Drama Workshop Project Advances with Fieldwork in Toronto and Across Global Sites
Dr. Gallagher’s research team had a busy fall and winter of generative fieldwork in our SSRHC-funded project, The Drama Workshop: Collective discernment and artistic practice as relational pedagogies for an epoch of intersecting ecological, social, and economic crises (2025-2030). Interested students in Professor Banuta Rubess’ DRM200 classes participated in a 3-day intensive workshop in November on solo performance theatre-making led by our embedded artist, playwright and actor Zorana Sadiq. Students also participated in focus group interviews about their creative work, as did Dr. Rubess about her pedagogy. Data analysis is ongoing and some of this work will be shared at the upcoming Canadian Association of Theatre Research conference at the University of Victoria. Fieldwork for the study continued in the winter as playwright, director, and embedded artist, Andrew Kushnir, and Toronto research team members, facilitated four days of devising exploration in January and February with Gabrielle Kemeny’s grade 9 drama class at University of Toronto Schools. Interviews with students and teacher are upcoming. Establishing a Global Community of Practice, Year 1 research continues across all sites–Ireland, India, Greece, Nigeria, and Toronto–with the Toronto research team hosting remote meetings with our colleagues, as the research unfolds in all the global sites.