Applied Theatre and the Permacrisis

Responding to the global state of permacrisis, this book explores the relationship between applied theatre and disaster.

For millennia communities have learnt to live alongside disaster through their arts making. Building on the basis of this ancestral knowledge this book explores the current uses of applied theatre in times of constant crisis. Using a critical disaster studies lens, the authors recognise the role of governments and multinational businesses in profiteering from and manipulating for their own advantage the misery caused by disasters. Case studies of different stages of disaster, from risk reduction and disaster preparedness through to the almost inevitable resistance to failed government intervention, illustrate the possibilities and limitations of applied theatre and other art forms to navigate these times. Applied theatre is seen as a vital act of aesthetic and political hope.

At a time of never-ending, overlapping disasters, this book will be important to researchers and postgraduate students working in applied theatre and disaster research in the social sciences. It will also appeal to applied arts practitioners who work in disaster zones and with relief organisations.