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Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
Working Group Session 1 Monday 5th September (1.45-3.45)
Examining the space between and around an applied and a social theatre in Ireland
Dr Michael Finneran (Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland)
A tradition of applied theatre practice arguably does not exist in Ireland, nor indeed is there much
evidence of a range of contemporary practice. There is a clear history, however, of performative and
dramatic practices beyond theatre spaces which have a social orientation and function. The peculiar and
complex relationship between theatre and the Irish identity and state has been examined in a range
of recent volumes (Pilkington 2010, Lonergan 2010, Merriman 2011, Walsh 2013), and largely
from post-colonial perspectives.
This paper will examine the assertion that the dominant aesthetic in Irish theatre is in
fact more aligned to a social/applied continuum rather than a literary/stage one. Such an
examination and repositioning offers possibilities in a subversion and reconsideration of what is
‘normal’ and ‘native’ in Irish theatre. In undertaking this exploration, the paper will address one
of the questions of the working group and examine how research in Irish theatre
can offer hope to changing and challenging political and educational landscapes in the Rep. of
Ireland.
Lonergan, Patrick. 2010. Theatre and globalization: Irish drama in the Celtic Tiger era. London:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Merriman, Victor. 2011. Because we are poor: Irish theatre in the 1990s. Dublin: Carysfort
Press.
Pilkington, Lionel. 2010. Theatre & Ireland. Basingstoke, Hamps: Palgrave Macmillan.
Walsh, Fintan, ed. 2013. 'That Was Us': Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance. United
Kingdom: Oberon Books.
Michael Finneran is a senior lecturer in drama at Mary Immaculate College, University of
Limerick, Ireland, where he is Programme Director for the BA in Contemporary & Applied
Theatre Studies. He is Reviews Editor and a member of the editorial board of RiDE: The Journal
of Applied Theatre & Performance. Michael’s research interests lie in drama education, applied
theatre, critical theory, social justice and teacher education. He has co-edited (with
K. Freebody) Drama and Social Justice: Theory, research and practice in international
contexts (Routledge, 2016), and is currently co-editing (with M. Anderson) a book
entitled Education and Theatres: Innovation, Outreach and Success, to be published by Springer
in 2017.
Socially Engaged Theatre, Dislocation and Spirituality: Adrift Together
Dr Zoe Zontou (Liverpool Hope University)
The concept of emotional dislocation is a phenomenon that has become relevant in
contemporary Europe. The economic crisis has led to an alarming increase in mental health,
homelessness, drug addiction, and suicides (Martin-Carrasco et al., 2016). Problem drug users,
the ‘addicts’, have been historically depicted as a symbol of the crisis of consumption
and dislocation, a symbol of a fragmented society (Brodie and Redfield, 2002; Milhet, Bergeron,
and Hunt, 2011). By taking into consideration the above arguments I am posing the
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
following questions: how can socially engaged theatre respond to the growing number of
individuals who lack social connectedness? And, how the investigation of theatre projects with
people in recovery from addiction (as the cultural symbols of dislocation), can supplement our
understanding of the possibilities of social engaged theatre with other social
groups that face similar issues? In this presentation, I respond to the above questions
by examining the connections between socially engaged theatre, dislocation and spirituality. In
doing so, I explore the work of Risen Dance Theatre Performance Group.
Brodie, J.F. and Redfield, M. (eds.) (2002) High anxieties: Cultural studies in addiction. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Martin-Carrasco, M., Evans-Lacko, S., Dom, G., Christodoulou, N.G., Samochowiec, J., González-Fraile,
E., Bienkowski, P., Gómez-Beneyto, M., Santos, M.J.H. Dos and Wasserman, D. (2016) ‘EPA guidance on
mental health and economic crises in Europe’, European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience,
266(2), pp. 89–124. doi: 10.1007/s00406-016-0681-x.
Milhet, M., Bergeron, H. and Hunt, G. (eds.) (2011) Drugs and culture: Knowledge, consumption and policy.
United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing.
Zoe Zontou is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre studies at Liverpool Hope University. Her principal
research interests lie in the field of socially engaged theatre with people in recovery from alcohol
and drug dependency. Her research covers a wide range of topics, including autobiography in
performance, addiction studies and cultural policy, which are examined through their
relationship with socially engaged theatre. She has worked as a practitioner and researcher in a
number of organisations, and has published in the area of socially engaged theatre research and
practice.
Applied and Social Arts from Universities to Communities: Transdisciplinary or Undisciplinary?
Mia Perry (University of Glasgow)
This paper considers the changing dynamic between the ‘social’ and the ‘arts’ of social and
applied arts today. This paper is about the gap, the journey, the opportunities, and the
challenges in that dynamic. I propose to examine this current and
growing gap between the ‘social’ and the ‘arts’ in three parts:
1.
An autobiographical narrative of someone who began as an actor, turned
advocate, turned academic, and with each turn moved further and further away from
making art.
