ABSTRACT
Theories of art in the West have tended to emphasize representation, or mimesis , at the expense of the dynamic communication that arises between performer and audience-what in Greek theater was called methexis (Bolt 2004). This has led in schools to students’ artwork being hung up in hallways to be admired, as in a gallery, or sent home to be taped to refrigerators. It has also contributed to the notion that performance is a fixed and final outcome rather than a continuous, transformative process of discovery and learning in its own right. But what if we were to turn these assumptions on their heads by introducing into classrooms a medium in which the images only come alive through the ongoing process of oral and gestural performance in front of a live audience? This defining characteristic of kamishibai (paper-theater), a now global dramatic picture-storytelling medium that originated in Japan, is the focus of this book.
