Responding to Racialization Through Arts Practice: The Case of Participatory Theater

Abstract

This article describes two participatory theater projects undertaken by Western Edge Youth Arts in Melbourne and aimed at challenging racialization and fostering belonging among culturally diverse young people. Drawing from interview and archival data, we suggest that participatory theater provided the young people the opportunity to share and reflect on their lived experiences and re-present themselves, as well as gain resources for responding to the different issues associated with racialization. In the settings created, participants were able to disrupt taken for granted and common sense understandings of self and other and create new stories of identity and belonging. These disruptions into the symbolic context of social identity construction are important for personal and social change, including for decentring whiteness. However, participatory theater is not a panacea, nor is it free of power relations. We discuss some of the challenges and limitations of the different projects. C 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Possibilities and Limits of Participatory Theatre: Exploring Belonging and Resistance with Second-Generation Black and Muslim Dutch Youth in the Netherlands

“…Telling stories based on experience is a powerful critical social location from which to speak (hooks, 1990). Theatre is an embodied artform, as such it provides space to play with affect (Gallagher et al, 2017) and fosters encounters with others through storytelling (Sonn, Quayle, Belanji, & Baker, 2015). In his research with temporary seasonal agricultural workers in Canada from Mexico and the Caribbean, Perry 2017demonstrates how theatre provides a unique space for exploring embodied practices and tacit or subconscious knowledge, particularly with marginalised people who are usually not deemed as 'knowers.'…”

Fostering Sociopolitical Consciousness With Minoritized Youth: Insights From Community-Based Arts Programs

“…In addition to facilitating internal reflection and awareness, community-based theatre was a forum for minoritized young people to engage with perpetrators of injustices against them. Sonn, Quayle, Belanji, and Baker (2015) showed that the On the Radar Playback Theatre project was specifically designed to enable dialogue between minoritized youth and police. Youth discussed their marginalized status in the community, media misrepresentation, and experiences of racialization and criminalization by local police within structured workshops.…”

“…Engaging young people in interactions that require them to (re)consider identity, difference, and belonging was a characteristic of cosmopolitanism in theatre programs (e.g., Pruitt, 2015; Sonn et al, 2015; Vasudevan, 2014) For example, Sonn et al’s (2015) study of The Chronicles oral history theatre project explicated the use of storytelling and performance in fostering identity, community and belonging among Australian youth. The first stage of the project engaged youth in the exploration of the cultural histories and experiences of their families through interviews with parents, which the youth then retold through performances.…”

“…. But this is the first time I’ve ever sat down and really understand what their, that history really meant to them.” (Sonn et al, 2015, pp. 252–253)…”

Denver’s Romero Theater Troupe

“…Participatory theater refers to approaches and strategies of involving the audience in the production and also inspiring them to act in their communities as a result of seeing a particular play. These projects include the Westville Prison Project in Durban, South Africa (Singhal 2004a); the Western Edge Youth Arts theater project to combat racism in Melbourne, Australia (Sonn et al 2015); the Radical Wallflowers and other grassroots disability theater groups in California (Lewis 2006); and Portland's Labor Players, one of the first labor theater troupes in U.S. history (Lembeke 1981).…”