For 90 minutes a week Alex Sutherland spends time playing, learning and singing songs in interactive drama workshops with groups of six to eight incarcerated men. She does this in the medium security local prison and the maximum-secure unit at Fort England Psychiatric Hospital.
"For me, this work is about every person's human right to be creative and imagine a different world," says Sutherland, a senior drama lecturer at Rhodes University who received the Vice-Chancellor's Distinguished Community Engagement Award on Monday.
Sutherland has been involved in teaching applied theatre as well as various long- and short-term developmental drama projects aiming to deconstruct the ways in which incarcerated people see themselves and their roles in society. Applied theatre encompasses disciplines like theatre for change, community theatre and educational theatre.
She emphasises the fact that community engagement should be participatory and mutually beneficial. "I think my job is to frame community engagement so that it is not seen as a patronising, charitable act," Sutherland says.
As part of the university's third-year, Honours and Masters applied theatre courses, students are required to engage with or establish programmes in the community that can both help facilitate positive change and enhance their practical learning experience. "I encourage my students to approach community engagement from the perspective of two curious people meeting in the middle, both interested in making theatre," she says.
"It's really about finding the human in the interaction between people from completely different socio-political backgrounds." This past week has been Community Engagement week at Rhodes, with staff and students reflecting on the progress and impact of various projects involving the university and the wider community.
Community engagement is an institutionally-implemented requirement for all departments at Rhodes with a vision "to stimulate activities characterised by a spirit of reciprocity and vibrant interaction between institutions and communities, leading to their mutual enrichment".
Caption: LISTENING INTENTLY... One of Alex Sutherland's Honours applied theatre students, Heather Van Niekerk (far right), engages in a workshop with people from local NGO Gadra. Sutherland received the Vice-Chancellor's Distinguished Community Engagement Award on Monday for her ongoing applied theatre work.
By: Hancu Louw
Photo: Mia Van Der Merwe
Source: GROCOTT`S MAIL