as a standard of practice the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (BACP) standard is a better fit. It is compatible with social construction. Within the research Carl Rogers' humanistic, client-centered and non-directive therapy is contrasted with Joseph Chaikin's brand of experimental theatre exemplified in his The Presence of the Actor. Chaikin's book is used as a tool to reconstruct examples of what I came to understand as ethical practice while attending drama school in the UK. The understandings gleaned by the juxtaposition impacts how I understand the ACAs utility as a practitioner.

Depuis la fin de l’apartheid, l’Afrique du Sud est entrée dans un vaste processus de reconstruction nationale. Les artistes de théâtre, qui s’étaient pour beaucoup impliqués dans la lutte contre le régime, ont ainsi dû redéfinir leur place au sein du pays. Cette thèse se concentre sur la période de 2004 à 2014 et étudie en particulier l’idéologie et les pratiques de troupes de théâtre professionnelles ayant choisi de mettre leur art au service du développement. Dans une dynamique prescriptive, ces dernières s’attaquent en priorité aux problématiques menaçant de façon immédiate l’équilibre vital de la société sud-africaine, prônant un changement attitudinal et comportemental auprès des publics visés. Constatant les difficultés de l’Afrique du Sud à gérer sa diversité et à effacer les multiples clivages issus de son histoire, les artistes s’emparent également de la question identitaire. Ainsi, les comédiens relaient les diverses perspectives sur le sujet et proposent à leur public de trouver un équilibre entre la reconnaissance des particularismes identitaires et la construction d’une nation fédérée autour de valeurs communes. Enfin, cette pratique artistique a pour vocation de transformer la réalité, constituant ainsi un défi pour tous ceux qui s’y impliquent. En modifiant le statut du spectateur, qui devient participant, les comédiens explorent la dimension performatrice de l’art théâtral. De plus, les artistes eux-mêmes sont confrontés à une exigence de cohérence, qu’il s’agisse de respecter effectivement leur mission en tant que troupe engagée pour le développement, ou d’incarner, au niveau professionnel comme privé, les valeurs qu’ils prônent sur scène. / Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has entered into a vast process of national reconstruction, mobilising diverse constituent parts of its society. Theatre artists, many of whom were involved in the fight against the regime, have had to redefine their role within their country. This thesis focuses on the period of time between 2004 and 2014, and studies in particular the ideology and practices of professional theatre companies that chose to devote their art to the service of development. Following a prescriptive approach, these companies put a priority on tackling issues that represent an immediate threat to the vital balance of South African society, advocating an attitudinal and behavioural change in the target audiences. Observing the difficulties South Africa faces in managing its diversity and overcoming the numerous divisions that are by-products of its history, the artists also take on the question of identity. In this way, the actors present diverse perspectives on the subject and leave it to their audience to find the balance between recognising particular identities and adopting common values to build a truly united nation. Finally, such a theatre aims at transforming reality, therefore challenging the audience and the artists alike. Through modifying the status of the spectator, who becomes a participant, the actors explore the performative dimension of theatrical art. In addition, the artists themselves are confronted with a requirement for coherence, whether this involves respecting their purpose as a company committed to development, or incarnating, in both a professional and private sense, the values which they advocate on stage.

Thesis (PhD. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / One of the important duties of performative art is the idea of creating a sense of recognising people’s predicaments, especially those whose voices have been suppressed. This study seeks to employ Applied Theatre techniques to investigate community underdevelopment and youth under-empowerment with a view to discover why there is a prevalence of the human-trafficking plague in Africa, with South Africa and Nigeria as case study. On the assumption that this approach could possibly have a desolating effect through the way in which some community members would feel about their situations, field works in Mabopane (South Africa) and Eleyele (Nigeria) were conducted in order to examine the prevalence of the neglect of the youths of these communities as well as human-trafficking occurrences and possibilities. Through the results from field works, the study seeks to unveil possible relationships community and youth neglect share with the human- trafficking scourge in both regional leading countries, in particular, and the globalised world, in general. KEYWORDS: Applied Theatre; Human-Trafficking; South Africa; Nigeria; Community Development; Youth Empowerment.

