Poetics, Power, Possibilities, and Playfulness: Zombies, Performance, and Making Meaning in Young People's Lives

Abstract

This article considers drama/theater education as a form of constructivism where popular culture is both accessed and employed to engage young people and animate education. Using the familiar cultural trope of zombies, and in reference to three separate performance projects, attention is drawn to why projects such as these matter and why they work—and those who might be touched by them. The article further considers how knowledge might be transformed when young people work as artists and how participatory arts experiences reference questions relating to the nature of knowledge, our relationship to knowledge, and what this relationship might mean. Finally, the article considers how policy might delimit these generative possibilities.

Keywords:

• drama
• hope
• performance
• popular culture
• transformational learning

Notes

1. See http://www.bighart.org/public/?p=60.

2. See www.yijalayala.bighart.org.

3. See http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/cultural-diversity/cultural-expressions/international-fund/.