A review of the project 'Building Awareness and Resilience with Community Theatre': Carried out as a partnership between the Halo Leadership Development Agency Inc and ‘Act Out – Theatre for Transformation

Dave J Palmer

doi:10.13140/RG.2.1.4510.5525

The following report provides a brief review of a project called ‘Building Awareness and Resilience with Community Theatre’ carried out by Act Out in conjunction with the Halo Leadership Development Agency in late 2012. The report does a number of things. It begins with a short description of the methodology adopted in reviewing the project. The next section briefly describes Forum Theatre, the approach used to carry out the project. Next the report provides an ‘audit review’ of the project, comparing the various contracted objectives with evidence of the project’s performance Next the report turns to some of the challenges faced. Finally the report provides a discussion of the literature concerned with good practice in similar work elsewhere. This helps identify the likely social benefits of the work. Although a short-term project of this nature faces considerable challenges, there is some good evidence that the work is solid. For example, it enjoyed good community support and active involvement, particularly by Nyungar leaders and family. The project worked well in conjunction with Halo’s larger remit of encouraging leadership in Aboriginal young men. Indeed, the Forum Theatre approach offered new and novel ways for young people to exercise their leadership skills. They participated in script development, movement work, rehearsals, performance, interaction with audiences and, perhaps most impressively, extended their repertoire for dealing with domestic violence. In this way the project added to Halo’s stock of methods for providing practical and accessible ways of developing leadership. There was certainly much evidence that the young people involved took the project seriously, attended with regularity and demonstrated improvement in performance skills, public presentation, script retention, movement. Perhaps most important in this regard was the extent to which they were able to share their own stories and experiences about the effect violence has had on them. To an extent the project also allowed the young men to challenge their own self-consciousness, embarrassment and discomfort with presenting publicly. , By the final performance, attended by over 50 people, those involved were able to both deliver the original script as well as improvise in response to audience involvement. This was impressive, particularly given the relative shortness of the project.

A review of the project 'Building Awareness and Resilience with Community Theatre': Carried out as a partnership between the Halo Leadership Development Agency Inc and ‘Act Out – Theatre for Transformation

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