2.
A conceptual enquiry into the growing distance between on the one
end, community development, youth work, and civic engagement and on the other end,
contemporary, applied and social arts. I draw on contemporary theory in cultural
studies, social geography, and applied arts along with illustrative practices in community
development and regeneration, and social arts.
3.
A case study example of seized opportunity in a spacious divide. This third
section will describe a recent collaboration between a department of theatre and a
community development programme at the University of Glasgow.
This presentation will include both a discursive analysis of our contemporary field -- positioned
as we are across disciplines and fields of practice -- as well as critique of a field becoming
increasing divided by funding and institutional structures. Finally, the presentation is a
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
provocation to new relationships, new discourses, and allegiances to always emerging and
always susceptible art forms.
Mia Perry works in the intersections of contemporary cultural practices and public pedagogies.
She is interested in the pedagogical affordances of making and witnessing arts and culture, the
relationships (human and non-human) inherent in every learning engagement, and a
perspective on those engagements that accounts for more than the representable
signifiers. Mia did her MA at Central, and her PhD at UBC, Vancouver, Canada. She then held an
assistant professorship with the Faculty of Education, University of Regina, Saskatchewan. In
relocating to Europe, she worked in the NGO sector for 2 years as the Research Director of an
international children’s charity, the ecl foundation. Mia is a Senior Lecturer at the University of
Glasgow.
What next for the Theatre for Development ‘actor’? Suggesting some possibilities for mutual
learning between the fields of applied theatre and global development
Bobby Smith (Phd Candidate, University of Manchester)
Ahmed (2002) argues that TfD cannot navigate the neo-colonial problematics he associates
with development. Similarly, Prenkti (2015) proposes that TfD has found itself at a
crossroads. Turn right and continue down a path of accommodation where TfD ‘become[s] the
exclusive property of government [...] NGOs and be wielded as a tool to encourage ‘prosocial’ behaviour’’ (ibid. p.246), or take a left and struggle down an awkward, endless path
concerned with the right for each human being to live creatively and not for the profit of
others. Plastow (2014) shows how susceptible TfD is to being hijacked by governments, donors
and NGOs, suggesting that the rightwards turn is the path more well-trodden. So, what are we
do to? Withdrawing from such uses is not an option: the development sector will continue to
use drama regardless. In this paper I draw on interviews with over 50 international
practitioners and organisations in order to gain a deeper insight into the problematics and
possibilities of theatre and development partnerships. I build on these interviews through
paying attention to contemporary discourses in development and suggest that not only do
these voices indicate a space of radical possibility for theatre makers, they also provide a
challenge in terms of how we think about and ‘do’ TfD.
Ahmed, S.J (2002) Wishing for a World without 'Theatre for Development': Demystifying the case of
Bangladesh, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 7:2, 207219, DOI: 10.1080/1356978022000007983
Plastow, J. (2014) ‘Domestication or Liberation? The ideology of Theatre for Development in
Africa’, Applied Theatre Research, Volume 2, Number 2, 1 July 2014, pp.107-118(12)
Prenkti, T. (2015) Applied Theatre: Development, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, London.
Bobby Smith is a practitioner who has worked in community, educational and criminal justice
settings in the UK and internationally. He currently freelances for a number of organisations in
the UK, and is involved with projects in Uganda and with Amani People’s Theatre in Kenya. He
is researching for a PhD exploring aspects of equitability, partnership and knowledge in theatre
and international development at Manchester University. His research interests include many
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
aspects of applied theatre, arts and culture in international development and the role of the
applied theatre facilitator.
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
Working Group Session 2 Tuesday 6th September (9.30 -11.00)
The spaces in between. Relationships in participatory work
Sue Mayo (Goldsmiths, University of London)
In his book A Fortunate Man (1967) John Berger reflects on the ways in which the GP, John
Sassall negotiates his place as an outsider, and builds connections in the village where he
works. This happens partly through becoming involved in joint enterprises. Berger points to an
occasion when Sassall is part of a group of men who are trying to mend a car engine. ‘It is as
though the speakers bend over the subject to examine it in precise detail, until, bending over it
their heads touch’. The meeting place, where connections are made, is the work.
In this paper I want to examine the building of connectivity through the enterprise of
making a piece of work together. As I have written elsewhere, a project can create an
exoskeleton, holding a group of individuals through its purpose and direction, and allowing
them to co-create bonds within it. Claire Bishop cautions against valuing work only because of
the social bonds created (The Social Turn: Collaboration and its Discontents ARTFORUM 2006),
but I am aware that what manifests between people, and not only within individuals, in terms
of growth, experimentation, connection, impacts the work being made, and the experience of
making.
