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The Journey Matters: Agency Through Artistry

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Theatre, Performance and Change
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Abstract

During “On Cultural Power: The August Wilson/Robert Brustein Discussion,” artistic director/critic Brustein stated, “Art does not change social consciousness.” Playwright Wilson responded with “Art changes individuals, and individuals change society.” Wilson’s response implies that art experiences promote individual reflexivity, a tool for self-transformation. Inspired particularly by the writings of Peter Elbow, Vivian Gussin Paley and Maxine Greene through her notion of ‘wideawakeness’; in this essay, I examine how nurturing young people’s capacity to think and act as artists, through the reiterative processes of create and reflect, promotes selfefficacy, which cultivates young artists agency over their own purposes.

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Correspondence to Daniel A. Kelin II .

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Kelin, D.A. (2018). The Journey Matters: Agency Through Artistry. In: Etheridge Woodson, S., Underiner, T. (eds) Theatre, Performance and Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65828-5_18

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