Exacting collaboration: performance as pedagogy in interdisciplinary contexts

ABSTRACT

In this field report from a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) study abroad programme, the author describes how students came to see collaboration – a key component of arts practice – as a buzzword, rather than a set of specific, tested, vital practices productive to a wide range of situations. The author argues that the arts have much to offer as a ‘mobile critical paradigm’ (Gallagher, Kathleen, and Barry Freedman, eds. 2016. In Defence of Theatre: Aesthetic Practices and Social Interventions. Toronto: University of Toronto Press), particularly in interdisciplinary situations, but only if educators are exacting and purposeful as they define and employ collaboration as one of the arts’ most enduring lessons.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaboration
• STEAM
• arts education
• interdisciplinary studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Zachary A. Dorsey’s research focuses on GLBTQ art and activism, musical theatre, and representations of violence. He works as both a dramaturg and a fight choreographer in the theatre. Zachary is a graduate of the Performance as Public Practice Ph.D. programme at the University of Texas at Austin.