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The background for this study is the immediate readjustment to distance work for drama- and theatrepedagocial-education due to the Covid-19 pandemic during the spring of 2020. Central for these educations is the focus on interplay, aesthetic processes, leadership and physical embodiment, which heavily relies on interaction together with the group in a common physical space. Because of this, the educations were introduced to several challenges when the classroom was replaced with a digital room.   In this study, I have researched teacher’s perceptions of challenges and opportunities’ in regards to distance education through a phenomenographic approach. The empirical data for this study have been gathered through 8 in-depths interviews with teachers at drama- and theaterpedagocial educations in Sweden.   The result shows that the teachers in this study perceive the conditions to operate full time drama- and theatrepedagocial-education on distance are limited. The reasons for this is that the teachers experience essential moments in the education, especially physical embodiment and leadership training, as limiting. However, the teacher describe that they have learned a lot from distance teaching and that they perceive opportunities with some elements of distant teaching.   Opportunities with distant education that the teachers present are the ability to include participants on a digital platform that for different reasons cannot participate in the classroom. The experience of distance work has created possibilities to invite guest lecturers from around the world through a link. Teachers also perceive possibilities to keep in contact with student groups that are spread out in different geographical locations during longer internship periods.   Difficulties with distance education are teacher perceptions of digital education being tiresome for both teachers and students, since energy and focus disappear in distance work. The teachers in this study describe great difficulties with communication in distance education, that group processes come to a halt and that unity deteriorates. The result shows that the teachers experience that participant’s situation becomes vulnerable and uncertain, and that teachers perceive a great loneliness within participants in the distant situation. The result also shows that learning becomes more traditional and the role as a teacher becomes more controlling and relationships between teacher and student becomes more distant. / Bakgrunden till den här studien är den omedelbara omställningen till distansarbete för drama- och teaterpedagogutbildningarna på grund av Covid -19 våren 2020. Centralt i dessa utbildningar är att fokus ligger på samspel, estetiska processer, ledarskap och fysisk gestaltning, vilka i stor del bygger på att undervisningen sker tillsammans med gruppen i samma rum. Därför ställdes utbildningarna inför en hel del utmaningar när klassrummet byttes ut mot ett digitalt rum.  I den här studien har jag med fenomenografisk ansats undersökt lärares uppfattningar om möjligheter och svårigheter med distansundervisning. Studiens empiriska underlag har hämtats från intervjuer med 8 lärare vid drama- och teaterpedagogutbildningar i Sverige. Studien resulterade i ett utfallsrum med 4 beskrivningskategorier: Drama på distans som:  luckor i fundamentet, trubbiga verktyg, separerade arbetsytor, och ny design. Resultatet visar att lärarna i denna studie uppfattar att förutsättningarna för att bedriva drama- och teaterpedagogutbildningar som heltidsstudier på distans som begränsande. Anledningen till detta är att grundläggande moment i utbildningarna, som gemensamt fysiskt gestaltande och ledarskapsträning, är svåra att genomföra. Däremot beskriver lärarna att de fått med sig en hel del ny kunskap och erfarenhet av distansarbetet och ser möjligheter med att använda sig av vissa moment i utbildningarna på distans.  Möjligheter med distansarbete som lärarna i studien pekar på är att det går att inkludera deltagare, som av olika anledningar inte kan närvara i klassrummet, genom att ha med dem på en digital platta. Erfarenheten av distansarbete har även skapat förutsättningar för att bjuda in gästföreläsare från hela världen via länk. Lärarna uppfattar dessutom att det finns möjligheter att hålla kontakt med studentgrupperna då dessa befinner sig utspridda på olika platser för längre praktikperioder.  Svårigheter med distansarbete enligt studien är att lärarna uppfattar det digitala arbetet som tröttande för såväl lärare som studenter. Kommunikationen försvåras, grupprocesser avstannar och sammanhållning deltagarna emellan försämras. Deltagarnas situation blir utsatt och osäker och att lärarna uppfattade en stor ensamhet hos deltagarna i den distanserade situationen. Resultatet visade även på att vid distansarbete blir lärandet mer traditionellt och förmedlande, lärarrollen mer styrande och relationen mellan lärare och student mer distanserad.

