“Perhaps the only certainty is that our environment has been, is and always will be changing… The ‘unfinished’ and uncertain nature of science arguably shares some resonance with the ideally ‘unfinished’ and uncertain nature of performance – performance that leaves room for spectators’ engagement and in doing so acknowledges multiple actants.”(Heddon and Mackey 2012)
Applied theatre relies on fields such as psychology, cultural geography and education to inform their practices and to be able to utilize hybrid theatrical practices for various purposes (such as empowerment and science education) (Nicholson 2005). The close proximity to which applied theatre can bring distant and complex issues is a suited arena to research and present environmental problems that sometimes seem elusive (Schaefer 2012). In fact, applied theatre is often seen as a set of practices whereby humans’ relationships with themselves and their world can be researched, challenged and rethought, and this is exactly what the Anthropocene posits as a new manner of dealing with our relations with the earth system.
This session will shed light on how applied theatre can change or reshape environmental realities (Anderson 2012). This is possible because applied theatre practices and theories are resonant with pragmatic and metaphorical recognition and manipulation of multiple actors (human, non-human and all the hybrids in between) of complex systems. As Heddon and Mackey discuss, “Kagawa and Selby (amongst others) suggest that the imparting of scientific facts has not addressed issues ‘holistically’ and has focused on reforming behaviours rather than on the necessity of transformational change.” Theatre can be a medium for environmental transformation through encountering ideas of the Anthropocene and their impacts on specific realities, for applied theatre lies in between theory/discourse and action/practice, and it influences both.
Applying Theatre to Environmental Issues Presentation
Focus Questions
- In what ways does applied theatre in the Americas appear to (or not to) support meaningful social change?
- How has applied theatre in these regions responded to contemporary discussions about humans’ impact on the earth system, be it impacts on climate, land degradation or other big themes?
- How does (or can) applied theatre benefit from scientific research and also inform contemporary environmental scientific research?
- What can applied theatre give to scientific research and different communities as they attempt to understand and mindfully use their enormous collective power in the shaping of the earth system?
Panelists
- Catherine Ming T’ien Duffly. Assistant Professor at Reed College.
Professor Kate Duffly has a PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California, and her main academic interests are acting, directing, socially engaged and community-based theatre, 20th and 21st century American theatre, race theory and performance, feminist performance, and food as/in performance.
- Ruth Wikler-Luker. Curator and Producer of Boom Arts.
Ruth Wikler-Luker has worked as manager, producer, consultant and artistic director for several cultural-artistic organizations, and her professional interests are performing arts presenting, cultural policy, community-based arts, Latin American performing arts, contemporary circus and physical theatre.
- Marlon Jiménez Oviedo. Student at Lewis & Clark College.
Marlon is a Theatre and Environmental Studies double major at Lewis & Clark College, and his main academic interests are applied theatre, community-based participatory research, physical theatre and community management of environmental resources.
Annotated Bibliography
- Anderson, Mary Elizabeth. 2012. “Moving, Writing, Failing: Spatialities of Ambivalence in Detroit’s Ruinscapes.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 17 (2): 193–208. doi:10.1080/13569783.2012.670422.
In this article, the author discusses the moral implications of carrying out applied theatre at ruined landscapes in Detroit. The author, a theatre professor, describes projects in different ruined landscapes of Detroit. Then, she moves on to describe the challenges that applied theatre can face when attempting to facilitate experiences that allow participants to look at landscapes in new ways. The paper delves into the risk of scandalizing social and environmental problems, instead of providing new ideas or concepts in relation to place.
- Etherton, Michael, and Tim Prentki. 2006. “Drama for Change? Prove It! Impact Assessment in Applied Theatre.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 11 (2): 139–55. doi:10.1080/13569780600670718.
Etherton and Prentki engage in a critical discussion and analysis of some applied theatre practices and the ways in which one can measure their actual impact on society. Applied theatre tends to claim that it has an inherent capacity for being catalysts for social change, yet not many professional practitioners can provide sound evidence of their practices’ impact. This can become a serious problem when receiving funding and dealing with real people’s livelihoods. This perspective needs to be expanded and included in the session as a way to ground the discussion and illuminate the real potential of applied theatre.
- Gergen, Mary, and Kenneth J. Gergen. 2011. “Performative Social Science and Psychology.” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 12 (1). http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1595.
With this article, Gergen and Gergen provide an overview of the recently growing field of performative social science. This field is the hybrid product of utilizing performative arts in scientific projects. The authors suggest that social scientists invested in studying social justice and political perspectives have been the most inclined to combine their research with artistic practices.
- Heddon, Deirdre, and Sally Mackey. 2012. “Environmentalism, Performance and Applications: Uncertainties and Emancipations.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 17 (2): 163–92. doi:10.1080/13569783.2012.670421.
In Environmentalism, performance and applications: uncertainties and emancipations, Heddon and Mackey discuss the potential of Applied Theatre to pair up with environmental knowledge and scholars to study and change people’s livelihoods and their relations with big, numbing and sometimes too-abstract concepts such as Climate Change. This directly speaks to contemporary ideas about how environmental issues should be dealt with, if we ought to build more fair and sustainable ways of living.
- Helen Nicholson. 2005. Applied Drama : the Gift of Theatre. Basingstoke England ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
This book is very much situated in the contemporary world where practitioners carry out applied theatre projects, and thus it provides very insightful information about different methods and ethical implications that come with applied theatre. This is relevant to the session, as it brings us closer to applied theatre in the more recent times, where globalization has started to infiltrate in most realities, where citizenship means different things for different people and where the social systems continue to change in new ways.
- Schaefer, Kerrie. 2012. “Performing Environmental Change: MED Theatre and the Changing Face of Community-based Performance Research.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 17 (2): 247–63. doi:10.1080/13569783.2012.670425.
This text provides in-depth analysis on how Manaton and East Dartmoor Theatre (community-based theatre) has explored and dealt with performances about climate change, and its relation to their local ecology and community. The discussion is based around two plays, Hot Air and Snow, and it explores the relationship between local and global, and cultural and natural, through the research of ideas of place in rural UK.
- Sullivan, J., and R. S. Lloyd. 2006. “The Forum Theatre of Augusto Boal: A Dramatic Model for Dialogue and Community-Based Environmental Science.” Local Environment 11 (6): 627–46. doi:10.1080/13549830600853684.
In this text, Sullivan and Lloyd discuss the use of forum theatre as a community-based participatory research tool for environmental science. More specifically, it describes their utilization of forum theatre in the study of the consequences of toxic waste exposure in different communities in Texas. Thus, this article touches upon the use of theatre in scientific research and activism.
Environmental Studies is located in room 343A of John R. Howard Hall on the Undergraduate Campus.
MSC: 62
email envs@lclark.edu
voice 503-768-7790
fax 503-768-7620
Symposium Advisor Jessica Kleiss
Environmental Studies
Lewis & Clark
615 S. Palatine Hill Road MSC 62
Portland OR 97219