1st Edition
Applied Theatre and Gender Justice Imagination, Play, Movement
Applied Theatre and Gender Justice is a collection of essays highlighting the value and efficacy of using applied theatre to address gender in a broad range of settings, identifying challenges, and offering concrete best practices.
This book amplifies and shares lessons from practitioners and scholars who use performance to create models of collective solidarity, building upon communities’ strengths toward advocating for justice and equity. The book is divided into thematic sections, comprising three essays addressing a range of questions about the challenges, learning opportunities, and benefits of applied theatre practices. Further exploring the themes, issues, and ideas, each section ends with a moderated roundtable discussion between the essays' authors.
Part of the series Applied Theatre in Context, Applied Theatre and Gender Justice, this book is an accessible and valuable resource for theatre practitioners and the growing number of theatre companies with education and community engagement programs. Additionally, it provides essential reading for teachers and students in a myriad of fields: education, theatre, civic engagement, criminal justice, sociology, women and gender studies, environmental studies, disability studies, and ethnicity and race studies.
Part 1: Igniting Eco-activism
1. Decolonizing the Conversation: Sustainable Development Performances in Egypt
Sarah Fahmy
2. Patnaik’s Cyco Theatre in India: Grassroots Environmental and Gender Activism
Pranab Kumar Mandal
3. Resisting Ecological Colonialism in the Niger Delta: Indigenous Women and the Beni Kamai Festival Theatre
Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah
Roundtable. Discussion with Lisa S. Brenner, Evelyn Diaz Cruz, Sarah Fahmy, Pranab Kumar Mandal, and Stephen Ogheneruro Okpadah
Part 2: Inspiring Playful Interventions
4. Picking up the Sequins: Drag Storytime Performances, Applied Theatre, and Queer Joy
Zachary A. Dorsey
5. Facilitating Gender Awareness with First Drop Theatre: Applied Theatre in Indian Workplaces
Radhika Jain
6. Yassified Shakespeare: The Case for TikTok as Applied Theatre
Trevor Boffone and Danielle Rosvally
Roundtable. Discussion with Trevor Boffone, Lisa S. Brenner, Zachary A. Dorsey, Radhika Jain, and Danielle Rosvally
Part 3: Affecting Responses to Violence
7. Facilitating Afecto in Resistance to Violence: Patricia Ariza’s Work with Female Victims of Colombia’s Armed Conflict
Sarah Ashford Hart
8. Moving Women from the Margins to the Center of History: After/Life and the 1967 Detroit Rebellion
Kristin Horton with Lisa Biggs
9. No Seriously, Humor is Important
Soroya Rowley and Veronica Burgess
Roundtable. Discussion with Lisa Biggs, Lisa S. Brenner, Veronica Burgess, Sarah Ashford Hart, Kristin Horton, and Soroya Rowley
Part 4: Reclaiming Bodily Autonomy
10. The Billboard #TrustBlackWomen: Abortion as Self-Care
Natalie Y. Moore
11. Challenging Ableist Views of Motherhood: Mind The Gap’s Daughters of Fortune
Winter Phong
12. The Maternal Ground on Which I Stand: Developing A Solo Performance within the Harris Matriarchy
Aviva Neff
Roundtable. Discussion with Evelyn Diaz Cruz, Natalie Y. Moore, Aviva Helena Neff, and Winter Phong
Part 5: Affirming Identity with Youth
13. Negotiating Gender (in)Justice: The Politics of Visibility in the Performing Justice Project
Megan Alrutz, Laura Epperson, Jasmine Games, and Faith Hillis
14. Queering Playback Theatre
Alejandro Bastien-Olvera
15. ART Built on Trust and Solidarity: Creating Applied Theatre with Girls and Nonbinary Teens
Dana Edell, Kailyn Oates, and Kit Bothum
Roundtable. Discussion with Megan Alrutz, Alejandro Batien-Olvera, Evelyn Diaz Cruz, Dana Edell, Laura Epperson, Jasmine Games, Faith Hillis
Part 6: Expanding the Definitions
16. Performing Vulnerability, Voicing Resistance: Women’s Spoken Word Poetry in Trinidad and Tobago
Alyea Pierce
17. Tools for Equity and Collaboration
Nicole Perry
18. The Art of Genderbending: Fighting Hegemonic Gender Ideology with Chinese Martial Arts
DeVante Love
Roundtable. Discussion with Lisa S. Brenner, DeVante Love, Nicole Perry, and Alyea Pierce
Extending the Conversation: A Supplemental Roundtable. Discussion on workers’ rights, pregnant young people, and Black queer feminism with Quenna Lené Barrett, Jasmin Cardenas, and Alyssa Vera Ramos.
Biography
Lisa S. Brenner is a professor of theatre at Drew University, where she teaches dramaturgy, theatre history, and applied performance. Her theatre experience includes dramaturgy, devising, directing, and playwriting.
Evelyn Diaz Cruz is a professor of theatre at the University of San Diego, where she teaches playwriting, acting, theatre of diversity, and theatre and community. Her theatre experience includes playwriting, directing, and acting.
