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Chapter 1: HIV/AIDS and the Challenge for Socially Engaged Theatre-Making

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Applied Theatre and Sexual Health Communication

Part of the book series: Contemporary Performance InterActions ((CPI))

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Abstract

This chapter contextualises sexual health communication specifically within the context of HIV in Southern Africa. It addresses my motivation for theatre-making within the field of sexual health communication as a way to respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to do something that was effective and meaningful. It notes the understandable desire within the fields of sexual health education and socially engaged theatre-making to evidence impact, a process which has historically proven to be challenging. The chapter considers how theatre has been used to address social concerns through different approaches including Theatre for Development and Theatre in Health Education. It contextualises how the OPOS project was established as a research project. It then addresses a key question in applied theatre around impact and value; the analysis of which informs the thinking in this book.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    KAPB studies usually examine targeted social groups’ social behaviour in relation to specific issues, most often a health concern.

  2. 2.

    Kate Wilkinson from Africa Check (2014) notes that it is impossible to do so as the existing data is unreliable and rapes are defined and recorded differently worldwide.

  3. 3.

    For more information on South Africa’s relationship to rape, see Pumla Dineo Gqola’s Rape: A South African Nightmare (2017).

  4. 4.

    In 1992, the CDC became the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  5. 5.

    Data from 2008 suggests that 33 million people were living with HIV in 2007 and 35 million in 2013 (UNAIDS 2008: 32, 2014: 18).

  6. 6.

    For more information, consult Connell (1993), Silberschmidt (2001), and Hunter (2005).

  7. 7.

    For further examples of this, please see Rachel Jewkes et al.’s study of the impact of Stepping Stones, a participatory, drama-based HIV prevention programme in South Africa. Assessing the impact of the programme at 12 months and 24 months, Jewkes and her colleagues found that although there was a decrease in herpes infection, there was no decline in HIV infection rates or any ‘evidence of desired behaviour change in women’ (2008: 8).

  8. 8.

    This failure of national-level communication in South Africa is discussed in more detail in “Chapter 2: The Context for Our Place, Our Stage” .

  9. 9.

    Although networks play an important role in sexual and reproductive health, especially in epidemiology studies, further guidance on how to employ networks for public health is required. As Thomas Valente noted in 2007, ‘community organisers are interested in identifying and building community assets, but they currently lack the capability to map these resources and know which network indicators might help strengthen social capital’ (2007: 159). Low-Beer and Stoneburner add to this view by explaining that ‘[i]nterventions and resources delivered vertically need to build on and mobilise this horizontal response among local populations and social networks’ (2004a: 2).

  10. 10.

    Joe Winston also draws attention to this concern in his discussion of a THE healthy-eating play, where he emphasises the importance of artistry as it allows for ‘fun’ and ‘playfulness’ which helps the learning (2009: 96–9).

  11. 11.

    Irobi acknowledges that the term ‘Theatre of Necessity’ comes from the Cameroonian theatre practitioner Werewere Liking.

  12. 12.

    I observed both Cindy Makaza-Siboto Choices workshop and Majesty Mnyandu’s outreach performances to strip clubs in 2014 as part of Drama for Life’s 2014 Sex Actually Festival which is ‘an annual national arts festival that provides a platform for cutting-edge visual and performing arts about sex, sexualities and sexual health’ (Drama for Life 2018).

  13. 13.

    For more details, see Marcia Blumberg (1997, 2001).

  14. 14.

    Of the ‘transformative’ papers, six drew from social theatre practice, three from multi-arts, three from visual arts, and two from dance. Likewise, six of the ‘transformative’ workshops were based on social theatre , four in multi-arts practice, and two each in music and movement (University of Northampton 2009).

  15. 15.

    The Freedom Charter was agreed by the Congress of the People in Kilptown in June 1955 following secret consultations with thousands of South Africans across the nation. It is the founding document on which the new South African constitution has been developed and holds as its principle ‘the people shall govern’.

  16. 16.

    Between 2012 and 2016, I co-convened the TaPRA Applied and Social Theatre Working Group with Alison Jeffers, Dave Calvert and Sylvan Baker. During this period, we convened working group conferences themed around ideas of slowing down, heroism and heroic action in applied theatre, impact and value, practice as research, and reciprocity.

  17. 17.

    This discussion related to the ‘desperation’ that some Applied Theatre MA students feel in terms of ensuring that their work really makes an impact and formed part of an HEA research project into teaching of socially engaged practice at MA level (Low and Mayo 2013b).

  18. 18.

    Although, as Matthew Reason also notes later on in the book: ‘[w]hat evidence counts, to whom, and when, are all questions loaded with political and contextual circumstance’ (2017: 29).

  19. 19.

    REF , also known as the Research Excellent Framework, is the British government’s system for evaluating the quality of research in universities and higher education institutions across the UK (HEFCE 2018).

  20. 20.

    Yet this is a comparison which Jelinek might disown as she distinguishes between an artist and socially engaged artist, arguing that both sets of artists hold different knowledges, methodologies, assumptions, and languages, and explaining that ‘[a]rt is not activism nor is it education’ (2013: 142–144). However, I disagree with Jelinek’s definition in that I think artists define themselves differently. I am also conscious of other research on the difference between socially engaged arts practice and art. In 2014, Sue Mayo and I conducted a survey on this topic and found most people working across both fields (art and socially engaged art) didn’t see a difference, most saw both strands of their work as being ‘entwined’ (Mayo and Low 2014). Indeed, for me socially engaged art making is just that, art making. So I am taking Jelinek’s arguments about artists as being applicable to applied theatre artists.

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  1. Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London, UK

    Katharine E. Low

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Low, K.E. (2020). Chapter 1: HIV/AIDS and the Challenge for Socially Engaged Theatre-Making. In: Applied Theatre and Sexual Health Communication. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95975-4_2

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