A meditation on drama practice from an artist in Canada. My university students are preoccupied with damage and trauma. There are paralyzing obstacles to working across differences that were useful for a time but no longer serve a robust solidarity. The stories we collect, tell and re-tell ourselves to prepare for a 'never again' are stifled if…

The current heightened sensitivity around history, colonisation and the aftermath of the socio-political and cultural ethos of the world can create in many people the fear of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. This fear can affect the ability to imagine and play in certain learning settings, especially in devising performances, socially…

This article brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from three artist-scholars. More specifically, we examine the impact of performances of listening and care in works addressing connections to personal identity, trauma, and violence and the anxieties that these can provoke in our roles as artists, researchers, and pedagogues. We ask: how…

On the premise that performances and writing can be staged, and that no staging is ever innocent, we tell two unresolved, wonder-oriented phenomenological stories of Relaxed Performances (RP) that reveal 'affective trouble': the delivery of a 'cripped' fashion show at a university and a church-based 'relaxed' choir performance. We compose these…

An interview with Shawn Kinley, teacher and performer of improvisational theatre, whose work has taken him to 52 countries across five continents over a 30-year career. His diverse teaching experience includes working with scientists, opera companies, the military, family therapists, and more. Shawn shares his thoughts about the need for the…

The paper documents the final project in an undergraduate seminar on multilingualism at the University of Toronto from a pedagogical perspective. The multimodal and multimedia project -- centered on the idea of a fictitious festival of popular music, the Mondovision Song Contest -- uses the genre of pseudo-documentary as a channel for…

As neoliberalism infiltrates the foundations of education and arts-based practices, the authors of this article propose an applied theatre approach, based on the celebration of people who feel marginalised, to defy the notions of individualistic, self-centred, and out-put oriented goals that impact how students engage with and view the arts in…

Ryerson University theatre professor Natalie Alvarez is currently helming a large, interdisciplinary team in southern Ontario that is testing the power of Forum Theatre to build better, more responsive scenarios for police officer training in de-escalation and mental crisis response. In this interview, Alvarez sits down with issue editor Kim Solga…

This paper provides an overview of a collaborative model with which to equip educators with the tools to apply and embed simulated person (SP) methodology in their teaching. Our aim is to expand opportunities to foster student success through simulation by embedding the training of simulators and faculty within undergraduate education. The…

This article describes the process of using an ethnodrama while working with older adults learning English as an additional language. By examining a 4-month-long period of Seniors Drama Club, created to offer theatre-based language learning experiences for Vancouver's immigrant senior population, the authors draw attention to the complex learning…

This "Note from the Field" provides an overview of what is happening in Kindergarten to University drama and theatre education across Canada. In addition to this snapshot I offer some considerations for extending this discipline and its potential impact on curriculum, policy and practice.

Forum Theatre (FT) was created by Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal (1985) as an approach for promoting dialogue between the audience and those performing on stage for his "Theater for the Oppressed." FT offers an accessible, interactive approach to exploring challenging topics and situations. In FT, a short scene is performed. It…

In the 2011-2012 academic year, the Organizational Development and Learning unit and the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of British Columbia co-developed an interactive theatre project, Conflict Theatre, to engage in discussion around conflict with our audience and to allow us to explore, engage with, and build…

The following dramatized classroom scenario depicts a teacher struggling with the nature of an inclusive learning environment, with instructional leadership and supervision of instruction as the theoretical and practical backdrop. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the use of a TAR (theatre as representation) case study can be used…

In 2007, Simon Fraser University's satellite campus in Surrey, British Columbia, received an Official Languages Dissemination Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to examine the role of official bilingualism in the multilingual context through installation and performance art. This essay considers the processes…