I will revisit research that I have undertaken for Magic Me, into the way in which
different art forms invite participants to connect with one another in very diverse ways, (Detail
and Daring 2010), and introduce my current research project, where I am examining the action
of gratitude within three participatory projects, a ‘granularity of tiny interactions’1 that create a
reciprocity that strengthens the individual and the group.
Sue Mayo is a freelance theatre maker, who has been working in a wide range of settings for
more than 30 years. Sue specialises in devising theatre with community groups, and frequently
works across art forms, in collaboration with others. Most recently she worked with 16
women, aged between 14 and 83, on a dance piece, ‘I live in it’ for International Women’s Day.
In 2015 she directed ‘Speak as you find’ a site specific performance piece based on a year of
research into conflicting narratives of life in Tower Hamlets. She is currently spending a year of
Research and Development, funded by the Arts Council. Sue has worked with LIFT on
developing the opening up of their ‘Living Archive’, and extensively with the National Trust on
theatre projects within heritage settings. She lectures in the Theatre and Performance
Department at Goldsmith’s, University of London, where she is Convenor of the MA in Applied
Theatre.
The challenge of disciplinary instrumentalism within cross-disciplinary applied theatre
research
Dr Laura Purcell-Gates (Bath Spa University)
In Theatre for Change: Education, Social Action and Therapy (2012), editors Robert J. Landy and
David T. Montgomery stage a constructed dialogue between applied theatre researcherpractitioners on several key issues for the field, including the persistent challenge of aesthetics
versus instrumentalism. During the (imagined) discussion on the meaning of ‘change’, Philip
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
Taylor raises the issue of evidence-based transformation and how that can present a challenge
to theatrical research in ‘this neo-positivist era where we have to constantly justify our
existence’ (p. 233).
I propose that this challenge, a familiar one within applied theatre, represents an
instance of disciplinary instrumentalism, in which applied theatre is at risk of becoming
instrumental to qualitative, scientific research within the context of increasing interest in crossdisciplinary research within both universities and funding bodies.
I therefore propose a two-fold provocation for applied theatre within the context of
cross-disciplinary research:

Challenge: What are the risks and implications of such disciplinary
instrumentalism?

Potential: In what ways might applied theatre claim the centrality of alternative
approaches to ‘change’, and how might this reframe the function of qualitative
methodologies within such research? Taken further, what can the sciences can learn
from applied theatre?
For this provocation I draw on two of my research projects. The first, a Wellcome Trust-funded
project on biomedical history of disability in collaboration with a university pathologist,
foregrounded theatrical engagement with the story of a medical and historical ‘monster’
including research with disability arts practitioners and disabled workshop participants,
producing change in biomedical knowledge. For the second, an upcoming project on puppetry
as intervention in trauma with teenage asylum seekers and refugees that draws on qualitative
methods, I am currently grappling with how intervention is framed as my academic collaborator
from the field of psychology works with me to articulate intervention from a rigorously
theatrical standpoint.
Dr Laura Purcell-Gates is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Bath Spa University and Artistic Director
of Wattle and Daub, a UK-based puppetry company. Her main areas of research concern
theatre and puppetry for social change, with a focus on constructions of and artistic processes
involving bodies, puppets and performing objects. Her current research, funded by
the Wellcome Trust, examines intersections of puppetry, disability and biomedical history. Her
upcoming research will look at puppetry and object performance as intervention in trauma with
teenage asylum seekers and refugees, in collaboration with Husam Abed, a Palestinian refugee
puppetry artist from Dafa Puppet Theatre, Jordan.
‘Invisible presences: the liminality of puppetry in applied drama in Northern Ireland and South
Africa’
(David Grant, Queen’s University Belfast)
With reference to short video clips of community-based performances in the Tiger’s Bay area of
North Belfast, and in Barrydale in South Africa’s Western Cape, this short ‘provocation’ will
suggest that hand-manipulated life-size puppets can provide a liminal medium for the
exploration of problematic ideas in divided societies. In Belfast, the use of puppets facilitated
direct engagement with challenging themes of inter-community reconciliation amid the
confusion of local divisions left unresolved by Northern Ireland’s protracted Peace Process.
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
In Barrydale, a performance about the history of slavery by the local Cape Coloured community
used puppets to represent white characters in the story before a largely white audience in a
town where housing is still substantially divided along racial lines. In both contexts, community
divisions are reflected in the local geography: in Tiger’s Bay, so-called Peace Walls separate
the residents of the area from their Catholic neighbours; in Barrydale the Coloured township
sits invisible from the town itself behind the brow of a hill, the result of the enforced sundering
of the community under Apartheid. While the selected performances are very different (the
one in Belfast workshop-based and intimate, the one in Barrydale a huge outdoor spectacle), in
both cases the use of puppetry allowed performers to exist in a liminal space between presence
and invisibility, simultaneously seen and unseen as the audience’s attention was drawn towards
the puppets they were manipulating. This research has arisen from a visit to Belfast by Dr Aja
Marneweck from the University of Cape Town, who was the Artistic Director of
the Barrydale performance. It is hoped that this collaboration may form the basis for an
international networking bid to the AHRC on the theme of ‘Objects with Objectives’, looking
more widely at the use of puppets in applied drama which may be of interest to the Working
Group.
