A Theatre of Applied Performativity: Play and the aesthetics of the Scripted Performance Workshop in Peer-facilitated Relationships and Sex Education
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Evans, David. 2022. A Theatre of Applied Performativity: Play and the aesthetics of the Scripted Performance Workshop in Peer-facilitated Relationships and Sex Education. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis]
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Text (A Theatre of Applied Performativity: Play and the aesthetics of the Scripted Performance Workshop in Peer-facilitated Relationships and Sex Education.)
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Abstract or Description
Originally grounded in psycho-social theory, this thesis theorises the performative practices manifest in a body of work within the field of classroom-based relationships and sex education. The interventions originated in the University of Exeter during the 1990s, operating under the aegis of ‘Apause’. The thesis focuses on how the interventions manifest as the ‘action matter’ of classroom workshops and argues that the incumbent theory base and discourse falls short of representing the subjects’ experiences and transformative processes. The three projects investigated - ‘Apause Peers’, ‘Get-WISE’ and ‘RAP’ - are facilitated by other, slightly older students, dubbed ‘peer-facilitators’, and play, as intrinsic to these events, has been hitherto unacknowledged. Deploying pedagogical, presentational and theatrical conventions, classroom action is highly participatory. Published evaluations establish Apause as uniquely effective at enabling young people to have greater control in their relationships and reduce their exposure to sexual health risks. Data is presented primarily as transcriptions of the action matter. By adopting post-structuralist practices as the means of analysing the interventions and juxtaposing these sensibilities with psycho-social constructs, an increasingly integrative model emerges. Groups of parameters are organised into two reciprocating frameworks - one regulative, one constitutive. The regulative framework is inscribed within the workshops’ scripted guidelines, codifying cultural, psycho-social and health prerogatives. The second framework comprises aesthetic parameters. Liminality, the collapsing of binaries and autopoiesis combine as play to effect durable transformations. These define the transformative interactions constituted within the time and spatially bounded liminal event. Having rubricised the nature and function of these frameworks, the wilfully ambiguous character of play threatens to confound and destabilize these parameters. Despite, or perhaps because of, these paradoxes, it is argued the Scripted Performance Workshop, is an enculturating event, achieving efficacy, utility and durability through the sanctioning of play.
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Item Type: |
Thesis (Doctoral) |
| Identification Number (DOI): |
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| Keywords: |
applied theatre performativity play aesthetics peer relationships sex education |
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| Date: |
31 March 2022 |
| Item ID: |
31709 |
| Date Deposited: |
11 Apr 2022 09:44 |
| Last Modified: |
07 Sep 2022 17:19 |
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URI: |
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