Theatre Practice

Object. The article is devoted to the analysis of the integration of performative practices into the system of professional training of choreographers in the context of the transformation of Ukrainian art education and its adaptation to international standards. The essence of performative art, its historical origins, and key characteristics that distinguish it from traditional choreography are clarified.Methods & methodology. The methodological framework is based on the analysis of scholarly sources in the theory of choreography and performative art, comparative analysis of educational practices, structural-functional analysis of methodological approaches, as well as content analysis of curricula. An interdisciplinary approach (choreography – theatre practices – cultural studies) is applied, along with the principles of practice-oriented learning and creative interdisciplinary interaction.Scientific novelty. For the first time, methodological tools for integrating performative practices into choreographers’ training have been systematized, and their potential for shaping complex artistic thinking has been identified. The complementarity of performative art and traditional choreography is substantiated, and key challenges that hinder their implementation in the educational process are highlighted.Results. Effective forms and methods of teaching are outlined: performance-based classes, workshops, creative laboratories, individual and group experimental tasks. Typical obstacles to integration are identified – insufficient teacher training, lack of clear assessment criteria, inertia of educational program content, and low student motivation for experimental activity. It is demonstrated that the application of performative approaches activates students’ creative potential, develops analytical thinking, and fosters the ability to work in an interdisciplinary environment.Conclusions. It is concluded that the integration of performative practices into the professional training of choreographers enhances the innovative potential of art education and contributes to the modernization of the educational environment. The results of the study have both theoretical and practical significance and can be used to update the content of educational programs, develop new methodological modules, and implement innovative forms of professional training for future choreographers.

In the early issues ofNew Theatre Quarterly, David Hornbrook initiated a debate on the role and techniques of drama-in-education to which several other notable practitioners subsequently contributed. Since then, the continuing need to defend the very existence of drama within a curriculum-oriented system has perhaps disinclined drama-in-education workers from a theoretical exploration of their methods and purposes. But the argument that the subject should be concerned with theatre practice has, suggest Stephen Lacey and Brian Woolland, overlooked the reality that drama-in-education, in important and fundamental ways, alreadyreflectsat its own level certain kinds of innovative theatre practice – and they illustrate their arguments from the work of Brecht, Boal, and Paulo Freire, comparing the models they offer with a drama-in-education project as realized by a class of twelve-year-olds in a typical comprehensive. The article concludes with the authors' own analysis of the approaches to character and to dramatic structure employed, and how these reflect a ‘radical theatre practice’ with which practitioners in present-day ‘mainstream’ theatre might profitably engage.

Experimental research conducted by Italian neuroscientists and actors showed that the practice of theater provides quantifiably beneficial effects on physical and mental mobility in pathological cases as well as in the aging process. Waiting for Godot will be used as an example of how the practice of theater can improve individual neurocognitive abilities.

How can theatre, such an embodied and interactive cultural production, be taught online? This essay re-envisions the teaching of theatre in the era of virtual instruction, suggesting ways for students to participate actively in the theatrical genre. The result is an engaged online class in which students can analyze dynamic and ephemeral performances and understand audience interaction. This study details three course projects that range from solo documentary theatre performance creation, to playwrighting practice, and finally, live-streaming and participating as audience members to a staged production. Through these examples, this study explores new horizons in online theatre instruction, showing how technology can facilitate the delivery of content traditionally seen as a very embodied, live genre-- theatre praxis. The pandemic moment assisted in fast-forwarding the theatre world into thinking about creative solutions to creating togetherness and experiences of the liveness of art through the virtual format.

This article is a development of a paper submitted to last year's ASTR conference at City University of New York as part of a panel discussion on the legacy of the 1960s. That paper was prepared to the conference brief that submissions should involve some reflexive investigation of research methods and scholarly practices. Reviewing existing material written on the causal links between Situationist theory and theatre practice in the 1960s counterculture in England, I began to question the “fit” between these two areas. A critical narrative concerning the development of a post-Brechtian theatrical style in the work of a generation of English political dramatists — such as Howard Brenton, Trevor Griffiths, and David Edgar — during the late 1960s and early 1970s has come to read Situationism as a dominant shaping force. On closer examination, however, this relationship is neither as clear nor as convincing as this now commonplace critical model would suggest. Additionally, neglected and underreported instances and examples — some of which are explored in this article — seem to tell contrasting, or more complex, stories about the forms and practices of English theatre in the counterculture. Investigation of some of these issues has led me to consider why it is that particular historical orthodoxies develop to account for movements and moments in cultural and performance history. What happens to make a small and, at the time, not widely published or read group of theorists such as the Situationists take on a retrospectively key position in scholarly accounts of cultural history? Thus, this article investigates the transmission of Situationist ideas in English theatre practice to conclude that there may be a broader, more idiosyncratic, history to read against dominant accounts of influence and causation.

