This article considers the related concepts of 'rehearsal' [Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. 2013. "The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study." Brooklyn: Minor Compositions] and 'catastrophe' [Stengers, Isabelle. 2015. "In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism." Translated by Andrew Goffey. London: Open…

Drawing on two moments from drama workshops I conducted with British Muslim youth in Manchester, UK, this paper explores how we -- as facilitators -- should wield power vis-à-vis image and improv theatre. Through an intersectional racialised and gendered (auto)ethnographic analysis of the straight, Brown, Muslim, male theatre workshop…

This article concerns how the normative matter of body hair is playfully encountered within a theatre practice for teenage girls. By working with Deleuzian-inspired theories, playfulness is understood as embodied doings, interwoven with the local context. The article explores how playfulness is enacted in relation to the everyday, in particular…

In this paper, I consider evidence of how students of colour enact whiteness by being violent towards depictions of Black people even in spaces without Black people. I argue that people who engage in anti-racist pedagogy have to be vigilant -- aware that anti-Black spaces will be created and ready to respond.

This article explores the potential for engaging 7 and 8-year-old school pupils in performative literature interpretation through process drama. Inspired by new materialism and affect theory, we focus on how literature interpretations come into being in dramatic fiction, and on how these becoming interpretations merge with the classroom. The study…

Role-play was a popular educational strategy within the American civil rights movement. Many civil rights activists performed the movement in private before performing it again in public. Compared to the scholarship on the role of music in the civil rights movement, the importance of drama has been understudied. The history of role-play as an…

Researchers worldwide have identified affective benefits of improvisational drama techniques (IDTs) on foreign language (FL) learners. Yet the characteristics of professional development programmes (PDPs) that could lead to long-term integration of drama among FL teachers appear largely undiscovered. Through expert interviews, a needs analysis…

This paper engages with the medically established view that individuals with autism are not capable of play or being imaginative. This paper resists this idea by reflecting on psychobiographical research conducted on the life of Temple Grandin. By re-witnessing creative experiences in her life, dialogue surrounding the imaginative capacities of…

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…

The goal was to assess the effects of a Theatrical Improvisation programme on students' motor creativity. 163 Secondary Education students participated: the experimental group, who experienced a Theatrical Improvisation unit, and the comparison group, who experienced a Drama in Education unit (based on the current Spanish educational law). A…

Students in secondary education often suffer from public speaking stress, but formal education does not provide any means to support the battle with this anxiety. This study aims at decreasing public speaking stress and increasing public speaking competence via an innovative intervention program that is rooted in the principles of…

Using iconic images created by students in Belfast and Sarajevo of their respective cities, this paper will explore how emerging ideas in the field of cognitive science (e.g. Gallagher, S. 2005. "How the Body Shapes the Mind." Oxford: Clarendon Press) can help explain the making and understanding of Augusto Boal's "Image…

Reflecting on "The Antidote," created with performers in recovery from addiction, this paper theorises theatre-making practice that attends to being as formed through affective and emotive relation with others, including the non-human. It suggests that theatrical activity generates spaces, or liminal milieus, that facilitate new patterns…

An important aspect of Applied Improvisation and Applied Drama is using and perceiving the body. What happens when this room is virtual? Can adaptations be made to enable embodied work online without jeopardizing impact? This paper focuses on adaptations and inventions two academics have made to engage participants in online embodiment processes.…

This article focuses on a teaching case, Rona, a student in the educational dance-theatre programme that adopted improvisational teaching to deal with her lack of self-confidence. This lack had denied her feeling free and teaching without inhibitions in the classroom. Rona found a way to release her lack of self-confidence by spontaneously acting…