Citizen Artists and Human Becomings

This article is an investigation into the claims made for the transformative power of theater in the educational process. Grounded in Freirean notions of learner-centerd pedagogy, it sees theater as an ideal process through which to rehearse encounters between the lived experience of learners and their negotiations with the wider world. As such, it has the potential to be a key contributor to any educational aim related to an ambition to develop active citizens among young people. However, the vested interests of neoliberalism have caused this potential to be neglected or marginalized throughout the formal educational contexts of the Western world. A utilitarian model of education as training for a job market finds no use or value in the development of capacities for empathy and criticality that are at the core of these theatrical processes. The article attempts to clarify the aesthetic dimensions that are important in the achievement of transformational goals for students. The type of theater experience envisaged is, therefore, an encounter between reality as experienced by participants and their capacity to imagine alternatives, before taking collective action to achieve them in their personal and social lives.