ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore the journey of hut making which became the focal activity for a group of children participating in weekly dramatherapy sessions at their school in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The sessions were held in a space that had a multitude of uses, was not private and where the group was often interrupted by staff. This questionable therapeutic space was also contained within the uncertain and challenging backdrop of the worldwide Covid pandemic, with a four-week lockdown that interrupted our time together. This chapter presents as a case study with vignettes from sessions that tell the story of the work that unfolded. The discussion that follows seeks to untangle the pertinent threads, including the therapeutic benefits for the children who manipulated, and shape shifted the dramatherapy space we were inhabiting through hut making. This chapter will incorporate Māori terms within the text as an acknowledgement that the author is a dramatherapist working in Aotearoa and some of the children in the group identified as Māori and are tangata whenua of this land.
