A Journey in Metaxis: Theatre of the Oppressed as Enactivist Praxis

The writings of Francisco Varela on cognition and knowledge offer a way to approach the process of drama creation. This article inter-plays an approach to knowledge called enactivism and the particular workshop development process of Theatre of the Oppressed, based on the application in a North American context, of the philosophy and practice of Augusto Boal

Performing responsibility: ethical 'know-how' through drama facilitation

I explore, and reflect on, the everyday ethical practices of drama facilitation. Rather than being a set of principles I apply, ethics emerge as I respond to situations that arise in a drama workshop. Their significance calls for understanding workshop facilitation as a space of containment. This offers the possibility of transforming personal and social being through the tensions and possibilities of interactive activities and conversations. To illustrate, I reflect upon an experience in a high school where an exploration of racism led to my learning from (and through) facilitation practice. Using a hermeneutic process of interpretation and interrogation that draws on the work of German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, I explore how I moved beyond ethics to ethical know-how

Collective Imagining: Collaborative Story Telling through Image Theater

This article is a dialogue between two practitioners of Image theater—a technique which involves using the body to share stories. Working in Quebec and Scotland, we discuss the potential ways such a form of performative inquiry (FELS, 1998) can, through an online medium, be documented and disseminated in ways that are coherent with, and build on, the principles of interactive theater. Our hope is that such an exploration will enable the participants in the work, ourselves, and our readers as performative social science researchers, so that we may engage as spect-actors (BOAL, 1979) with the material and build communities of practice through reflection on action (praxis). A key aspect we consider is ways in which physical dialogue through the body evolves—first as a method of enacting the world, where collective meaning emerges and secondly, as a concept that uses symbolic/metaphoric aesthetic language through what one colleague calls "body-storming" (like "brain-storming," but with the emotional and sensory body as a source and language of expression)

Embodied Voices:Using Applied Theatre for Co-Creation with Marginalised Youth

In this article we take a strength-based approach to understand how Applied Theatre as a vehicle, provides opportunities for embodied voices to have a positive influence on the wellbeing, and attitudes to health, of young people who have been ‘pushed’ to the margins. We begin by explaining the concepts of wellbeing, embodiment and embodied voices, and Applied Theatre, followed by an example of practice from Canada with Indigenous youth to illustrate these concepts, and finally present some recommendations for professionals using Applied Theatre for co-creation with ‘marginalised’ youth for their wellbeing

Developing Ethical Practice through Inquiry: It’s not Know-What, It’s Know-How

This chapter explores a graduate course designed for process consultant practitioners and change managers on the ethics of intervening in human systems. The course uses an ethical inquiry process which involves both individual and collective exploration. This is described through the background philosophy of embodied knowledge which underpins the design of the course and is further elaborated from the perspective of the professor and a previous student. Enactive and embodied knowing through an inquiry process draws attention to our skilful action through the challenges we face in acting ethically. This involves practicing three main methods used in the journey towards ethical know-how: the Discipline of Noticing (Mason, 2002), identifying the gap between espoused theory and theory-in-use (Argyris, 1995), and an individual and collective inquiry process (Roy et al, 2003) into ethical issues the authors have faced in their personal and/or professional lives

Forumspil: Transforming Minds and Hearts within Group Processes. Group Facilitation. A Research and Applications Journal

This article will introduce teachers of facilitators and group work to an application and further development of the Forumspil workshop method which, inspired by Augusto Boal’s methods of Image and Forum Theatre, was created in Sweden. Two professors, one in Denmark, and one in Canada have used the Forumspil workshop method in classes in human relations programs to deal with group learning and facilitation. This article describes how they have applied it in working with students in order to develop awareness both of group process and the role of the facilitator in fostering group work. The authors describe how each has added to the original forms in these two different courses where the students involved are being educated for socially oriented professions. It is the authors’ hope that readers can learn from their praxis and adapt it to their own context