Tim Prentki

Drama for change? Prove it! Impact assessment in applied theatre

The purpose of this special issue is to raise some critical questions about measuring the impact of applied drama and theatre. The editors have attempted to bring together case studies and essays that indicate the range of situations in which the impact in the short, medium and long term is already being assessed. How might the impact of an initiative involving drama be measured over time? Can a longer term impact assessment transform the creative methodologies and contribute to global knowledge? In attempting to answer these and related questions we invited a range of contributions that would encompass a diverse set of contexts in terms of geography, participants and funding structures, as well as a wide spectrum of methods in terms of the ways in which theatre is being used, styles of facilitation and the intended outcomes of the work. We wished to explore, both from the perspective of the NGO (non-government organisation) and of the academy, the effects of cultural intervention on behaviour related to some of the most intimate areas of human experience such as sexual relations and family dysfunction. Contributors were asked to reflect upon the impact, both intended and unintended, of the projects in terms of changing lives and on how they might assess whether there had been any impact. Through our invitations, we deliberately sought to transgress the territorial boundaries between the various branches of applied theatre which we generally take to be unhelpful. Instead we were interested in the relationships between context, method and outcome, regardless of the label that might be affixed to the process. As the two editors who proposed this Special Issue, we combine a shared perspective from theatre, applied theatre and those international development agencies that now recognise the need for creativity and imagination in development objectives. This shared perspective determined the range of contributions we sought from practitioners. We aim to introduce a positive attitude towards the analyses that are now informing development practice both amongst the poorest and most oppressed people, and amongst young, disaffected but materially comfortable people in the world today. These analyses show a contradiction between an intention to promote rights*/equity, fairness and justice*/and the economic realities of what is now referred to as globalisation. As editors we need to explain the context of the key terms we use in this special issue: impact and impact assessment. A number of development agencies perceive a difference between what they refer to as monitoring and evaluation (M&E), which has to be included in project design

Save the children?: Change the world

This article uses two examples of fieldwork on the Indian sub-continent on which to base a model for a participatory practice in Theatre for Development. After offering a brief contextualisation of TFD within the development discourses of modernisation and participation, the author proceeds to outline four key elements for this type of participation: passion, story, contradiction and transformation. These concepts are themselves related to the evolving practices of Brecht and Boal in order to explore the connections between the theories and practices which have influenced the direction of TFD and have accounted, partially, for the ways in which the two fieldwork case studies were conducted. These studies raise other questions, notably about the functions of indigenous knowledge and strategies for its preservation in the face of the assault of the globalised monoculture. This contradiction, like the others at the heart of the process, can only be used transformatively if it is built into the devising process in ways which enable communities to confront rather than evade it. The argument running through the article takes TFD from its limited role as a tool in the NGO workers kit-bag in the service of the dominant discourse of development practice to a process of practical analysis and critique in the service of those who seek, on whatever scale, to change the world.

Social action through theatre

This article proposes a relationship between the current condition of British culture and those conditions out of which the Theatre for Development movement in Africa has grown. It sees in the artefacts of “mainstream” theatre a loss of the element of participation which once made European dramatic traditions vibrant and interactive. Theatre for Development may provide the means of reinvigorating that theatre with purpose and social relevance. There is a brief analysis of the role of colonisation in the destruction of indigenous culture, worth and identity. Theatre for Development has tried to play a part in transforming the poor and marginalised from the objects into the subjects of history through the reintegration of communities, using non‐literary, indigenous forms such as oral testimony. Theatre for Development in Africa has evolved out of the phase of message bearing from the centre into techniques for community self‐representation. The process of conscientisation is seen as crucial to effective, sustainable community development. The recent political history of Britain has produced a society where many of those on the margins could benefit from exposure to Theatre for Development practices. The M.A. course in Community Drama for Development run by King Alfreds College, Winchester and the University of Southampton is attempting to make the connections between work in different parts of the globe and between development and theatre. Theatre for Development can be an important tool in the struggle to improve the quality of life for all communities that have suffered from the oppressive hegemonies of those who have claimed to speak for them.

The Empire Strikes Back: the relevance of Theatre for Development in Africa and South‐east Asia to community drama in the UK

Abstract Theatre for Development is now widely practised in many parts of the world even though its practitioners may not always agree about what constitutes theatre or development. Much of the work is conducted on a project‐by‐project basis due to the lack of agreed theoretical bases or to the absence of effective networking. Furthermore the community drama movement in the UK, increasingly perceived as being under threat from the decline in resources. has generally not taken any account of Theatre for Development in its evolution. This paper investigates the possible gains, in terms of contemporary social relevance, for community theatre and drama from exposing itself to the foreign influence of Theatre for Development. One possible means of engendering a cross‐fertilisation is offered in the form of a Masters course in Community Drama for Development which has recently been launched as a joint venture between King Alfreds College, Winchester and the Arts Faculty of the University of Southampton. The wa...

