This article summarises the ways in which Image Theatre, a practice originally developed by Augusto Boal which continues to be developed in the hands of applied theatre practitioners and critical arts educators worldwide, can be used as a pedagogical and dramaturgical system of decolonisation at the level of communities and individuals. Through…

This introductory article for a themed edition on environmentalism provides a particular context for those articles that follow, each of which engages with different aspects of environmentalism and performance in community-related settings. Responding to the proposition of Bottoms that there is a lacuna in the field of applied drama and…

This article is based on a paper first presented at the Performance Studies international annual conference on Performing Rights at Queen Mary, University of London, 2006. It has been rewritten specially for this themed issue of "RiDE" in light of my research following publication of "Theatre Ecology: Environments and Performance Events" in 2007.…

In this "RiDE" themed edition on environmentalism, some short pieces are chosen where practitioners describe their own specific environmental practices. Zoe Svendsen and Lucy Neal point to the positives in two commissioned works ("The Trashcatchers' Carnival" and "3rd Ring Out"), underlining the importance of participant agency for effective…

This article examines a programme of work produced by community-based theatre company, Manaton and East Dartmoor (MED) Theatre, addressing issues of climate change as they impact on life in rural Devon, UK. After some discussion of MED Theatre's constitution as a community-based company and the group's long-term engagement with the place, history,…

Since the 1960s and 1970s, theatre artists from around the globe initiated a wave of theatre practice that is commonly known today as People's Theatre or Theatre for Empowerment. Transforming its participants from being mere "spectactors" to "spect-actors" capable of articulating their concerns on-stage, the ultimate goal of such theatre is to…

Considering the lack of coverage in the mass media of certain kinds of social movement activity, many movements make use of smaller scale, independent media to publicise their struggles. From the vantage point of social movements in South Africa, this paper addresses what Mojca Pajnik and John Downing call "nano-media". Based on interviews with…

This article reflects on outcomes of a playmaking project conducted with 14-20-year-old urban students in the USA. The playmaking experience was part of a larger research project designed to facilitate students' understandings of the ways in which their own experiences of discrimination are reflected in pervasive inequity at the societal level,…

In 1984, a group of urban theatre activists of Bangladesh rejected their role as "traditional intellectuals", and sought to join the subaltern classes as "ideologues in action" by mobilising their knowledge and expertise on theatre in a manner that would animate those classes entwined in the exploitive infrastructure of the rural areas. This…

In this article, the author discusses how the new age influences the place of manifestos and shares his view on how manifestos become a yearning as a thing in the past. Traditionally, manifestos are writing intended to provoke actions. There are many manifestos authored by artists. Often these are rhetorical, not to be taken seriously. Taken…

The paper provides a review of some of the terminologies and definitions of applied theatre, critiques the "transformative principle" argued for by some applied researchers, and extends this to a discussion on the complex relationship between donor agendas and the politics of intention that contribute to the shaping of applied discourse (Taylor…

This paper examines an education programme devised by the New Zealand educational theatre company, "Everyday Theatre," which offers a fictional representation of family abuse. The paper raises political questions about the dramatic representation of the family as a social system, and examines how the boundaries between private feelings and social…

Performance-making and peace-building are processes predicated on the production of safe space. But what is "safe space"? In performance-making, what is it that makes space safe without losing the creative potential of tension? What role is there for risk? And, once achieved, how does safe space become meaningful beyond its immediate community of…

An outstanding problem that has haunted most development workers in Africa has been how to effectively engage rural communities who often have no access to modern technological media like newspapers, radio, television, video and film. The tendency has been for development workers to resort to top-down or blueprint development approaches that…

Founded in 1995, the Taiwanese Uhan Shii Theatre Group has created 12 distinctive reminiscence theatre productions and has performed locally in Taiwan as well as globally around the world. The company has developed its own theatrical aesthetics of memory, and their work not only represents the traditions of Taiwanese culture and habitus, but it…