The potential of radical kindness as a methodology in applied theatre in arts and health

Katharine E. Low

Abstract


This article outlines an ongoing collaborative partnership between Positively UK and practitioner researchers and artists in the United Kingdom. In the article I issue a rallying call for the field of applied theatre to engage with radical kindness as a methodology. Drawing on practice-based collaborative partnerships which began in 2016, I consider the potential of taking a radically kind approach to the practice and offer examples of quiet advocacy in which the quotidian and the mundanity of everyday life can be appreciated as both ordinary and extraordinary. The practice theorised here is underpinned by an understanding of the space in which health is viewed and discussed as stigmatised and embodying a legacy of a particular gaze, especially relevant to the field of sexual and reproductive health. The applied theatre site, therefore, can function as a place of exploration where radically kind spaces are held for the co-participants to use.


Keywords


Women living well with HIV, applied theatre, radical kindness, apertures of possibility

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References


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