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ERIC Number: EJ881063
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Feb
Pages: 7
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1356-9783
EISSN: N/A
"Reunion"--A Site-Specific, Participatory Performance in Youth Centres
Cooper, Ruth
Research in Drama Education, v15 n1 p103-109 Feb 2010
The Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah (the Blahs) have been working in youth centres since 1985 and over that time the Blahs have experimented with ways to make theatre for young people in this environment. A youth centre can be a hostile place to take a piece of theatre. Many of the youth centres the Blahs have visited have been in areas of social and economic deprivation and are well-used if not run down. The Blahs' recent project "Reunion" was an opportunity both to experiment with how the Blahs work in a youth centre and to look at how some of the participatory techniques familiar from the author's schools' work could transfer into this setting. "Reunion" was a site-specific and participatory performance, adapted for nine youth centres in Leeds and Bradford. The starting point was a reunion taking place between ex-members of a youth centre. The content of the story, which for the most part took place when the characters were 15 years old, was the myth "Echo and Narcissus." Ted Hughes' "Echo and Narcissus" was used as a stimulus. As the Blahs' Youth Programme Director, the author wrote and devised the programme with the three professional actors who were hired to work on the project. This article presents the sequences of the piece that have been chosen to illustrate the different elements of the project--participatory theatre, involvement of the youth workers and the myth itself. (Contains 4 notes.)
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom (England); United Kingdom (Leeds)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A