Books in the Palgrave Studies In Play, Performance, Learning, and Development series

This book explores various approaches to building a positive interdisciplinary STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) learning environment, as described by educators across the K-20 educational ladder.

A social updraft provides cultural meditational means that include people in a current headed "upward," allowing people of atypical makeups to become fully involved in significant cultural activity that brings them a feeling of social belonging.

In this book, the authors share stories of creative, community based collaborations to illustrate how educators can use the arts to expand creative thinking and promote social justice beyond the classroom.

A social updraft provides cultural meditational means that include people in a current headed "upward," allowing people of atypical makeups to become fully involved in significant cultural activity that brings them a feeling of social belonging.

This is the first book length study of performance activism. While Performance Studies recognizes the universality of human performance in daily life, what is specifically under investigation here is performance as an activity intentionally entered into as a means of engaging social issues and conflicts, that is, as an ensemble activity by which we re-construct/transform social reality. Performance Activism: Precursors and Contemporary Pioneers provides a global overview of the growing interface of performance with education, therapy, conflict resolution, civic engagement, community development and social justice activism. It combines an historical study of the processes by which, over the course of the 20th Century, performance has been loosened from the institutional constraints of the theatre with a mosaic-like overview of the diverse work/play of contemporary performance activists around the world. Performance Activism will be of interest to theatre and cultural historians, performance practitioners and researchers, psychologists and sociologists, educators and youth workers, community organizers and political activists.

This book draws on the author's experience as a storyteller, drama practitioner and researcher, to articulate an emerging dialogic approach to storytelling in participatory arts, educational, mental health, youth theatre, and youth work contexts.