The purpose of this applied theatre essay was to observe effects and impacts on older adults engaging in theatre activities and storytelling surrounding the horrors of Detroit's 1967 Riots. Classes were held at the Hannan Center, an organization designed to serve the older adult community offering a variety of services in the city of Detroit. The…

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…

Professor Wade Madsen has been teaching at Cornish College of the Arts since 1985. This article serves as a window into his educational approach to teaching advanced choreography.

In this article, I outline and theorize about a series of three lessons on playwriting I conducted in a secondary English Literature classroom in Singapore using drama improvisation strategies that I name drama-based playwriting, or DBP. I advance the argument that this genre of creative writing is best taught through the medium of drama so as to…

Through reflection on a longitudinal teaching, devising, and directing experience in a regional prison, as well as subsequent opportunities for collaboration with formerly incarcerated students, this article posits improvisation as a powerful vehicle for inclusivity, pluralism, and humanistic exchange in applied arts settings.

The author is a teaching artist. Most of her previous experiences as a teaching artist have afforded her the opportunity to create and facilitate a lesson or an arc of lessons through a residency in a school. She was the "expert" artist in the partnership. The author longs to have a deeper, more fruitful impact on classroom learning. What might…

Since 1999, when the author first started teaching creative process-based dance programs in public schools, she has struggled to find the time to teach children the basic concepts and tools of dance while teaching them to be deliberate with their choreographic choices. In this article, the author describes a process that helps students and…

In this article, the author shares her experience working on a multimedia project with her students. The project creates a context for students to reinterpret space and ethos in an elementary school. It allows students to poetically enter physical spaces and the written word through collaborative observation, contemplation, and remixing.

In this article, the author describes an innovative collaboration with an elementary school math teacher that leads to original student choreography and engaging mathematical thinking. Using a tool the author created called Jump Patterns, students at Fox Hill Elementary School in Indianapolis, Indiana, engage in a robust, creative, choreographic…

The Ethiopian Orphanage Project was the brainchild of a prominent pediatrician who, through her foundation and private practice, has been saving the physical and emotional lives of children for years, both in the United States and abroad, with a focus on HIV+ orphans in developing countries. Three years ago, after introducing ARVs (antiretroviral…

In this article, the author, a poet and teaching artist, shares how he successfully brought slam poetry to College Hill Middle School in Texarkana, Arkansas. In 2001 he discovered slam poetry--a poetry-reading format in which poets compete in dramatic readings of their works--and went to Slam Nationals in Seattle on the Arkansas slam team. He…

This section is full of stories from teaching artists working to clarify what needs to change within their practices and moving toward solutions--whether it's supporting a classroom of learners in new and unexpected ways, reassessing one's approach in the classroom, shepherding an individual child toward success, or professionalizing an entire…

A leading TA and writer speaks to the human importance of art making in schools, prisons, and beyond. This article attempts to demonstrate that, as human beings and as artists, we should speak up for nourishing the art-making instinct at its core, and not only for placing this gift in the service of other laudable goals.

For nearly 25 years, the author has driven the highways and back roads of Illinois, teaching dance to school children, leading family programs, performing lecture/demonstrations, and choreographing technically simple, conceptually complex pieces with and for young dancers. The author's home base is Champaign/Urbana (C/U), twin cities with a…

The residency about which the author writes was with students at The Roeper School in Birmingham, Michigan. This school is unusual in its support for a liberal arts and process-based education. In this article the author, an accomplished director and Teaching Artist, recounts the many engaging dimensions of a student production of "Henry…