David Grant, a Senior Lecturer in Drama at Queen’s University, Belfast, has enjoyed a diverse
career in theatre as a director, teacher and critic. His research interests include acting and
directing, educational and community-based drama, prison arts, arts and health and Irish
theatre. Recent projects include Days in the Bay, a short performance inspired by the changing
streetscape of North Belfast and At Home With Oscar Wilde in Florence Court House,
Enniskillen for the 2015 Wilde Weekend. In August 2015 he was Director of the 1st Brian Friel
Summer School.
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
Working Group Session 3 Tuesday 6th September (4.00 – 5.30)
Applied Theatre and Ageing: An examination of the Elders Company, the Royal
Exchange Theatre, Manchester
Sheila McCormick (University of Salford)
According to recent government figures, one specific section of our society is set to rise
exponentially over the next twenty years. Indeed, while ten million people in the UK are
currently over sixty five years old, the latest projections suggest there will be five and a half
million more older adults in twenty years’ time with the number nearly doubling to nineteen
million by 2050.
While applied theatre has developed as an umbrella term for a number of different
socially creative practices, each of those practices must consider the individual
characteristics of the group it engages. Applied theatre developed with, for and by older adults
is as specialised as any other applied practice and, as such, must be adaptable to the needs of
the community it serves. As the elderly population grows, so too does our understanding of
their diverse and complex social, cultural and medical needs. With this understanding comes
initiatives to move away from medical models of care and pharmaceutical intervention towards
social and cultural alternatives that are person centred and encourage both social inclusion and
wellbeing.
Examining the practice of the Elders Company at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, this
paper asks if applied theatre practice can address the political, cultural and social position of
older adults. It will examine the socially engaged practice of The Elders to consider how applied
theatre addresses the needs of older adults and responds to the process of ageing in a bid to
encourage life enhancing outcomes such as increased health and wellbeing and decreased
social isolation.
Sheila McCormick is a lecturer at the University of Salford. Her research interests and
publications to date address an interest in documentary, political, Irish and applied
theatre. Drawing on her experience as a former nurse, Sheila has an interest in performance
and health. She is currently completing a monograph entitled Applied Theatre: Creative
Ageing for Methuen Drama and is in the process of developing her practice as research project
on performance and palliative care.
Slowing down: applied theatre in care homes and the practice of attunement
Dr Nicky Hatton (University of Winchester)
This paper considers the value of slowness when doing theatre practice in care homes. In a
funding climate where artists are often reliant on short-term project funding, theatre
work in care settings is often affected by durational restrictions. Furthermore, artists are
increasingly under pressure from funders to create a model of practice which can be rolled out
across several care homes. These restrictions affect the extent to which artists are able
to develop a relationship with a care home, and design a project around the needs of its staff
and residents. Drawing on my own work in care homes, this paper advocates for
‘slower collaborations’ between artists and care homes, which take account of the
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
individual qualities of a care community. Inspired by Petra Kuppers’ and Shannon Jackson’s
work on the ‘social aesthetics of pace’, it considers the significance of slowness, both as a
quality of participation, and as partnership model for artists and care homes. It explores how
time and pace are experienced differentially by residents, particularly those who are living with
dementia, and suggests some ways in which artists might attend creatively to the different
temporalities of everyday life in a care home. It argues that theatre practice in care homes
requires a particular type of attunement; one which requires artists to reconfigure their own
pace and to engage in what Jackson describes as ‘a new dialogue of being in space’. It concludes
by considering the significance of this type of attunement for applied theatre practice
both inside and outside care settings.
Nicky Hatton is a theatre practitioner and a lecturer in Drama at the University of Winchester.
As a practitioner she has worked with Hampstead Theatre, Arcola Theatre, The Library Theatre
Manchester, and several health and education providers in London and the North-West. Her
current research explores cultural responses to dementia care and the creative role of artists
in care settings. She is a 2013 fellow of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, where she
researched theatre and dementia in North America.
