Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
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The Art of Medicine: The Intergenerational Project: Creating Space for Play in Health Care
No full textMaking Hospitals Better: Digital Applied Theatre Practice in Acute Hospital Contexts for Patients Living with Dementia in the Midst of a Pandemic.
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An Ecological Exploration of Whiteness Using Imperial Hegemony and Racial Socialisation to Examine Lived Experiences and Social Performativity of Melanated Communities
No full textThis handbook offers a unique decolonial take on the field of Critical Whiteness Studies by rehistoricising and re-spatialising the study of bodies and identities in the world system of coloniality.
Situating the critical study of whiteness as a core intellectual pillar in a broadly based project for racial and social justice, the volume understands whiteness as elaborated in global coloniality through epistemology, ideology and governmentality at the intersections with heteropatriarchy and capitalism. The diverse contributions present Black and other racially diverse scholarship as crucial to the field. The focus of inquiry is expanded beyond Northern Anglophone contexts to challenge centre/margin relations, examining whiteness in the Caribbean, South Africa and the African continent, Asia, the Middle East as well as in the United States and parts of Europe. Providing a transdisciplinary approach and addressing debates about knowledges, black and white subjectivities and newly defensive forms of whiteness, as seen in the rise of the Radical Right, the handbook deepens our understanding of power, place, and culture in coloniality.
This book will be an invaluable resource for researchers, advanced students, and scholars in the fields of Education, History, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Political Sciences, Philosophy, Critical Race Theory, Feminist and Gender Studies, Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies, Security Studies, Migration Studies, Media Studies, Indigenous Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Diversity Studies, and African, Latin American, Asian, American, British and European Studies
Unity Over Unison: Creating AntigoneNOW in Lockdown. A Conversation between Margaret Laurena Kemp, Sinéad Rushe, and Roger Ellis; moderated by Dassia N. Posner
No full textThis is a conversation between Margaret Laurena Kemp, Sinéad Rushe, and Roger Ellis; moderated by Dassia N. Posner about the performance film AntigoneNOW.
AntigoneNOW was created in lockdown in April 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic closed the theatres, the work’s co-directors Margaret Laurena Kemp and Sinéad Rushe radically reimagined their originally planned stage production at University California Davis as a twenty-minute performance film that was rehearsed, directed, and created online. Devised from Sophocles’ play, Antigone, in a translation by Seamus Heaney, a cast of twelve women – each in isolation, each playing Antigone – filmed themselves on their mobile phones, iPads, and video cameras, together forming a chorus that portrays Antigone’s defiance of the law forbidding her to bury the body of her dead brother.
Choreographer Roger Ellis created ensemble movement, and sound designer Lex Kosanke composed an original sound score. Kemp edited the film, in collaboration with Rushe.
In 2020-21, AntigoneNOW screened at UC Davis, Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre, Northwestern University’s Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts, London School of Sound, Michael Chekhov Association USA, Valparaiso University, Louisiana State University, and SPE Media Festival.
The conversation is based on a talkback with the film’s creators that followed an online screening on November 13, 2020, hosted at Northwestern University’s Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts
Digital Reciprocity: The Surprises of Zoom Based Applied Theatre Practice with Patients Living with Dementia
No full textIntergenerational Collaborative Digital Applied Theatre Practice: Empathy and Connection in a time of Social Isolation for NHS Patients undergoing Dialysis and Secondary School Students in North London
No full textSocial isolation is something we have all felt during the pandemic. Many schools have been working remotely with few in-person interactions leaving young people without support networks in school. Similarly, in hospitals, patients with immunocompromised conditions who have been identified as vulnerable and susceptible to COVID-19 have been shielding from friends and family missing out on their own support systems too. In April 2021, we set up a remote collaboration to bring together NHS dialysis patients and young people through zoom to connect through a digital applied theatre to bridge the divide of isolation through creative practice. What we discovered was the power of the empathetic engagement between patients and students in this process and this article will detail the journey, learning and impact of this unique project
The Pedagogy of Reciprocity in Digital Applied Theatre Practice: The Antithesis to Unjust Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic that have Devalued and Ignored the Rights and Lives of Older Adults Living with Dementia.
No full textIn this article, I will offer case study insights into the value of digital applied theatre practice that has evolved to remain person-centred, valuing what Gail Mitchell et al. (2020) termed a ‘relational ethic of care’ that seeks to enable active citizenship at the heart of hospital-based practice for patients living with dementia. ‘Innovating Knowledge Exchange: Student Involvement in Delivering Better Patient Experience in the NHS (National Health Service)’, is a digital applied theatre project jointly funded by Research England and the Office for Students, in partnership with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust’s Dementia Care Team. The project offers six interventions that happen via zoom to support patients living with dementia who have had little social interaction and thereby cognitive stimulation in COVID-19 and medicine for the elderly wards. The emphasis of each project is to create bespoke workshops that embody a term I have coined, a ‘pedagogy of reciprocity’, which is an approach that has evolved over the course of the translation and implementation of the project practice in a digital form.
