Cirrus@Austlit

'Back to Back Theatre is an internationally lauded ensemble of collaborators based in Geelong. With some members identifying as intellectually disabled and/or neurodiverse, the company has spent more than two decades producing performance works that address the politics of visibility and power.'

'The relationship between witchcraft and teenage girls has been the subject of many books, films and television shows.' (Introduction)

'Bloom, the new Australian musical produced by the Melbourne Theatre Company, is proudly billed by the company as born and bred right here in Melbourne/Naarm.' (Introduction)

'The term 'cultural safety' has been a part of discourse and pedagogy in health and healthcare for close to thirty years, and in the last five years there is evidence of the term's being used in a range of paradigms, including allied health, education and design, engineering and workplace relations. In each of these contexts, cultural safety is understood as an empowering and transformative process for interrogating the architecture of systems that have been structured by white supremacist, cis-hetero, patriarchal and ableist paradigms. The work and practice of cultural safety requires those within the systems to scrutinise how they are complicit in upholding power structures and causing harm to those excluded or oppressed. Cultural safety is therefore, in part, a strategy to dismantle existing structures and support the provision of environments that are spiritually, socially and emotionally, as well as physically, safe for people, 'where there is no assault or challenge or denial of their identity, of who they are or what they need'.' (Publication abstract)

'This article responds to the recent and rapid rise in the practice, within contemporary theatre-making, of creating new performance work for adult audiences featuring children as performers and collaborators. Within this work there is a tension between the desire for a representation of the authentic voice and lived experience of the child performer and the poetic function of the performance. This question of the place of authenticity in work dogs much performance work created by professional artists with children for adult audiences and can shape the way artists approach the rehearsal process with child performers. I examine the creative and aesthetic strategies of creating work with child performers, and consider the pedagogical frames of actor practice that underpin this process, asking what an ethical dramaturgy for contemporary performance with children for adult audiences might look like.'  (Publication abstract)

'During her seventeen years as Artistic Director and CEO of Polyglot Theatre, Sue Giles has led significant shifts in Polyglot’s creative practice. As Vice-President of ASSITEJ, she has been a remarkable advocate for young audiences. Giles’ Platform Paper A Review of Young People and the Arts: An Agenda for Change clearly articulates recent developments in theatre-making by and for young people and children. Her survey encompasses the broad range of practices within this field, including youth arts, theatre for young audiences, and work made by professional contemporary artists with children and young people for adult audiences.'  (Introduction)