Benevolent Rebellion:  The role of embodied evaluation in arts and health 
Emily Hunka (Theatre Troupe)
At Choreographing Evaluation held by Children and Youth Evidence Hub Project Oracle
(November 2014), delegates heard contrasting approaches to arts and health methodology,
from evaluators, policy-makers and artists, and participated together in a co-production of
knowledge through break-out discussions and a Long Table event (Weaver). An overwhelming
number of comments expressed frustration at ‘having to evidence the arts work [artists] do
through TERMINOLOGIES and TEMPLATES which are stark and business-influenced’ (Martin,
2015)’ and soundly endorsed a narrative-based approach with photographs and videos
‘speaking for themselves.’ (Barnes 2014, Baker, 2014). Visual minutes from the day recorded
the action to: ‘use [the word] “revolution” … start [one] HERE’. However, a subsequent policy
document Arts for Health and Wellbeing: An evaluation framework (Public Health England, the
University of Winchester, AESOP 2016), ignores this collective call: it advocates for ‘robust
evidence of [arts] effectiveness in impacts and costs’ and suggests a one-size-fits-all method
‘modelled on standard public health evaluation frameworks’ (Daykin 2016). The fact that Tim
Joss, AESOP’s Chief Executive was present throughout Choreographing Evaluation is indicative
of a prevailing dismissal of creative and embodied evaluative approaches. The ‘coming of age
for arts and health’ (Clift, 2008) adheres firmly to the instrumentalist’s way of doing things.
This paper will present a suggestion that an urgent artist-led rebellion is needed, and
that applied theatre practice-as-research is in a critical place to lead it. It will present a case
study, Theatre Troupe currently trialling an embodied evaluation technique called Creative
Listening in answer to a Choreographing Evaluation’s minute to evaluate by harnessing a
process of humanity. It also, however, belongs in the “hard” science of
neurobiology, which suggests mental healing happens through stimulation of mirror neurons in
what psychiatrists Lewis Amini and Lannon call ‘collaborative dance of love’. The practice-
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
research model includes artists, artist-researchers, psychiatrists, clinical researchers and young
participants. It draws on the closeness of human bonds in workshop and performance to
identify impact: Applied theatre’s particular expertise in the embodied scholarship of ‘sharing
breath’ (Dolan, 2005) is a powerful way to defeat ‘insidious instrumentalism’ (Giroux 2014).
Emily Hunka is a playwright and theatre facilitator. She researched, designed and produced
WHATEVER Makes You Happy Project at GLYPT for young people with mental health problems,
and co-founded Theatre Troupe in 2014. She has also worked as Performing Arts Director for
Mind In Harrow 2011-2013, with adult mental health service users. Previous to her work in
mental health, she worked for over a decade creating and delivering arts programmes with
young refugees, including starting the charity Rewrite. She is currently undertaking a practicebased research PHD at Queen Mary University London, based on Theatre Troupe’s work.
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
Open Panel Weds 7th September (10.30 – 12.00)
Image Theatre as Research Method: Gauging diverse views and perceptions of academic staff
Michael Carklin (University of South Wales)
This paper reports on research that I have been undertaking investigating the use of image and
tableau based drama activities with groups of university staff to gauge their thoughts,
perceptions and experiences of their work within higher education. Contributing to staff
development and to promoting a dynamic ethos of sharing and reflection, I have been piloting
these approaches as a research method specifically.
Drawing on approaches to multimodality and visual research analysis, I have been
exploring formal ways of analysing the kinds of material that emerge in participatory drama
work in a higher education staff context. Further, in capturing some of the range, diversity and
complexity of staff views in the University that I am part of, this project has necessarily
confronted me with finding appropriate approaches to dealing with the ethical challenges of
insider research. With my own background in applied and educational drama, the applying of
drama in this particular context has allowed me to confront and subvert some of these
challenges, and to access a diverse range of responses that are not bound by the language and
jargon of a meeting room. Part of this research thus includes investigating the significance of
embodiment in a participatory and collaborative context.
Whilst image and tableau work have been used in a range of different contexts such as
community development and education, its potential as a research method specifically is
worthy of further investigation, and so the approach I have been investigating I have
termed ‘Collaborative Embodied Participant Analysis’ (CEPA). This paper will
explain my understanding of this application of drama image work as a method, including
workshop structure, facilitation, recording and documentation, transcription and analysis.
Michael Carklin is Principal Lecturer in Drama at the University of South Wales in Cardiff, UK.
He has particular research interests in Applied Drama, Teaching & Learning in Higher Education,
and Theatre & Science.
Polyphonic amplitudes: practice research in applied theatre practice
Sally Mackey (The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London)
Applied theatre practice research might be perceived as an ill-matched methodological
conflation and this paper engages with the paradoxes and conundrums of such a pairing.
Beginning with identifying why a consideration is timely, I move on to suggest that the
‘authorship’ of practice research in applied theatre is particularly interesting where much
research is led rather than embodied. After invoking ‘the social turn’ and ‘the practical turn’ as
contributing to the challenges for applied theatre practice as research, the piece uses
two AHRC-funded projects to incite a different approach. A metaphor of polyphonic
conversation is offered as an amplification of the applied theatre practice
research methodological terrain. This metaphor encourages an axiom of many voices
contributing to research, albeit with different forms of knowledge, potentially easing concerns
about power hierarchies and knowledge production. It also vaunts a fluidity of epistemology,
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
expanding on the now familiar debates around theory and practice, and particularly relevant
for socially engaged performance-related practical research.
