AT Research

As part of my MA in Applied Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, I engaged with research in several areas. These areas include using drama to improve the health and well-being of forcibly displaced people, fostering gender equity amongst students in tribal communities in India, cultivating an inclusive environment within academia, the role technology can play in drama and education, and the problems with globalisation and neo-colonial tendencies of Theatre for Development. My thesis was a manifesto for a new drama in education role aimed at facilitating the expression of adversarial voices within classroom settings to promote critical thinking. More information of these can be found below.

The Applied Theatre Devil

The Devil has a vision for a truly safe and agonistic public sphere in which individuals can freely express adversarial ideas without fear of reprisal. Only with such an environment can the powerful bias and influence of the mass media and consumer society who promote one-dimensional thought be destabilised and weakened. Individuals will be able to engage in truthful critical debate about current affairs, and discover contradictions to those values and beliefs which may have become naturalised into their society’s psyche.

To accomplish this vision, the mission for the Devil is to facilitate truthful critical debates within the classroom to expose the adversarial voices which are otherwise silenced in the real world. A presence of the Devil in the schooling system can help promote critical thinking and the ability to discuss controversial and adversarial ideas. Through engaging students in truthful critical debate, the Devil can help counter the naturalisation and sedimentation of one-dimensional thinking. Further to this, the Devil ultimately wishes for its own demise as the ability to engage in such critical debates should not be a special event but a natural and consistent frame of mind in everyday life for free thinking and democratic citizens of the world.

Continuing Professional Development

Continuing professional development is vitally important to me, and as such I continually seek opportunities to review and enhance my facilitation and teaching skills through engaging with other practitioners and contemporary theory on facilitation and teaching practices. In addition to this, I continually seek feedback from my participants and host organisations to ensure I continue to deliver sessions at the highest quality.