This book explores the interrelation of contemporary French theatre and poetry. Using the pictorial turn in the various branches of art and science, its observable features, and the theoretical framework of the conceptual metaphor, this study seeks to gather together the divergent manners in which French poetry and theatre address this turn. Poetry in space and theatricality of poetry are studied alongside theatre, especially to the performative aspect of the originally theological concept of "kenosis". In doing so the author attempts to make use of the theological concept of kenosis, of central importance in Novarina’s oeuvre, for theatrical and dramatological purposes. Within poetic rituals, kenotic rituals are also examined in the book in a few theatrical practices – János Pilinszky and Robert Wilson, Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba – facilitating a better understanding of Novarina’s works. Accompanied by new English translations in the appendices, this is the first English language monograph related to the French essayist, dramaturg and director Valère Novarina’s theatre, and will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and literature studies.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explicate the ways in which the practice of the dramatic arts has evolved to facilitate second-order observation of social systems and can be used to “pragmatize” systems thinking for a wider audience.Design/methodology/approachSurvey of selected dramatic theory and practice from the nineteenth century to the present framed within the cyber-systemic theories of Niklas Luhmann, Werner Ulrich and Oswaldo Garcia de la Cerda and Maria Saavedra Ulloa.FindingsBeginning with Naturalism in the late nineteenth century, theatrical practitioners have increasingly revealed the structure of social systems through their work, largely without any explicit adoption or deployment of systems theory. Current methods of theatrical presentation are highly compatible with cyber-systemic heuristics and could be used to make this body of theory known to a wider public.Research limitations/implicationsWork involving the direct application of systems theory to theatrical practice is still in its very early stages.Practical implicationsDespite the lack of direct influence by systems theory, Western theatrical practice has evolved in such a way as to facilitate increased opportunities for second-order observation of, and subsequent intervention in, the structure of social systems. The deliberate cultivation and integration of systems theory could allow theatre to become a significant tool for the explication of systems theory to the general public in a highly practical manner.Social implicationsAs a communal and, in certain forms, interactive endeavour, a systems-oriented theatrical practice can provide an inclusive public space for the critique of social systems as they are currently structured and for the modelling of alternative structures.Originality/valueTheorizing selected moments of theatre history as the development of platforms for second-order observation is a unique analytical approach. The applications suggested in this paper may lead to novel approaches to the development of systems literacy across society.