Sally Mackey is professor of applied theatre and performance at Central, establishing the field
there over 20 years ago. There are more than 300 students from undergraduate to PhD level in
applied theatre at Central. Her research focuses on the performance of place as a participant
activity and she have received four AHRC awards over time to develop this conceptually and
practically: Challenging Liquid Place (2011 -2014) is currently followed by Performing Local
Places (2016-2017), for example. Together with Deirdre Heddon, she is co-editing a
series, Performing Landscapes.
Applied Theatre as Research: scoping the possibilities for participatory knowledge generation
Michael Anderson (The University of Sydney)
Peter O’Connor (The University of Auckland)
This paper examines the potential for applied theatre as a research method. The context of the
applied theatre as research (ATAR) approach is discussed, positioning the methodology within
the community-based participatory research (CBPR) tradition and providing a discussion of the
relationship between applied theatre as research (ATAR), participatory action research (PAR)
and performance ethnography. The method is briefly outlined in terms of its philosophical and
political positioning. ATAR positions research participants as ‘actors’ and, through various
aesthetic approaches (including drama, music visual arts and dance), provides opportunities for
them to create meaning that can be applied to research questions. Through a case study of
developed in Redfern, Sydney, Australia in partnership with a large non-government
organization (NGO) and young Aboriginal participants paper will critically examine the issues of
power, agency and choice and attempt to problematize this approach as way of foregrounding
the potential challenges and opportunities of this approach. The paper concludes with a
discussion with the ways forward for this approach and an exploration of its applications in
diverse research contexts.
Michael Anderson is Professor of Arts and Creativity Education in the Faculty of Education and
Social Work at the University of Sydney. His research and teaching concentrates on how arts
educators and other community-focused professionals begin, evolve and achieve change in
schools and other communities. This work has evolved into a programme of research and
publication. His recent research and publications focus on the role of Applied Theatre for
research. 
Peter O’Connor is Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland. His
research focuses on using applied theatre as a public-education medium to address major social
issues, including public health, gender equity in schools and the development of inclusive,
empathetic and critical school cultures.  Recent applied theatre research includes
national programmes on preventing family violence and child abuse and
parenting programmes in youth justice facilities.
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
Working Group Session 4 Wednesday 7th September (2.00 – 4.00)
Authorship, language and rigour in the ‘second wave’ of applied practice research
A joint presentation on the speakers’ respective use of two alternative models for harnessing
and representing participants’ knowledge in the reporting of applied practice research: dialogic
portfolio, and collaborative action research.
Disentangling voices in dialogue: the storytelling exchange as a model for reporting research
Catherine Heinemeyer
(PhD candidate at York St John University)
One means of attaining Robin Nelson’s ‘intersubjective rigour’ in participatory applied
research is to make visible our collaborative workings. Writing participatory arts research may
be a relational process, but as such it need not iron out the asymmetries and even ‘antagonism’
(Claire Bishop 2004) between those involved. Julian Stern advocates that, rather than seeking
to represent participants’ collective ‘voice’, we facilitate the heteroglot dialogue of multiple
‘voices’ (2015). Some of these voices may wish to waive their anonymity and emerge as coauthors in dialogue, representing themselves in their own words and ‘social languages’ (see
Judith Schulman’s 1990 research with teachers).
I give examples from my practice-research collaborations with young people through
story, in which our performances have made explicit the dialogue and often the dissensus in
our storytelling exchange, where multiple meanings compete in the space between teller and
listener.
I suggest that the ‘second wave’ of practice research represents an opportunity to
further dissolve the boundaries around ‘applied’ arts research, and bring its rich diversity
of perspectives into mainstream theatre research. It challenges us to invite participants and
practitioner-collaborators to join the ‘approved’ community of partners in the research
dialogue - both as readers and named writers, receivers and givers of counsel.
Bishop, Claire (2004) ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’, October Magazine 110, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, pp.51-79
Nelson, Robin (2013) Practice as Research in the Arts: Principles, Protocols, Pedagogies,
Resistances. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Shulman, Judith (1990) ‘Now you see them, now you don’t: anonymity versus visibility in case studies of
teachers’, Educational Researcher 19:6, August 1990, pp.11-15
Stern, Julian (2015) ‘Children’s Voice or Children’s Voices? How educational research can be at the heart
of schooling’. FORUM 57:1, pp.75-90
Iterations of collaborative enquiry: seeking a participatory and situated knowledge
of the experience of arts in mental health
Elanor Stannage, (PhD candidate York St John University)
In the quest for intersubjective rigour (Robin Nelson 2013) and a situated knowledge
(Donna Haraway 1988: 593) of arts in mental health practice and how it might relate to impact
in mental health, I combine a collaborative action research model with arts-based research
methods. Through four iterations of collaborative inquiry: action research cycles, an analysis
forum, narrative interviews and a process mapping workshop, themes of process are
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
explored collaboratively from the multiple perspectives of workshop participant,
facilitator and multi-positional researcher.
