When applied theatre is used in service of a health promotion or rights agenda, particular responsibilities come into play. The artist must be able to articulate their theory of change and translate it into action. In this article, I trouble the borderline between an ethical and an exploitative use of story when working to provide opportunities…

In a dominant Western tradition that reveres cerebral learning, embodied learning approaches have received limited research attention--and less in education than other disciplines. This paper draws on previously reported empirical data from a five-year Creative Partnerships study to argue that psycho-physical theatre practice can promote embodied…

The Posbolonian Uniform is a creative, artistic and performative response, undertaken as a criticism and opposition to the losses of democratic freedoms that have occurred in Spain recently. It is a bid by two university instructors for the use of artistic tools, specifically performance art, as a means of social transformation in their academic…

What types of theater performances are appropriate for preschoolers? What might toddlers get out of a visit from a cellist who plays a song and demonstrates the different sounds she can make with her instrument? Would inviting a local jazz dance group to perform be beneficial for your early first-graders? The author spoke with a musician, the…

These maps represent a selection of the 2013-2014 AISD Fine Arts Inventory survey results. The purpose of the maps is to illustrate the scope of fine arts representation in Austin Independent School District (AISD) schools.

In this article, the authors aim to provide a multifaceted lens on to Dorothy Heathcote's enormous influence on the field of drama education. They choose to order the reminiscences historically, focusing on Heathcote's consistency of passion and purpose. The anecdotes, lesson descriptions, and reminiscences capture her voice, her energy, and her…

Without applications of physics such as counter-weighted sets and backdrops, inclined planes, stage lighting instruments, and other mechanisms for "deus ex machina," dramatic productions would revert to the words only--fine for Shakespeare and Becket, but not good for audiences who are accustomed to experiencing plays with the eye as well as the…

In this article, the author describes how high-inquiry questions, wait-time, assessment, and reflection can yield deep learning connections for elementary and middle school students in the world of theater-making. He explains that building understanding of theater-making processes for students is supported when they: (1) Use theater vocabulary;…

The pedagogical principle of experiential learning embodied in the oral interpretation of literature through Readers' Theater provides an avenue to accomplish a seemingly daunting task. Students' participation in reading, interpreting, discussing, writing, assessing, and performing their own creative responses to a literary work promotes a…

In November 2011, the author--Ivan Fuller, a professor of theatre and associate dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Rider University--attended a joint symposium of the American Conference of Academic Deans and Phi Beta Kappa that was designed to wrestle with the question of why the humanities matter. At one session, participants…

Theater of the Oppressed (TO) is used in a variety of setting and communities to explore ways of recognizing and overcoming oppressions. The main purposes of TO is to become more critically aware of oppressions and power relationships, to rehearse alternative solutions for real life, and to ultimately to be able to make change for social justice.…

The first workshop in this series of institutes exploring the legacies of slavery in Virginia sponsored by the Virginia Geographic Alliance took place in Richmond, Virginia, and explored Africanist aesthetic legacies in contemporary culture and performance. In this workshop, the authors were specifically interested in pursuing the intersecting…

This article discusses practical ways to incorporate theater concepts into the ESL classroom. The notion of a theater ensemble lends itself well to group work in language learning. I have used my experience auditioning, participating in theater games, and improv techniques to encourage second language learning through public speaking, group…

In math, students and teachers toss tennis balls. In science, students become rain, hail, sleet, and snow. In language arts, students maneuver their bodies into related positions and hold into a frieze they call "tableau." The students and teachers are part of TheatreBridge, a four-year model demonstration and dissemination program lead…

This introductory article for a themed edition on environmentalism provides a particular context for those articles that follow, each of which engages with different aspects of environmentalism and performance in community-related settings. Responding to the proposition of Bottoms that there is a lacuna in the field of applied drama and…