This thesis explores the applications of a drama-based intervention program for very young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their parents. Drama-based pedagogy and practice is merged with behavioral principles from the world of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to create an interdisciplinary program tailored specifically for the unique learning needs of children with ASD. This document offers a comprehensive overview of the history of diagnosis and treatment of ASD and the many factors that can influence relationships between children with ASD and their parents. A drama-based intervention program was designed specifically to address the communication and social skill deficits in children with ASD. In addition, the drama-based intervention program encouraged parents to use responsive teaching strategies to enhance and extend creative play with their child. The document concludes with recommendations for essential components of a drama-based intervention program for very young children with ASD and their parents. / text

This research started as a quest to understand better the ethics of doing Theatre for Development/Applied Theatre with under-served, marginalized and vulnerable populations especially in post-conflict zones in the Global South. As a theatre practitioner-researcher from Africa who has lived and worked in post-conflict zones, I was interested in fostering appropriate ethical protocols for arts-based practices for social engagement, advocacy and social justice. Thus, in this dissertation, I focus on two concepts in applied theatre practice: participation and ethics. I examine how participation can be re-conceptualized in applied theatre practice and focus on the ethics around conducting research among vulnerable populations especially on refugees and internally displaced persons. On participation, I use existing case studies from various fields to argue that participation in community engagement and socially-engaged art practices can become a tool to reposition voices on the margin to the centre in order to unsettle centres of power. However, for this to happen, participation needs to engage a communicative action that is both epistemic and ontic in its approach. An epistemic discourse provides a way of seeing the world while an ontic discourse provides people with a way of being in the world. The former is a ‘theoretical’ discursive practice that is fundamentally epistemological, and the latter is an ‘embodied’ praxis that is fundamentally ontological. I examine the famous Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Kamiriithu Community Theatre project in Kenya and Michael Balfour et al’s refugee project in Australia to foreground this new thinking on verb-oriented and noun-oriented notions of participation. On ethics, I raise a series of critical questions around interventionist or humanitarian performances. It is hoped that these questions will deepen discourses in applied theatre practice and further challenge practitioners to rethink why we do what we do. Using narrative inquiry, I glean lessons from my field research facilitating drama workshop among secondary school students who have been internally displaced due to an ongoing socio-political crisis in Nigeria. I also reflect on my other applied theatre experiences in Canada and Sudan. I propose an ethical practice that is built on relational interaction. In the context of working in post-conflict zones or in places of war, I argue that precarity becomes a determining factor in framing the ethics of practice. The questions around ethics are raised to also draw attention to decolonizing ethical practices. Finally, I articulate the connection between participation and ethics in that participation becomes a tactic to ensure that applied theatre researchers/practitioners conduct their work in ethical ways. This is because through participation, concerned communities can challenge unethical practices and transform the research to create outcomes that are beneficial. Thus, as an example of reflective practitioner research, the projects in this dissertation offer opportunities to examine critically how participation has been conceptualized and the need for a decolonizing understanding towards ethics in applied theatre practice especially in post-conflict zones. / Graduate

This MFA Thesis traces my work as a joker (a la Theatre of the Oppressed) and facilitator through a three-year-long project with a trans applied theatre troupe. The troupe explored several techniques, including Image Theatre, Playback Theatre, storytelling exercises, and somatic movement. In three semester-long workshops, the troupe focused work around three sets of techniques. In the first workshop, the troupe explored the community-based interview process of Undesirable Elements, as designed by Ping Chong in collaboration with Talvin Wilks and Sara Zatz. These techniques were interrogated using queer and trans temporalities. In the second unit, the troupe practiced Augusto Boal’s “Cops in the Head” techniques from The Rainbow of Desire, utilizing a sociological perspective to examine the “ghosts” these techniques produce. In the final semester, I devised techniques specifically for and about transgender people, invoking trans theory and queer theory to explore issues of naming, trauma, and trans possibilities. Through this work I argue that techniques designed for cisgender bodies require adaptation to find success in transgender communities. I argue that the future of this work is not transforming existing techniques to suit our needs, rather it is creating techniques with transgender bodies and identities at the core.