Joburg Theatre & Drama For Life APAAM Graduation
After 3 years of study, four theatre groups from disadvantaged communities come together as theatre makers to contribute to the social transformation of South Africa.
This is the first group to graduate from Joburg Theatre’s 3-year Applied Performing Arts and Arts Management (APAAM) programme. Bearing witness to this remarkable achievement, peers and families were invited to join in celebrating the difference that this project and its participants are making to the social transformation project in our country through the arts. This flagship collaboration between Joburg Theatre’s Youth Development Programme and Drama for Life, University of the Witwatersrand, was developed from mutual vested interest in youth, arts and development.
Community theatre groups are invited to submit collective profiles for their theatre groups for the new intake of 2017 – 2019.
Working with 4 youth led community-based organisations, vulnerable to shifts in paradigms and landscapes of arts and development, the project established to build capacity in local youth, supports the enhancement and sustainability of community-based performing arts organisations. The training programme focuses on the business, creative, performance and technical aspects of the organisation’s work to develop the level of professionalism at which these youth led performing arts organisations operate within community settings. Essential for pedagogy based in community and context-specific traditions and cultures for the advancement and sustainability of community-led development, is an appreciation and use of indigenous knowledge and participatory practices.
Located within the discipline of applied drama and theatre, the theoretical underpinnings of the training programme are framed by key principles guiding methods of facilitation, group-based practice, and embodied processes. The Applied Performing Arts and Arts Management training programme employs a developmental approach to its pedagogy and practice that is relevant to local realities, responsive to social contexts, and considerate of organisation capacities and limitations. The integration of community practice informed by cultures and traditions, both locally and beyond, complements the training’s interdisciplinary approach, based on inclusivity and an appreciation of diversity.
Fundamentally, this programme advocates the institution of a rights-based discourse dominated by ideologies supporting a non-discriminatory and inclusive approach to the advancement of youth, art and development in the national transformation project.
To inspire and motivate, in participating organisations, an understanding of the value and agency that they hold to effect change, the Applied Performing Arts and Arts Management training programme creates spaces for participants to share and enhance their knowledge of, and experience in, performing arts disciplines, development approaches, and project management practices within the current local context.
