The Story Makers Press is a university-based publisher who focus on making and publishing hybrid stories with children who are under-represented in literature. This article explores the embodied drama processes used in the co-creation of our third book called 'Zalfa Emir is Warrior' with eighteen 10 - 11-year-old girls from second generation…

A meditation on drama practice from an artist in Canada. My university students are preoccupied with damage and trauma. There are paralyzing obstacles to working across differences that were useful for a time but no longer serve a robust solidarity. The stories we collect, tell and re-tell ourselves to prepare for a 'never again' are stifled if…

This article brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from three artist-scholars. More specifically, we examine the impact of performances of listening and care in works addressing connections to personal identity, trauma, and violence and the anxieties that these can provoke in our roles as artists, researchers, and pedagogues. We ask: how…

This paper expands on concepts of and approaches to Land-based research through the investigation of sonic (sound) archiving strategies and how these are used as a mode of mapping meant to help preserve oral/aural forms of knowledge, experience, memory, and expressions of Land literacy (Land knowledge) through sound recording work. Building on…

Responding to transitional justice circumstances in Sri Lanka, Theatre of Friendship connects groups from Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim backgrounds. We use Playback Theatre as a participatory arts approach to transitional justice, working to build covenantal pluralism. As our work has evolved, we have extended the principle of emergence within…

This article explores how sharing and listening to stories linked children and young people, educators, artists, civil society workers, and policymakers as part of a continuum of transitional justice processes in the aftermath of conflict Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) initiative. We argue that sharing stories within a peace education context can…

As youth media creation programmes proliferate, educators and practitioners are learning how to develop stories that interrupt hegemony and point to new ways of being. This research, carried out in an ethnically diverse middle school, highlights the way digital storytelling as an applied theatre praxis brought complexity to student work. The role…

This paper relays the findings of the evaluation of an applied theatre project for children in hospital as perceived by hospital teachers. A mixed qualitative approach was used. Data were analysed using thematic analysis to explore the teachers' views on children's engagement with learning and the improvement of the hospital experience as a whole…

This article proposes that participatory museum theatre can provide a platform through which learners studying history can engage a troubled past, specifically looking at South African history, to generate a more complex understanding of it. Through the use of performance, object-work, and creative arts-based responses, such as poetry and drawing,…

During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown both authors were experimenting with facilitating longer complex process dramas on online platforms. We offered participants the opportunity to reflect on the situation we were facing as individuals, as a society and as humanity. We worked with different levels of university students in two different languages…

This paper reflects on my experience of using personal stories to create a Pot Gan performance exploring the complexity of how lives are lived, how the experience of climate change is shaped by poverty and struggle, but also strength in facing adversity. Bringing real stories to the stage had more meaning, emotion and personal connection for…

In this article the authors reflect on their work together on 'Sharing Stories', a project involving British and Ugandan partners using theatre to explore issues around mental ill health. They argue that while working through theatre in this intercultural project created spaces of equality, wider factors limited the extent to which an equal…

This article presents the "Kwagh-hir" performance tradition of the Tiv people, Nigeria, as an alternative for negotiating sustainable cultural development. I argue that cultural contexts must be considered in any development project to mitigate against the prescriptive, external templates which result in a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to…

In this paper, we examine the socially engaged practices of human rights-based organisations in Papua New Guinea (PNG) as they perform, stage and engage with communities to unsettle and challenge contemporary justifications of violence and malice. Specifically, we explore "Yumi Sanap Strong" (Let's Stand Together), a PNG national…

This Hong Kong project features recovering gambling addicts and their family. During the research, devising and performance sessions were observed, and actors, audience members, artists, and social workers were interviewed. The performing gamblers presented stressful and distressing stories in which their partners struggled to maintain the family…