Reclaiming the Radical: Drama in “Dangerous” Times 
Form, Content and Context - An Evening of Exploration

Curated Panel Event: Thursday, November 19, 2015 
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Library, 252 Bloor Street West, 6-8:30PM

Youth, Theatre, Radical Hope and the Ethical Imaginary: an intercultural investigation of drama, pedagogy, performance and civic engagement (2014-2018), a research project directed by Dr. Kathleen Gallagher and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, focuses on the place and responsibility of drama in education. We are pleased to invite you to a curated panel event that will include our international drama researchers from Taiwan, India, Greece, England and Canada. The evening will be hosted in collaboration with the Toronto District School Board and Christine Jackson, Coordinator for the Arts, will serve as respondent.

In year two of a fouryear, multi-sited, ethnographic study, Radical Hope focuses on youth and civicengagement by investigating how the drama classroom/workshop can cultivate relationships, dispositions, and values that orient young people towards, and support them in, engaged citizenship. Responding to the global concern of youth social unrest and building on earlier research, the team identifies hope and care as instrumental and formative in developing an ethical responsibility that spans cultural, racial and linguistic divides. Implicated in the larger narratives that surround us, drama in schools often becomes a ‘first responder’ in times of crisis. Students want to make sense of the world(s) around them and drama can bea critical method of investigation and intervention. 

What kind of a metaphor is theatre for the world? How do we use drama to build ethical relations? What is the relationship between form, content and context? How do we understand collaborativepedagogical models in theatre-making? What is “dangerous” for students and educators, and how do we act responsibly? How is the idea of hope linked to the existence of political alternatives? In light of on-going and over-lapping global crises, what can we do with art? 

Our international panel will offer illuminating and diverse perspectives and our event will launch a deliberativecommunity for drama teachers in Toronto. 

Moderator: Dr. Kathleen Gallagher - Distinguished Professor, Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, OISE, University of Toronto

Respondent: Christine Jackson - Coordinator of the Arts, TDSB

Panelists:
•    Dr. Myrto Pigkou-Repousi, Research Fellow, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens greece and Open University Cyprus
•    Nikos Govas, theatre/drama pedagogue, Hellenic Theatre/Drama Education Network, Athens, Greece
•    Dr. Rachel King, Assistant Professor, Centre for Education Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, England
•    Dr. Urvashi Sahni, Founder and Executive Director of Prerna School, Lucknow, India
•    Dr. Wan-Jung Wang, Associate Professor, Department of Drama Creation and Application, Tainan University, Tainan, Taiwan
•    Michael Limerick, Educator, ACL (Head), The Arts, Monarch Park Collegiate, TDSB, Toronto, Canada
•    Andrew Kushnir, playwright, actor and community arts worker, creative director of Project: Humanity,Toronto, Canada