Résumés
Abstract
This article reflects on the way that young people with LGBTQ2S+ parents engaged in the writing of an original song as a form of gender and sexual diversity education during an applied theatre research project. The creative work was self-revelatory, deeply personal, and created a powerful space for both self-exploration and youth-led advocacy. Participants believed that queer is to be celebrated, embraced, and owned. Not as a marginal identity that needs to be questioned and explained, but as an embodied site of emergence and becoming. The song that was written during this workshop celebrates unique family formations while also suggesting that everyone is different in their own way. In doing so, songwriting as affective practice engaged participants in a subversive and empowering reordering of their world. The emergence of new possibilities materialized by centring the stories of, by, and for youth participants as we navigated the tensions between authorship, aesthetics, and pedagogy.
Keywords:
- applied theatre,
- songwriting,
- anti-oppression education,
- affect,
- LGBTQ+,
- gender sexual diversity
Résumé
Dans cet article, Pamela Baer examine comment des jeunes ayant des parents LGBTQ2S+ se sont engagés dans l’écriture d’une chanson inédite lors d’une formation à la diversité des genres et des sexes offerte dans le cadre d’un projet de recherche en théâtre appliqué. Le processus s’est avéré révélateur et très personnel et a permis de créer un espace puissant pour l’exploration de soi et l’élaboration d’un effort de sensibilisation mené par les jeunes. Les participants à la formation étaient d’avis qu’il faut célébrer, accepter et assumer l’identité queer. Qu’il ne s’agit pas d’une identité marginale que l’on doit remettre en question et expliquer, mais plutôt d’un lieu incarné d’où l’on peut émerger et devenir. La chanson composée dans le cadre de l’atelier célèbre les situations familiales uniques tout en laissant entendre que chaque personne est différente à sa manière. Ainsi, l’écriture de chansons comme pratique affective a amené les participants à réorganiser leur monde de manière subversive et autonomisante. L’émergence de possibilités nouvelles s’est matérialisée en plaçant au coeur du processus les histoires des jeunes participants qu’ils avaient eux-mêmes écrites et qui étaient destinés à leurs semblables, et ce, tout en naviguant les tensions liées à la paternité de l’oeuvre, l’esthétique et la pédagogie.
Mots-clés :
- théâtre appliqué,
- composition de chansons,
- éducation anti-oppression,
- affect,
- LGBTQ+,
- genre,
- diversité sexuelle
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Parties annexes
Biographical note
Pamela Baer, Ph.D. is a theatre and media artist with a focus on community engaged work. Drawn to storytelling as a way of connecting people and building community, their work revolves around personal narratives, oral histories, and life stories. Pamela has a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Toronto and is currently an instructor of education and applied theatre at the University of Toronto and Brock University.
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