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Shortlisted for the 2022 TaPRA David Bradby Monograph PrizeApplied Theatre: A Pedagogy of Utopia offers a critical consideration of long-term applied and participatory theatre projects. In doing so, it provides a timely analysis of concepts that inform applied theatre and outlines a new way of thinking about making theatre with differing groups of participants.
The book problematizes key concepts including safe spaces, voice, ethical practice and resistance. Selina Busby analyses applied theatre projects in India, the USA and the UK, in youth theatres, homeless shelters, prisons and with those living in informal housing settlements to consider her key question: what might a pedagogy of utopia look like? Drawing on 20 years of practice in a range of contexts, this book focuses on long-term interventions that raise troubling questions about applied theatre, cultural colonialism and power, while arguing that community or participatory theatre conversely has the potential to generate a resilient sense of optimism, or what Busby terms, a 'nebulous utopia'.
List of contents
Foreword, Helen Nicholson
Acknowledgements
Permissions
Introduction
1. Costa Rica: Utilizing a Global Vision to Safeguard the Local Village
2. Partnerships, Integrated Community Investment and Nebulous Utopia
3. Aspirational Thinking: Social Justice and Critical Pedagogy
4. Articulation and Amplification
5. Finding a Thirdspace
6. Geographies of Resistance
Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Selina Busby is Principal Lecturer in Applied & Community Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. She is a theatre practitioner who makes performances with a wide range of community groups across the globe. Her research and practice focuses on theatre that invites the possibility of change, both in contemporary plays and in participatory performance. As a practitioner, she works in prison settings, youth theatres, and with young people living in adverse conditions both in the UK and internationally.
Summary
Shortlisted for the 2022 TaPRA David Bradby Monograph Prize
Applied Theatre: A Pedagogy of Utopia offers a critical consideration of long-term applied and participatory theatre projects. In doing so, it provides a timely analysis of concepts that inform applied theatre and outlines a new way of thinking about making theatre with differing groups of participants.
The book problematizes key concepts including safe spaces, voice, ethical practice and resistance. Selina Busby analyses applied theatre projects in India, the USA and the UK, in youth theatres, homeless shelters, prisons and with those living in informal housing settlements to consider her key question: what might a pedagogy of utopia look like? Drawing on 20 years of practice in a range of contexts, this book focuses on long-term interventions that raise troubling questions about applied theatre, cultural colonialism and power, while arguing that community or participatory theatre conversely has the potential to generate a resilient sense of optimism, or what Busby terms, a ‘nebulous utopia’.
Foreword
This volume explores applied and social performance with marginalized communities, considering whether these practices contain the promise of hope, or engender a sense of disappointment
Additional text
[R]eaders are engrossed in the author’s eloquent theoretical argument blended with her engaging storytelling of each different applied theatre project. Not only inspiring but also a critically necessary read for applied theatre students in our current time of trouble.
