Multicultural play as ‘Open Culture’ in ‘safe precincts’: making space for difference in youth theatre

Theatre and drama education and populism: The ensemble ‘family’ as a space for dialogic empathy and civic care

“…In Winston and Strand’s analysis of the piece, they note how the variety of theatre in education performance and workshop conventions utilised narration, role‐switching, forum theatre interventions from the audience, and ambiguous endings facilitating engaged and empathetic debate from student participants on the piece’s high‐stakes questions of religious fundamentalism, nationalism, radicalisation and terrorism. They utilised Sennett’s dialogic empathy to define the ‘charm’ and ‘liveliness’ through which these aesthetic conventions created a sense of what Rajendran terms ‘post‐colonial convivialities’, ‘in which “the processes of cohabitation and interaction” among different cultural groups make “multiculture an ordinary feature of social life”’ (Rajendran, 2016: 444). In this way, it is possible to see how the collaborative and creative basis of ensemble pedagogy can offer a space in which participants can experience the democratic process of contestation through the enactment of dialogic empathy.…”

“…In this way, she empowers the students to embody and explore their own broader identities in the classroom space, which the students in turn ground in local community and familial practices, with references to local mosques and prayer centres. This is postcolonial conviviality (Rajendran, 2016) enacted: the use of empathetic discourse to lean into complex debates of religious identity demonstrates the democratic potential of this relational, care‐led approach (Winston & Strand, 2013; Gallagher, 2015; Turner‐King, 2018).…”