ERIC Number: EJ861446
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Nov
Pages: 25
Abstractor: As Provided
Reference Count: 24
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1356-9783
Conversations with Status and Power: How "Everyday Theatre" Offers "Spaces of Agency" to Participants
Aitken, Viv
Research in Drama Education, v14 n4 p503-527 Nov 2009
This article reviews "Everyday Theatre", an interactive applied theatre project from Auckland based company Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd., which explores the dynamics of family relationships and touches obliquely on issues of abuse and violence. The article looks at the form, strategies and processes of "Everyday Theatre" and explores how the young participants are given opportunities for agency, both aesthetically and in terms of the structure and direction of the event. Beginning with an attempt to offer a critical framework for the discussion of power and status, largely informed by Freirean and Foucaultian principles, the article then traces how the power relations between participants and facilitators are negotiated in each phase of the programme. Whilst asserting that important spaces for agency are created within it, the article also discusses the inevitable limitations of participants' empowerment in any theatre, or pedagogical relationship. The article concludes with the suggestion that by offering deliberately incomplete narratives within a careful process that at once builds and "productively constrains" participant agency, "The Family Game" offers a sensitive and fitting approach to the issue of children's agency within families.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Drama, Power Structure, Status, Agency Role, Parent Child Relationship, Child Role, Family Environment, Empowerment, Teacher Role, Teacher Student Relationship, Family Violence, Emotional Adjustment
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; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: New Zealand

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