{"id":1919,"date":"2025-08-12T17:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T17:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/?p=1919"},"modified":"2025-08-13T15:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:27:10","slug":"applied-theatre-building-communities-with-ufv-international-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/2025\/08\/12\/applied-theatre-building-communities-with-ufv-international-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Applied Theatre: Building Communities with UFV International Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Shelley Liebembuk<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Prof. Rita Dhungel<\/a> and I led bimonthly applied theatre workshops in the 2024-2025 academic year for UFV\u2019s international students. The EKTA podcast<\/a> our students created with Victoria Surtees provides a wonderful glimpse into the extraordinary insight these students have on their experience and their deep dedication to building community.<\/p>\n

Each of our sessions began around a meal. Providing food to students not only hoped to draw them in but also morph the classroom into a flexible community space. We cultivated a sense of informal time around the arrival into the space, decentering hierarchical dynamics in the act of eating together and checking in. As we sat and ate, \u00a0each person was invited to introduce themselves as they wished. I worked to articulate explicitly that there were no strings attached to this meal: all were welcome to eat together with us, and each person was invited to decide as we went how much they want to offer and engage in the exercises ahead. Mealtime could take anywhere between thirty to fifty minutes, but the key for me as co-facilitator was to not rush us into the applied theatre exercises, but instead usher us towards them.<\/p>\n

Applied Theatre is most broadly defined as theatre by, with, and for community. I drew on Augusto Boal\u2019s Image Theatre work, and shared my own adaptations of his exercises; encouraging sharing of lived experience through a communal, embodied storytelling.\u00a0The strongest moments were those where a group shared a \u2018crisis image\u2019 they had created and all of us in the room had an immediate, palpable reaction of recognition. Illustrations of pain were met with deep sympathy, and often followed by a wave of relief and warm laughter, as the students shed the \u2018crisis image\u2019 and transformed it into an \u2018ideal image\u2019. We discussed the work as it was created, allowing students to take the lead in providing suggestions, stepping in to reshape the image and complicating it.<\/p>\n

I first came to Canada 25 years ago as an international student, and this work continues to make here feel like home. Rita and I are looking forward to continuing our workshops with the students this fall. We also welcome faculty and staff to join us!<\/p>\n

Reference link<\/strong>: For a brief introduction to Augusto\u00a0Boal\u00a0and his work, see:
\nPrendergast, Monica, and Juliana Saxton, editors. \u201cTheatre of the Oppressed (TO).
\nApplied Theatre Second Edition: International Case Studies and Challenges for Practice<\/em>, 1st ed., Intellect, 2016, pp. 103\u201318. JSTOR<\/em>, \u00a0UFV library link: Chapter Seven:\u00a0Theatre of the Oppressed (TO)<\/a> (pp. 103-118)
\nhttps:\/\/doi.org\/10.2307\/j.ctv36xvzsb.11<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/j.ctv36xvzsb.11<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Group<\/a>\u00a0\"group<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Shelley Liebembuk Prof. Rita Dhungel and I led bimonthly applied theatre workshops in the 2024-2025 academic year for UFV\u2019s international students. The EKTA podcast our students created with Victoria Surtees provides a wonderful glimpse into the extraordinary insight these students have on their experience and their deep dedication to building community. Each of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":1921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1919"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1929,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions\/1929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/tlc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}