Indigenizing Forum Theatre through a strength-based approach

Strength-based approaches with Indigenous populations are recognized as empowering and promoting change, but there are minimal published explicit examples in Indigenous health in Canada. Working with three First Nations community partners in Alberta and the Northwest Territories, we explored an Indigenous strength-based application of Forum Theatre as a tool for mental wellness. Forum Theatre is differentiated by the interactive participation of the audience, who can change the play outcome. Collectively, community members were trained as community facilitators and used an Indigenous strength-based approach to indigenize Forum Theatre activities. We share strengths highlighted in our approach including inclusivity, relationality, language revitalization, intergenerational connectivity, team facilitation, partnerships, protocols, safety, empowerment, resilience, community connection, community-specific strengths, and relational responsibilities. An Indigenous strength-based approach must include the Indigenous group leading the project and has multiple benefits to the participants, facilitators, and community at-large, particularly when intertwined with relational, communal, and cultural assets unique to the Indigenous group employing the approach.

Utilizing Applied Drama in Clinical Ethics Education

"We examine the significance and necessity of introducing applied drama into clinical ethics education to build ethics competency. Case-based clinical ethics, distant from abstract theory-based discursive ethics, pays close attention to emotions of persons involved in a given case, and of participants in deliberation. Some authors have sensibly emphasized this point. For example, CURA, a reflective method puts forward the crucial step to become aware of own emotions and physical reactions to each difficult situation. These suggest that we should not stay just in rational reasoning to resolve moral problems in clinical settings. Such a stream seems to lead us to the next stage of clinical ethics education. Applied drama is an umbrella term for the various ways to use theatrical elements, outside of theaters, in educational settings. The basic conception is playing. It includes two meanings: gaming and acting. Generally, we stop playing when we grow up. Applied drama encourages us to play again. Playing promotes communications in verbal and physical. In acting like an acting person, we are to put ourselves in another person’s standpoint. Through acting a role, we may live her life and feel vividly his emotion but by imagination. Thus, applied drama has great potentiality to change the mode of discussion – or deliberation-based clinical ethics. As applied drama comprises various ways such as improvisation, forum theatre, and so on. We will explore their features and application in actual teaching settings. "