The Reconstructed Dramaturg William Casey Caldwell (bio) and Amy Kenny (bio) The public interface between scholarship and theatre practice at theatres like Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and the American Shakespeare Center’s (ASC) Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia, has been the subject of intense debate. Early on, Dennis Kennedy’s take on the Globe as a “touristic” site set the now standard move of comparison with (or distancing from) Disneyland,1 and theatre critic Michael Billington has had a longstanding enmity for the Globe’s putative search for authenticity and the way it seems to authorize “distractions.”2 W. B. Worthen has celebrated and critiqued the Globe’s peculiar form of performativity in relation to history.3 There is also, of course, the inter-institutional argument over the status of scholarship in relation to theatre practice enacted between these theatres themselves in Paul Menzer’s Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage (2006) and Christie Carson and Farah Karim-Cooper’s Shakespeare’s Globe: A Theatrical Experiment (2008). These are just a few examples of the critical work generated by the contentious combination of historical research and entertainment these theatres mobilize. However, while the interface of these elements at the sites has generated much debate, the internal side of the relationship between scholarship and stagecraft embodied within these institutions in the practice of dramaturgy has been neglected. This neglect is due, in part, to dramaturgy’s still highly provisional status in both theatres, in addition to its placement “off stage” and away from direct public display and scrutiny. By presenting here a revisionary model of dramaturgy for these theatres, we are critiquing not only the current state of this practice nor simply the politics of institutional knowledge-generation; ultimately, we call for a dramaturgical space that needs to be instituted in these theatres for the first time—as a place of relay and counterpoise vitally different from, but in negotiation with, the other spaces and modes of creative process in these reconstructed early modern theatres. The other operative and established “departments” in these theatres need to extend or pass on financial and political authority within the institution to their dramaturgical teammates.4 Dramaturgy in general is, of course, an abstract practice to define, as it is still provisional in many countries, and in many different theatres within a single country. The dramaturg resides somewhere between academia and theatre and is expected to have intimate knowledge of both. As Mary Luckhurst points out in Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre (2006), the United States and especially England have been the slowest to adopt the German/Eastern European model of in-house dramaturg. Significant strides have been made in theatre labor relations in these two countries, in particular toward incorporating the role of the dramaturg as a fusion of academic and theatre practices. However, as Luckhurst observes, “the academy and the theatre industry may mix more than ever before, but their suspicion of each other is still strong” (40). The dramaturg is expected to bridge the often-sizeable gap between the academic and theatre worlds, and is often considered untrustworthy or incapable of properly engaging with either side. We wish to change this paradigm of resistance toward the dramaturg by observing and analyzing our experiences working as dramaturgs on both sides of the Atlantic.5 The authors of this essay have worked within the fusion that dramaturgy enacts at the Globe and Blackfriars, trained academics who have also worked as dramaturgs in the current models that each theatre deploys. We are the first, and so far the only ones, to participate in a reciprocal work [End Page 11] exchange between the two institutions, where we worked as dramaturgs for each other’s theatre amid the still-intense phases of development in dramaturgy at both. Now that we have worked with each other in each building, performing the standard function of dramaturg as it is defined in these theatres, in what follows, we push forward the conversation about research in so far as it is embodied in dramaturgy at these reconstructed sites. The debate enacted between Inside Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s Globe over scholars’ use of these buildings has settled some of the terminology...

Intercultural theatre of the late twentieth century, beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, advanced a performance philosophy of an active adoption and adaptation of Other performance traditions. In addition, the narratives of these traditions, often Eastern in origin, are extracted and revised to create an attempted ‘fusion’ with Western theatrical principles or modes that yield new postmodern hybrid products. As Julie Holledge and Joanne Tompkins observe, such interculturalisms on the stage ‘have been complicit with a postmodern licence to borrow theatrical techniques from different cultures within a Western defined global and theatre practice’ (2). Exemplified by Western directors such as Ariane Mnouchkine and Peter Brook, most notably among others such as Eugenio Barba and Robert Wilson, this borrowing and exchange of cultural forms, aesthetic styles, and performance techniques from the East, for the West, was motivated by a genuine attempt at a celebration and comprehension of cultural syncretism that in turn could harvest new performance possibilities based on ‘universals’ and effected by an amalgamation of form and principle. Such was the explanation provided by Richard Schechner in The Drama Review (1986), in which he first introduced the term ‘interculturalism’ as a positivistic and optimistic privileging of traditional performance styles and their integration with modern Western modes.