Relational pedagogy and the drama curriculum

Trawling through the back issues of RIDE it is evident that articles which explicitly address the notion of curriculum are very thin on the ground. Early volumes contain one or two but in later years, there have only been those that formed part of the Special Issue on ‘Drama for School Education: Global Perspectives’. While research into the reasons for this relative neglect lie beyond the scope of this editorial essay, it is tempting to speculate that the space for contemplating questions relating to drama and the curriculum was usurped by the turn towards pedagogy (cf. Bernstein) evident in educational discourse from the 1990s onwards. The work in this volume draws on a diverse curriculum heritage, encompassing the curriculum orientations proposed by Heathcote, Bolton, Courtney, Spolin, Neelands, Nicholson and Boal. Unlike most considerations of curriculum, these authors considered emotions, aesthetics, values, culture and embodied knowing as central to learning and pivotal underpinnings to curriculum, in contrast to the focus on purely cognitive ways of knowing evident in many other curriculum theorists. What is evident from the articles that follow is the power and influence of local contexts, of government commitment (or lack of) to access to an education in drama, of financial investment by governments or groups, and of the passion and commitment of individuals, alone and collectively, for access to quality drama education. This volume provides a baseline, a mark in the sand, a platform from which discussions of drama curriculum in the twentyfirst century can be based. The term curriculum is variously used to encompass the pre-active (Ross 2000) planned or intended (Pinar et al. 2002), evident in the written documents produced and disseminated by a ministry or education department; the enacted or operational (Eisner 1994a, 1994b) describing the selection of content, activities and assessment from the planned curriculum that teachers actually apply in classroom practice; the experienced or lived (Aoki 2005b) which incorporates the day to day learning experiences of the students; the hidden (Apple 2004; Giroux and McLaren 1989), including expectations of behaviours, gendered or otherwise, and ways of working delineated by the implicit power structures and values enacted within a school community; and the nul curriculum (Eisner 1994b) which refers to content, subject matter, concepts and processes that are not selected as part of the course of study and hence excluded from the field of knowledgemade available to students. Marsh and Willis (2003, 13) define curriculum as ‘an interrelated set of plans and experiences that a student undertakes under the guidance of the school’. We seek to move beyond such technical, prescriptive notions of curriculum as documents or plans and align with Pinar et al., who state that:

Conversation: a dialogue developing issues arising from the article 'The empire strikes back' by Tim Prentki[1]

[1] The empire strikes back: the relevance of Theatre for Development in Africa and South-east Asia to community drama in the UK, Research in Drama Education, 1, pp. 33-49.

Performance and Civic Engagement

relation to how institutions engage with the public and around considerations of impact. In this volume, we use the term to emphasise a politically active encounter between institutions, individuals and art practices as they are used to effectively engage with the public sphere on a civic level across physical and virtual spaces. Benjamin Stokes states, ‘the field of political science is beginning to question its traditional definitions of civic engagement to account for more “global citizens” and transnational activism’ (Delwiche and Henderson 2013, 143). This multidisciplinary volume tracks across the fields and overlapping practices of political science, cultural geography, and performance studies. It seeks to address how and why physical and digital spaces can be analysed and utilised for new artistic practices that challenge traditional notions of how performance is political and how politics are performative.

Introduction to Applying Digital Agency

This section, Applying Digital Agency , explores how technology has been used within performances of civic engagement through cyberformance, soundwalks and social media.

Introduction to Performing Landscapes

This section contextualises how location relates to local power structures, systems and infrastructures and brings these nuances to the fore in our understanding of performance and civic engagement.

Bottom’s Dream Applied Theatre: Anything Goes but what Stays?

This chapter will examine the concept of transformation as it is commonly applied in theatre. Beginning with a look at some of the ways in which the trickster or shape-shifter has exploited transformation in the cause of change, it will proceed to analyse the specifically theatrical modes of transformation, and the challenges associated with sustaining these beyond the moment of performance. Moving from anthropology and myth to performance, the chapter draws on examples from the Bible, Marlowe, Shakespeare and Brecht in its exploration of the multivalent operation of transformation. The chapter concludes by locating the contemporary facilitator of applied theatre on a line from her ancestor, the trickster or fool, and asking whether folly is a necessary precondition for transformation. This analysis will involve a consideration of the effect of character upon actor, alongside exploration of the relationship between disguise and identity. In the liminal space of performance anything goes. But does anything stay?