Applied Theatre: Performing Health and Wellbeing

This collection adds rich new perspectives to ongoing debates about the cultural locations of health care, theatre, and power ... A highly valuable contribution to expanding the boundaries of this growing field. * New Theatre Quarterly * Emphasizing ways in which performance techniques can support the promotion of health care, Applied Theatre is a valuable, well-researched study on a topic of practical concern. Reconsidering established notions of how illness and wellness are broadly understood, the collection examines both practical and aesthetic concerns in reconsidering prevailing concepts. In part 1, Baxter (Univ. of Cape Town, South Africa) and Low (Univ. of London, UK), both specialists in applied theater, introduce the book and establish its goals. The chapters in part 2 are multifaceted: primarily geographical, they identify specific health problems facing populations in the global north (ageing citizenry) and south (higher birth rate, more youthful population), and the aesthetic and research means by which these local problems can be addressed. The more interesting parts of each chapter are case studies and interviews with artists and medical practitioners, many in the developing world, dealing with hygiene and sanitation concerns, rural development issues, and so on. Though pitched at practitioners using theatrical techniques in health care broadly defined, the volume offers fascinating angles on a little-explored subject that will interest readers in a variety of disciplines. Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE *

Katharine E. Low is a lecturer in Applied Theatre and Community Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. She has previously researched and facilitated practice in Tanzania and South Africa with specific reference to sexual health and local responses to HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as working with HIV+ refugee women in Manchester. Dr Veronica Baxter is the convenor of the Honours programme and the Masters in Applied Theatre at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and has taught at South African and English universities for 25 years, focusing on applied theatre and drama, directing, theatre history and South African theatre.

Part 1 Introduction Katharine Low 1 Understanding Health, Wellbeing, the Millennium Development Goals and Health Inequities Katharine Low 2 Aesthetics, Instrumentalism and Ethics in Health and Wellbeing Veronica Baxter Part 2 3 Ageing: Dementia Care, Death and Dying (the UK and North America) 3.1 Introduction Katharine Low 3.2 Essay Participatory theatre and dementia Nicola Hatton 3.3 Interview A discussion about death? I feel more alive now Sue Mayo in conversation with Liz Rothschild, Director of Kicking the Bucket: A Festival of Living and Dying 4 Communicable Diseases: Tuberculosis (South Africa), Malaria (Malawi) and Dengue Fever (Brazil) 4.1 Introduction Katharine Low 4.2 Essay Tuberculosis: The forgotten plague Veronica Baxter and Michele Tameris 4.3 Snapshot Dialogical theatre: Reconsidering the role of Theatre for Development for malaria prevention in Malawi Zindaba Dunduzu Chisiza 4.4 Interview Public Enemy No. 1: Dengue fever in the favelas of Brazil Johayne Hildefonso is interviewed by Jan Onoszko 5 Non-Communicable Diseases: Lifestyle and Post-Colonial Stress Disorder (Canada), Nutrition and Health Eating (Denmark), Diabetes (UK) 121 5.1 Introduction Katharine Low 5.2 Essay Acting Out our health: Assisting youth in making healthy lifestyle choices through linking Indigenous perspectives about wellbeing with Applied Theatre Julian Robbins, Warren Linds, Linda Goulet, Jo-Ann Episkenew and Karen Schmidt 5.3 Snapshot Health theatre for children Dan Grabowski and Jens Aagaard-Hansen 5.4 Snapshot Creativity and change in the lifestyles of South Asian communities in Yorkshire Geetha Upadhyaya 6 Sexual Health: Practice from South Africa and the Asia Pacific Region 145 6.1 Introduction Veronica Baxter 6.2 Essay Its difficult to talk about sex in a positive way: Creating a space to breathe Katharine Low 6.3 Snapshot Performing the solution: Cautions and possibilities when using theatre conventions within HIV prevention programmes Helen Cahill 7 Cancer: Research from the UK, USA and Australia 167 7.1 Introduction Katharine Low 7.2 Essay Proud disclosures and awkward receptions: between bodies with cancer and their audiences Brian Lobel 7.3 Snapshot Alive and Out There: Theatre addressing stigma around cancer in diverse communities in Sydney, Australia Astrid Perry and Lynne Baker 8 Womens Health and Gender Inequity: Experiences from India, Malawi and the Solomon Islands 8.1 Introduction Veronica Baxter 8.2 Essay The ambiguities of Shakti: Performing womens well-being in India Nandita Dinesh 8.3 Snapshot Womens drama group in Malawi targets mothers and children for burns prevention Effie Makepeace 8.4 Snapshot Stages of Change: Using theatre to address domestic violence in the Solomon Islands Kiara Worth 9 Mental Health: Perspectives from South Africa, the UK and Brazil 9.1 Introduction Veronica Baxter 9.2 Essay Between the traditional and the theatrical: Forms and performances of healing depression in South Africa Sinethemba Makanya 9.3 Snapshot Mad Gyms and Kitchens, Bobby Baker and Daily Life Ltd Caoimhe McAvinchey 9.4 Interview Dionysus and ritual ecstasy: Madness and medicine Vitor Pordeus is interviewed by Katharine Low 10 Snapshots of Practice: Environmental Health, Medical Dramaturgy, Addiction and Ebola 10.1 Introduction Veronica Baxter 10.2 Snapshot Ecological health in Violeta Lunas NK 603:Action for Performer & e-Maiz Lisa Woynarski 10.3 Snapshot Storying climate change adaptation: Theatre as a research tool in an Ecohealth research process in the Eastern Cape, South Africa Nicholas Hamer and Alexandra Sutherland 10.4 Snapshot Generating a medical dramaturgy: Live intersections between intermediality and health Deirdre McLaughlin and Joanne Scott 10.5 Snapshot Dance lifts us up in the world: Socially engaged theatre with people in re