Theatre and Empowerment

A collection of essays on the ability of drama and performance to empower communities.

Theatre and Empowerment examines the ability of drama, theatre, dance and performance to empower communities of very different kinds. Working from a multi-cultural perspective, the book explores the value of performance as an agent of social change, asking how it can help disempowered communities find their own creative voices.Theatre and Empowerment examines the ability of drama, theatre, dance and performance to empower communities of very different kinds, and it does so from a multi-cultural perspective. The communities involved include poverty-stricken children in Ethiopia and the Indian sub-continent, disenfranchised Native Americans in the USA and young black men in Britain, victims of violence in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and a threatened agricultural town in Italy. The book asserts the value of performance as a vital agent of necessary social change, and makes its arguments through the close examination, from 'inside' practice, of the success - not always complete - of specific projects in their practical and cultural contexts. Practitioners and commentators ask how performance in its widest sense can play a part in community activism on a scale larger than the individual, 'one-off' project by helping communities find their own liberating and creative voices.