Overview

Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Care, Community, Change documents and amplifies lessons from practitioners and scholars who use performance to create models of transformation, collective learning, and liberation. The chapters and lively roundtable discussions center knowledge and cultural practices developed by Black, Indigenous, Asian, Latine, people of color, and/or people of the global majority, many of whom were doing this work long before applied theatre became an established field of academic study. Building upon frameworks such as Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, protest theatre, anti-racist theatre practices, and theatre for social change, the contributors grapple with applied theatre and racial justice from various perspectives as they work towards mitigating and healing the harm caused by racial injustice. These unique essays provide sample exercises, applicable principles, pedagogical tools, philosophical approaches, and models for art-making and research. The range of writing styles includes personal narratives, ethnographies, theatre histories, and case studies on topics such as Indigenous education, Hip Hop activism, anti-racist theatre, women’s health, artistic training, ritual practices, Black feminism, state and systemic violence, mental health, dance, and community organizing. Applied Theatre and Racial Justice: Care, Community, Change, part of the Applied Theatre in Context series, is essential reading for students, educators, and theatre practitioners in community, academic, and professional settings who wish to apply performance strategies to imagine and create more supportive ways of being in the world. This interdisciplinary book engages with a broad range of related fields, including education, civic engagement, criminal justice, sociology, ecology, and gender, ethnicity, and race studies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lisa Biggs ,  Eunice S. Ferreira
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9781032223995

ISBN 10:   1032223995
Pages:   230
Publication Date:   27 April 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Offering 1: Contemplating Liberatory Practices 1. Contemplative Practices for Theatrical Interventions and Living 2. Cyphers and Verse: A Hiphopography of bkSOUL 3. Activating the Ancestral Body: Embodied Performance and Self-Development 4. Dance of the Orcas: Narrative Medicine for Undrowning Offering 2: Changing the Center in Teaching and Learning 5. Indigenous Youth: Performance, Identity, and Cultural Reclamation 6. Liberating the Classroom: Academic Theatre and Calls for Change 7. Transcultural Playwriting: What Happens When We Meet? 8. Changing the Center: Utilizing Black Pedagogy to Prioritize Cultural Competency in Theatre Training Offering 3: Building Community with Care 9. Anti-Racist Theatre: A Directorial Practice of Healing in Fires in the Mirror 10. Role Play, Embodiment, and Our Histories 11. Embodied Truth: Finding Ways to Move Together 12. The Minor Aesthetics of Falling: Reframing “Left-Behind” Children in Rural China Offering 4: Performing Black Feminisms 13. Embodying the Headlines: Performing Sandra Bland 14. Performing Black Feminist Abolition 15. Making Colors: A Black Queer Feminist Experiment in Solo Performance Offering 5: Reckoning with History 16. Planting “Seeds of Freedom”: Drama and Youth Activism in Mississippi 1964 17. The American Slavery Project: Performance and Education 18. Building the Next Black Wall Street: Michelle Brown-Burdex and the Tulsa Greenwood Summer Arts Entrepreneur Camp 19. Chicago’s Free Street Theater and The Radically Ordinary Art of Showing Up Offering 6: Gathering ‘Round the Table Roundtable 1. Contemplating Liberatory Practices Roundtable 2. Changing the Center in Teaching and Learning Roundtable 3. Building Community with Care Roundtable 4. Performing Black Feminisms Roundtable 5. Reckoning with History

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Author Information

Lisa Biggs is an associate professor in the Department of Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre at Brown University, U.S.A., where she teaches theatre and performance studies. She is an actor, playwright, and the recipient of the 2023 Lila A. Heston Award from the National Communications Association and the Errol Hill Award from the American Society for Theatre Research. Eunice S. Ferreira is an associate professor in the Theater Department at Skidmore College, U.S.A., where she teaches Black theatre, theatre history, mixed race performance, translation, and theatre for social justice and change. She is a director, dramaturg, actor, and a leading scholar on theatre of Cabo Verde, West Africa.

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