Applied Theatre and the Permacrisis: Ethics, Politics, Pedagogy and Aesthetics

Responding to the global state of permacrisis, this book explores the relationship between applied theatre and disaster. It will be important to researchers and postgraduate students in applied theatre and disaster research in the social sciences, and applied arts practitioners who work in disaster zones and with relief organisations.

Peter O’Connor FRSNZ is the Director of the Centre for Arts and Social Transformation at Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Peter has been making and researching applied theatre for over thirty years. He has worked in multiple disaster areas including earthquakes in Mexico City and Christchurch, the fires on Maui and in Australia and in flood areas in New Zealand.

Katy Pérez works at the University of Auckland’s Centre for the Arts and Social Transformation. She has worked using applied theatre in national and international disaster zones, youth justice centres, teen-pregnancy units, anger management courses, and spent 8 years delivering family violence prevention workshops in schools across Aotearoa New Zealand. Katy currently specialises in both research and facilitation of arts post-disaster practice and believes the arts are a perfect way to restore hope and inspire revolution.