The relationship between arts and health has a long, rich history, but recently known models of practice have either stopped or had to adapt to happen online through digital practice. Moving to online interventions can be exclusionary for artist practitioners who are less familiar with platforms such as Teams, Zoom, Google Meet and Skype, and for those who are familiar, the challenge of ensuring meaningful participation has been complicated. However, the need to continue to be responsive practitioners is vital, and the urgency for arts intervention to support positive wellbeing in the midst of the pandemic has only grown. Arts and healthcare hold a long-standing relationship that should not be compromised because of the necessity to traverse new terrain by entering the domain of the digital, I will argue that in fact this process is vital, and one that I will unpack and interrogate from my own experience working in a hospital during our third national UK lockdown and continuing digital arts and health projects. The reality of the pandemic and the severity of its impact on the mental health and wellbeing of older adults is profound. The International Psychogeriatric Association have discussed the ongoing impact on the mental health and wellbeing of older adults forced to socially isolate. This circumstance is unavoidable for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19, but the fear of contracting COVID-19, or not receiving hospital treatment for particular age brackets, and the impact of not being able to socialise with family and friends is causing a rise in suicide, anxiety, agitation and loneliness. Myrra Vernooij-Dassen (2020) argues that social, mental and cognitive health are not considered by policy makers, and the impact of a lack of social health for people living with dementia is particularly detrimental causing conditions to rapidly deteriorate without social interactions. In this article, I will set out the conceptual framework for the pedagogy of reciprocity as a methodology for responsive digital applied theatre practice that has emerged directly from my experience running projects in the pandemic in acute hospital settings
Care Home Residents as Artists: Digital Connections in the Age of Disconnect.
No full textThroughout the current global pandemic, many people have had to adapt to new ways of interacting through virtual platforms. For those with access to new technologies this transition has been straightforward, but not easy and for those without it, life has become socially isolating, frightening, and lonely. The impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of older adults is a serious concern, particularly for those living in care homes who have been forgotten or neglected by exclusionary government policy. Amnesty International’s 2020 report ‘As if Expendable: The UK Government’s Failure to Protect Older People in Care Homes During the COVID-19 Pandemic’ provides analysis of the neglect to care for and sufficiently support older adults living with dementia in supported living. The results of this inaction to provide care has led to many avoidable deaths and caused fear and heartache for those who have lost family, friends and colleagues. It is at this moment, during the third UK lockdown that we would like to share a narrative of hope about the actions that we have taken within care home contexts to provide relief, reconnect residents safely with their neighbours, and found creative ways to inclusively provide care, support and celebrations of the identities of people in these contexts who have become statistics in news reports.
Between January and March 2021, undergraduate and postgraduate Applied Theatre students from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in partnership with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust collaborated with residents from One Housing Association to create and develop bespoke films, poems, songs and virtual reality 360 videos from the safety of their homes to bring to life their stories, hopes and inner artists. In this presentation, we will explore the impact of these projects on the participants’ wellbeing and examine the importance of providing older adults opportunities to be creative. We will additionally offer insights into the relationships that were made and developed during the projects, including family connections, intergenerational connections and playful relationships that emerged between the residents themselves and their Carers
The Pedagogy of Reciprocity in Digital Applied Theatre Practice: The Antithesis to Unjust Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic that have Devalued and Ignored the Rights and Lives of Older Adults Living with Dementia.
No full textIn this article, I will offer case study insights into the value of digital applied theatre practice that has evolved to remain person-centred, valuing what Gail Mitchell et al. (2020) termed a ‘relational ethic of care’ that seeks to enable active citizenship at the heart of hospital-based practice for patients living with dementia. ‘Innovating Knowledge Exchange: Student Involvement in Delivering Better Patient Experience in the NHS (National Health Service)’, is a digital applied theatre project jointly funded by Research England and the Office for Students, in partnership with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust’s Dementia Care Team. The project offers six interventions that happen via zoom to support patients living with dementia who have had little social interaction and thereby cognitive stimulation in COVID-19 and medicine for the elderly wards. The emphasis of each project is to create bespoke workshops that embody a term I have coined, a ‘pedagogy of reciprocity’, which is an approach that has evolved over the course of the translation and implementation of the project practice in a digital form.
The relationship between arts and health has a long, rich history, but recently known models of practice have either stopped or had to adapt to happen online through digital practice. Moving to online interventions can be exclusionary for artist practitioners who are less familiar with platforms such as Teams, Zoom, Google Meet and Skype, and for those who are familiar, the challenge of ensuring meaningful participation has been complicated. However, the need to continue to be responsive practitioners is vital, and the urgency for arts intervention to support positive wellbeing in the midst of the pandemic has only grown. Arts and healthcare hold a long-standing relationship that should not be compromised because of the necessity to traverse new terrain by entering the domain of the digital, I will argue that in fact this process is vital, and one that I will unpack and interrogate from my own experience working in a hospital during our third national UK lockdown and continuing digital arts and health projects. The reality of the pandemic and the severity of its impact on the mental health and wellbeing of older adults is profound. The International Psychogeriatric Association have discussed the ongoing impact on the mental health and wellbeing of older adults forced to socially isolate. This circumstance is unavoidable for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19, but the fear of contracting COVID-19, or not receiving hospital treatment for particular age brackets, and the impact of not being able to socialise with family and friends is causing a rise in suicide, anxiety, agitation and loneliness. Myrra Vernooij-Dassen (2020) argues that social, mental and cognitive health are not considered by policy makers, and the impact of a lack of social health for people living with dementia is particularly detrimental causing conditions to rapidly deteriorate without social interactions. In this article, I will set out the conceptual framework for the pedagogy of reciprocity as a methodology for responsive digital applied theatre practice that has emerged directly from my experience running projects in the pandemic in acute hospital settings