The methodology of action research offers a framework for a more explicit and
transparent understanding of collaborative enquiry. Where
knowledge grounded in existing theory may be exchanged for knowledge where experience of
practice, experience of life and theory are intertwined through the iterative collaborative
process yielding new possibilities of situated, participatory knowledge.
Elden and Levin’s co-generative model of action research (1991: 130 cited in Madsen
2013: 309) where the differing aims of the ‘participant’ and ‘researcher’ converge and diverge
at different stages of the research process illuminates these complex, fluid research processes
which mirror the complexities of applied practice. I suggest such an approach to research
allows for a nuanced, co-generated knowledge of experiential process in
practice whilst facilitating space for commonality and difference of experience and for different
voices within research outputs.
Haraway, Donna (1988) Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of
Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, 14 (3), pp.575-599.
Madsen, Janne (2013) Narratives as a tool when working for equality in action research: a description
and discussion of the researcher’s experiences from a school development project in
Norway. Educational Action Research, 21 (3), pp.307-325.
Nelson, Robin (2013) Practice as Research in the Arts: Principles, Protocols, Pedagogies,
Resistances. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Catherine Heinemeyer is a storyteller specialising in story in community and youth settings and
in response to environmental change. She is currently in the final year of a practice-as-research
PhD developing a participatory practice of storytelling with adolescents. This research is based
in the International Centre for Arts and Narrative (ICAN), a partnership between York St John
University and York Theatre Royal, and is funded by an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral
Award. She is an experienced university teacher and a Fellow of the Higher Education
Association. Her research blog is at www.storytellingwithadolescents.blogspot.co.uk .
Elanor Stannage is a theatre practitioner working across diverse communities with a particular
focus upon people who may be at risk of marginalisation. She has extensive experience of
working in the contexts of mental health and learning disabilities. Currently in the writing up
period of a PhD studentship in arts in mental health at York St John University, co-funded by the
NHS, her research explores the experiential processes of such practice for participants and
facilitators.
Tiny theatre-goers: spectatorship and social bonds in Theatre for Early Years
Ben Fletcher-Watson (University of Edinburgh)
Emma Miles (Royal Holloway University of London)
Katherine Morley (University of Manchester)
This panel explores contemporary Theatre for Early Years (TEY) in the UK, focusing in particular
on new theories of spectatorship relating to very young children. The slow decline of Theatre in
Education has been countered by a burgeoning professional children’s theatre movement which
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
tours to theatres rather than schools, promotes innovation and high production values, and looks
‘beyond local and regional impact towards building an international reputation’ (Tomlin 2015,
p.78). In particular, as creative interest and innovation in theatre for young audiences continues,
the spotlight falls increasingly on pre-schoolers. New modes of performance are emerging
which implicitly reject learning as a consequence of drama, offering instead innovative practices
which reformulate the spectatorial relationship between baby and adult, performer and
spectator, parent and child. What are the influences – social, experiential, dramaturgical – driving
these changes? How do multidisciplinary work and the abandonment of traditional pedagogies
affect TEY? What does it mean to be a baby spectator?
Everyone can see everyone: the impact of new dramaturgies on Early Years audiences
Ben Fletcher-Watson
Taking Scotland as a site for investigation, I will present a recent survey of children’s theatremakers, highlighting an emergent dramaturgy of Theatre for Early Years (TEY) that may
trouble traditional conceptions of the spectator-performer relationship. TEY pioneers describe
the ‘triangular audience’ made up of parent, baby and performer (Desfosses 2009), but
contemporary critics are seeking to expand the phenomenological experience to create complex
networks of spectators whose interactions are physical, tactile or kinaesthetic, rather than
verbal.
Matthew Reason has claimed that "in the theatre each individual's attention is focused
on the performance; nobody is looking at the audience" (2010, p.172), but this is not necessarily
the case in TEY. Parents now share the experience with other parents and other babies (especially
during performances staged in-the-round), forming a web of connectivity. Neuroscientists
Jackie Eunju Chang and Young Ai Choi maintain that “‘watching theatre together’ is a social
activity focusing on ‘shared emotion’ with actors and other audience members… [children] do
not have many actual physical opportunities to ‘feel together’” (2015, p.41).
In addition to this spectatorial web, where everyone can see everyone, the mythology of
the performance is often itself expanded, spilling out beyond temporal or spatial bounds, and
becoming accessible to the child at all times and in all places, a dramaturgical effect which has
been termed ‘narrative bleed’ (Fletcher-Watson 2016). This paper examines three recent TEY
productions, arguing that the distinctive dramaturgy emerging within Scotland simultaneously
provokes and responds to the interconnectivity of the very young audience, generating cultural
modalities which implicitly reject the pedagogic, instrumentalist spectatorship of the past.
