C is for Collaboration, Creativity, and Community: A Model of Alliances Through Applied Drama, Theater, and Arts Courses

C is for Collaboration, Creativity, and Community: A Model of Alliances Through Applied Drama, Theater, and Arts Courses

Ruth Hellier-Tinoco (University of Winchester, UK  and Music, Theater & Dance, UCSB)
Thursday, December 2 / 4:00 PM
Theater Dance West 2517

Applied drama, theater, and other arts (music, dance, film) valuably form the core of undergraduate and graduate courses, engaging student, faculty, and community collaboration and creativity, in multifarious off-campus contexts – such as prisons, senior centers, after-school clubs, youth detention centers, drop-in homeless shelters, psychiatric facilities, addition recovery centers, and special education institutions.

Drawing pedagogically on Paulo Freire’s critical dialogue between action and reflection, and Augusto Boal’s participatory spect-actor model, these university courses and research projects engage a paradigm of praxis and cooperation, encompassing theoretical study of practice, policies, politics, and practitioners, combined with hands-on creative processes in settings and communities beyond the campus.

In this talk, Dr Ruth Hellier-Tinoco presents examples (with video) from her experience of teaching and researching at the University of Winchester, UK, with particular emphasis on student-prisoner collaborative performances by the Playing for Time theater at Winchester Prison, and InterAct Theater Workshop.

Ruth Hellier-Tinoco, PhD, is a scholar, creator and performer, whose work engages in an interdisciplinary context with the fields of performance studies, ethnomusicology, dance studies, theatre studies, applied and community arts, and Latin American studies, focusing particularly on Mexico.

Sponsored by the IHC’s Performance Studies RFG.