Applied Theatre: Aesthetics

Contents

List of Figures vii

Notes on Contributors viii

Introduction 1

Part 1

1 Aesthetics and the Aesthetic 21

Interlude: Eye Queue Hear 50


2 Aesthetic Autonomy and Heteronomous Aesthetics 59

Part 2

3 Dancing With Difference: Moving Towards a New Aesthetics Nicola Shaughnessy 87

4 Revolutionary Beauty out of Homophobic Hate: A Reflection on the Performance I Stand Corrected Mojisola Adebayo 123

5 Competing International Players and their Aesthetic Imperatives: The Future of Internationalized Applied Theatre Practice? Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta 156

6 Aesthetic Play: Between Performance and Justice Ananda Breed 194

7 The Political Imagination and Contemporary Theatre for Youth Anna Hickey-Moody 210

Introduction

The title of this book brings together two problematic terms, which then have a problematic relationship to each other. Aesthetics is a common word with many overlapping meanings, while applied theatre (or drama) is an umbrella term for a collection of overlapping practices. A little further into this introduction, I outline some of the ways that ideas of aesthetics are used in connection with the theatre practices that gather under the applied; but first looking at the notion of appliedness will illustrate why exploration in relation to aesthetics might lead to useful insights. The re-examination of the core term is a feature of publications on applied theatre with which many of its scholars and students would prefer to dispense, and yet it contains contradictions that are not easily ignored and which are provocative in this context; I shall be brief.

Helen Nicholson's often quoted outline tells us applied drama is:

A shorthand to describe forms of dramatic activity that primarily exist outside conventional mainstream theatre institutions, and which are specifically intended to benefit individuals, communities and societies.!

English