Bus Journeys, Playing and Performance: the 'event' of theatre-going for early years
audiences
Emma Miles
As performance for young children occurs increasingly in theatre buildings, necessitating
journeys from children's homes and schools in order to attend, there are specific considerations
surrounding what Marvin Carlson has referred to as “the entire event structure” (1989, p.164)
of theatre-going.
Between May 2014 and June 2015, I made seven visits to watch Theatre for Early Years
(TEY) performances at Polka Theatre in South-West London, accompanied by a small group of
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
three and four year old children from a local nursery. I began this research project interested
specifically in performance made for the very young, but came to an understanding of how
irrevocably tied the experience of performance can be to all that goes alongside it. For these
young children, breaking the nursery routine to go to the theatre for the first time was a
significant event; from the bus journey through unfamiliar streets, to playing in the theatre foyer
beforehand, to entering the darkened theatre space, it was an experientially rich few hours filled
with different emotions, new places, sights and sounds.
Using this ethnographic case study as a basis, this paper offers an exploration of our
experiences visiting Polka Theatre that fall outside of, albeit relating to, the performance itself.
In this, I consider the unique experiential and pedagogical possibilities offered by a professional
theatre building designed specifically for children. Children's geographer Owain Jones uses the
concept of “polymorphic spaces” (2002) to describe children's active agency in using and
adapting spaces created by adults. Drawing on Jones' work, I argue for a phenomenology of
TEY theatre-going that re-considers the hierarchies of time, space and experience from the
perspective of the young children involved in this research. A consideration of the experience of
leaving the familiar nursery routine to visit the theatre, I conclude, may be enriched by viewing
performance as only a part of the fluidity of the entire theatre event.
‘The audience wants a job to do: they want to be allowed to fill in some gaps in their
understanding of what’s happening’ (Burrows 2010, p.108): spectatorship and spectatorial
connection in early years audiences
Katherine Morley
Based on documentation showing a propensity for ‘untutored’ infant audiences to fall still and
watchful in certain performance conditions, particularly in light of pedagogical leanings
toward kinaesthetic learning, this paper extrapolates early findings from an extended piece of
field research based on a case study of UK touring production 16 Singers (created in partnership
with Dance Umbrella/Theatre Royal Bath) for 0-18 month olds and their adults. This
performance, constructed around sung-sound and the choreographed body, supports questions
concerning breath, reception and physicalisation of sound, and participation, proposing a new
definition of spectatorship in a TEY context.
Since the early 1980s, when companies like Oily Cart (UK), Helios (Germany) and
La Baracca (Italy) began creating [music-led] performance work for nursery-aged children,
there has been a slowly growing number of academic publications in this sector (Schneider
2009; Goldfinger 2011; Fletcher-Watson 2014). In the UK, cultural venues like the egg at Theatre
Royal Bath and Polka, London have assisted in assuring sector growth through programming,
industry advocacy and by nurturing artist-researchers to develop a body of new work to sit
alongside that of their colleagues in Europe, Scandinavia and the US.
This paper draws on an imbricated praxis (Nelson 2010) to generate, test and explore
theories of how and what early years audiences are drawn to watch in performance. Focusing
on the proxemic conditions that allow infants to become spectatorially engaged, immersed
perhaps (White 2013), and able to respond gesturally and vocally without
parental interpolation or physicalisation, the paper will challenge prevalent norms of early
years practice, which tend to privilege sensory-driven/physically-active forms of participation.
Applied and Social Theatre – Abstracts and biogs
Ben Fletcher-Watson holds a PhD in drama from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the
University of St Andrews. His research examines contemporary Scottish practice in theatre for
early years. He has published articles in journals including Youth Theatre Journal and Research in
Drama Education. He serves on the Executive of the Theatre and Performance Research
Association (TaPRA) and is an ASSITEJ Next Generation Artist.
Emma Miles is in the third year of a PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London, supervised by
Professor Helen Nicholson. Her research centres around an empirical study of theatre with a
group of nursery-aged children, where she is interested in the experiential and pedagogical
implications of the TEY event. Previously, she worked as a primary school teacher specialising in
early literacy learning. Emma recently completed a Creativeworks Researcher-in-Residence
scheme with Punchdrunk Enrichment, producing a report on their theatre work in primary
schools.
Katherine Morley is an associate artist at the egg Theatre Royal, Bath and an AHRC and
President’s doctoral scholar at the University of Manchester. She is currently researching
spectatorship and the significance of music in Theatre for Early Years. Katherine was creative
learning artist in residence at Dundee Rep and University of Aberdeen (School of Education) from
2013-14. In 2014, she received a Leverhulme scholarship to develop work for infant audiences,
creating 16 Singers (co-produced by ‘egg’ and Dance Umbrella, and nominated for a 2015 Family
Arts Award). Katherine recently presented research at the 2016 UK conferences of LEYMN and
TYA-ASSITEJ.