ABSTRACT
Our actual abstract should be as follows:
Book Title – Routledge Companion to Drama in Education (ed. Mary McAvoy and Peter O’Connor)
Chapter Authors – Robyn Ayles, Heather Fitzsimmons Frey, Margaret Mykietyshyn Chapter Number & Title – Chapter 27, Harnessing the Power of Flight: Devising Responsive Theatre for the Very Young
How could a rights-based curriculum, featuring play-based goals and relationship-focused learning through co-inquiry, shape a theatre creation process? The Urban Wildlife Project is a devised theatre initiative for early years audiences (children aged 2 – 4), based at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Reflecting on audience engagement, the creative research team aimed to answer that question by applying the holistic, play-based goals articulated in Flight: Alberta’s Early Learning and Care Framework to interpret children’s experiences. The team used the framework’s reflective Cycle of Co-Inquiry (especially processes of Talking the Documentation and Curriculum Cross-checking) to structure devising and dramaturgy. The framework provides a child-centred methodology for working through a devising cycle (such as the RSVP cycle’s Valuaction stage). The chapter demonstrates how Flight provides language to discuss and extend children’s meaning-making, puts focus on creating meaningful relationships through theatrical experiences, and emphasizes the significance of play and playful, co-created experiences, with the early years demographic.
