1st Edition
Theatre Pedagogy in the Era of Climate Crisis
This volume explores whether theatre pedagogy can and should be transformed in response to the global climate crisis.
Conrad Alexandrowicz and David Fancy present an innovative re-imagining of the ways in which the art of theatre, and the pedagogical apparatus that feeds and supports it, might contribute to global efforts in climate protest and action. Comprised of contributions from a broad range of scholars and practitioners, the volume explores whether an adherence to aesthetic values can be preserved when art is instrumentalized as protest and considers theatre as a tool to be employed by the School Strike for Climate movement. Considering perspectives from areas including performance, directing, production, design, theory and history, this book will prompt vital discussions which could transform curricular design and implementation in the light of the climate crisis.
Theatre Pedagogy in the Era of Climate Crisis will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners of climate change and theatre and performance studies.
Introduction: In the Midst of a Pandemic and a Reckoning on Racial Injustice
Conrad Alexandrowicz and David Fancy
Part 1: Applied Theatre/Drama in Education
1. Nurturing Hopeful Agency: Applied Theatre Pedagogy in Collaboration with Social Movements
Rachel Rhoades
2. Strategies for Climate Crisis Adaptation: Bringing Indigenous and Western Knowledge Systems Together through Theatre
Lara Aysal
3. Voices We Carry within Us: A Trialogue about Climate Change, Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Activism
Lara Aysal and Dennis D. Gupa in Conversation with Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta
4. Voicing Student Perspectives in the Transformation of Theatre Pedagogy for Climate Justice
Alexandra (Sasha) Kovacs
Part 2: Playwriting and Collective Storytelling
5. Conrad Alexandrowicz and David Fancy in Conversation with Caridad Svich
Conrad Alexandrowicz and David Fancy
6. Devising in the Era of Climate Crisis: Staging the "Eco-Performative"
Conrad Alexandrowicz
7. Anthropogenic Anxiety and the Pedagogy of Climate Crisis in Wake Up Everyone
Gloria Akayi Asoloko and Soji Cole
8. "Can We Talk?" Forum Theatre as Rehearsal for Climate Change Interventions
Derek Davidson
Part 3: Actor Training
9. "Eco-Atonement": Performing the Nonhuman
Conrad Alexandrowicz
10. The Actor as Geoartist
David Fancy
Part 4: Theatre and Performance Studies/Praxis
11. Drawing What You Can’t See: Meditations on Theatre and Derangement
Mary Anderson
12. Coproducing Mimesis
Katrina Dunn and Malus Fusca
Part 5: Design and Production
13. Eco-Scenography and Sustainable Theatre Production
David Fancy in Conversation with Tanja Beer and David Vivian
Epilogue: Theatre Pedagogy and the Climate Crisis--a Manifesto
Conrad Alexandrowicz, Mary Anderson, Gloria Akayi Asoloko, Lara Aysal, Tanja Beer, Soji Cole, Derek Davidson, Katrina Dunn, David Fancy, Dennis D. Gupa, Alexandra (Sasha) Kovacs, Rachel Rhoades, Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta, Caridad Svich, and David Vivian
Biography
Conrad Alexandrowicz, MFA, is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Victoria, where he teaches movement for actors. He had a lengthy career as a performer and creator of physical theatre, and has been a dancer, choreographer, playwright, director and producer. His first book, Acting Queer: Gender Dissidence and the Subversion of Realism, was published in February 2020.
David Fancy, PhD, is full professor and chair in the Department of Dramatic Arts in the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts at Brock University. He publishes on philosophy, technology, environmentalism, disability and performance and has a creative practice as a playwright and director of theatre, opera, and circus. He is editor of a website on the subject of diversities and actor training.
"This collection is an important contribution to the urgent conversations concerning the climate crisis and how theatre artists and scholars can address these pressing topics through activism, Indigenous knowledge systems, performance pedagogies, and performance." -- Rachel Bowditch, Professor, Director of Graduate Studies for Theatre and Dance, Arizona State University, USA
"I am overwhelmed by a deep and personal gratitude for this book. The collection succeeds in employing performance to address the failure of imagination that is the root cause of the climate crisis. It offers a healing pedagogy to dress the wounds of individuality, and the consumer/dominator culture, towards a human/nature, mind/body unity, dissolving into a great wide belonging. Deeply philosophical and refreshingly practical, this is an essential book for enacting an equitable, survivable and thrive-able future for all life." -- Beth Osnes, Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Colorado, USA
