The politics of intention: looking for a theatre of little changes

The Performative Arts and Pedagogy Project – Towards the Development of an International Glossary

“…Emerging in the late 1980s (Balfour, 2009) and 1990s (Giesekam, 2006;Kershaw, 2016;Nicholson, 2011), the term applied theatre describes a range of practices that offer "a multitude of intentions, aesthetic processes and transactions with its participants" (Prentki and Preston, 2009, p. 11). Originally associated with an academic context (Nicholson, 2011), O'Toole andBundy (2006) attribute the coining of the term to Mike Foster, a drama lecturer at Griffith University, Australia.…”

“…Reasons for its emergence and dominance in the field are attributed to funding and economic issues (Nicholson, 2011;Balfour 2009;Schinina 2004); the need for practitioners to work in community and educational contexts due to funding constraints (Nicholson, 2011); the justification of drama practice as research within the academy (Bowell and Heap, 2010); the professionalisation of community arts (Nicholson, 2011;Kelly, 1984); the scholarly attention paid to drama (O'Toole, 2010); market-led conditions (Balfour, 2009); and the field's response to the changing landscape of higher education (Ackroyd, 2007). Indeed, the perceived value of the term lies in its assumed neutrality -without allegiance, or indicative context, or purpose (Nicholson, 2014).…”

“…• the intentionality of the work (Ackroyd 2000;Balfour, 2009;O'Connor and Mullen, 2013;Sinclair and Grindrod, 2007;Taylor, 2003);…”

“…(O'Connor and Mullen, 2011, p. 134) as an umbrella term, the term does not appear specific enough as its use necessitates further categorising of practice. The diversity of contexts "undermines any attempt to fix definitions into a coherent framework" (Balfour 2009, p. 349), and while fixing definitions is not the aim of this study, without the internal consistency provided by a framework (Balfour, 2009), practice has fragmented across a wide range of contexts and the term applied theatre encompasses an ever-growing range of practices.…”

4. What

“…Although there exists a growing body of scholarly work that presents critical analyses and accounts regarding the potential and challenges of both researching and making theatre in conflict or post-conflict zones, an articulation of individual researcher-practitioner's intentions presents a far more nebulous terrain. This nebulous quality is not always a limitation though: James Thompson's (2009b) postulations on the potential of 'affect', and the prospect of 'little changes' that Michael Balfour (2009b) identifies, validate the importance of uncertainty in theatre-in-war work. Indeed, it is precisely because we cannot know, or entirely predict, what theatre might catalyse in a place of war that the work of researching, making, and performing theatre might become revelatory.…”