MLR, 100.2, 2005 581 Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches. Ed. by Joel Berkowitz. Oxford and Portland, OR: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. 2003. xiv+ 269 pp. ?39.50. ISBN 1-874774-81-1. Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches is a collection of articles aiming to be a compre? hensive study of the history of Yiddish theatre. It is a stimulating and encouraging book that I am happy to recommend to the specialist and the curious reader alike. As Joel Berkowitz states, the volume 'seeks not only to contribute to the telling of that story [of Yiddish theatre] froma variety of perspectives, but, in doing so, to make readers aware of some of the methodological possibilities that can be brought to bear on this scholarship' (p. 1). The book attempts to convey a coherent history of Yiddish theatre. Thus, it sees the inception of Yiddish institutionalized theatre in the period of Romanticism. According to Barbara Henry, the recognition ofYiddish theatre as a national theatre dates back to Schiller's correlation between the political ideas of nationhood and the artistic aims of a national poet or a national theatre. 'In this identification of national stage with nationhood itself he [Schiller] was echoed particularly by the nineteenth-century Yiddish intelligentsia who created modern Yiddish literature. For them theatre was the voice and validation of a fine national culture' (p. 58). The book employs Henry's position to describe and analyse the aesthetic and historical role of Yiddish theatre and guides the reader in that direction. The layout of the chapters reflects the content, which suggests the most compre? hensive approach to the subject, appealing to both specialists in Yiddish and theatre studies and the general public. Chronologically, it unfolds from the religious rituals and secular entertainment performed in the shtetl(Ahuva Belkin describes the tradi? tions of Yiddish popular culture, purimshpil in particular, as the point of departure for Jewish theatre (pp. 29-46)) to the theatre ofthe Jewish intelligentsia, which 'expected both to achieve an artistic standard equal to that of reputable non-Jewish theatres, and to contribute to the discussion about modern Jewish identity and the future of the nation' (Miroslawa Bulat, p. 155). The book portrays the geographical scope of Yiddish theatre, from the Slavic world to the United States. As a part of its new approaches, the book proposes to include in the history of Yiddish theatre not only the well-known names of playwrights, artists, and companies , but also forgotten figures and non-traditional theatrical genres. As an example of Yiddish theatre heritage, the book features musical soirees performed by Yiddish companies in Europe and America. In addition, itlooks at some ofthe evidence ofthe? atrical censorship in Europe and the history of Yiddish theatre criticism in America. However, the collection is not quite consistent in answering the major questions it poses. Is Yiddish theatre a national theatre? How can the theatrical practice ofa certain populace be defined as national? Although each article offersits own view, a consensus has yet to be reached since there is no concluding chapter conceptualizing the issue. One example ofthis lack ofoverall conceptualization is the inconsistency in presenting the relationships between Yiddish theatre and that of the dominant cultures. Some articles analyse the former in a sort of artistic isolation, as ifYiddish companies were never influenced by the dominant theatrical practices of their countries. As this collection demonstrates, the traditions and development of Yiddish theatre were differentfrom those of other national theatres, on account ofthe distinct socioeconomic situations of European and American Jewry.The book makes it clear that the initial step in defining Yiddish theatre is to recognize the language spoken by a populace as the official language of its stage. As Brigitte Dalinger suggests, the uniqueness of Yiddish theatre practice in Vienna, forinstance, is in the establishment of the Yiddish-speaking troupes performing in Yiddish during the 1920s and 1930s (pp. 115-16). As Yiddish, the language of a culture in transition, is full of borrowings 582 Reviews and neologisms, so the theatre should be seen as built on aesthetic borrowing and ex? change (Bertolone). The authors recognizing this dynamic as the fundamental feature of Yiddish theatre?Barbara Henry, Paola Bertolone, Seth...

Redefining Shakespeare: Literary Theory and Theater Practice in the German Democratic Republic. Edited by J. Lawrence Guntner and Andrew M. McLean. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998; pp. 294. $47.50.

Young People as Legislators is the result of a six-month Legislative Theatre project with Collective Encounters Youth Theatre, Youth Focus NW and Youth Parliament UK. The project formed part of a wider scheme of practice as research that explored youth theatre practice as political engagement for young people. Legislative Theatre practice was utilized to work alongside the Youth Parliament’s Make Your Mark scheme, an annual poll for young people to decide on campaigning issues. In this article, I consider three elements: tokenism in youth engagement, differing experiences between artistic process and product, and applied theatre’s inability to develop long-term effects. Employing the critical theories of Paulo Freire, the article regards the practice as a failed attempt to develop critical youth theatre practice. I argue that the Legislative Theatre project led to uncritical engagement and no political change due to partner organizations regarding the theatre practice as a service to satisfy their own targets and requirements.

It is interesting to speculate as to why, in the Soviet Union, there was no major revival of any Chekhov play between Konstantin Stanislavsky’s first productions (staged between 1898 and 1904) and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko’s production of Three Sisters (‘Tri sestry’ staged in 1940 — at a time when the Moscow Art Theatre was being officially promulgated as a model of ‘socialist—realist’ and ‘anti-formalist’ theatrical practice. Why was it that, during roughly the same period, several productions of Chekhov’s major plays were staged throughout Western Europe as well as in the United States of America? The answer would appear to lie in the historical significance of the Russian Revolution which, in philosophical terms, was founded on the notion of a non-tragic universe where human beings could intervene meaningfully in determining their own fate. In a Soviet world, the problems of three provincial sisters who, between them, possessed the price of a ticket, could well have been resolved by a trip to the nearest railway station. The predicament of Chekhov’s heroines could no longer be sustained within those existentialist terms which can now be seen, in retrospect, to have anticipated specific forms of European ‘absurdist’ drama where waiting for ‘Godot’ can be construed as a simple imaginative extension of waiting for ‘Moscow’.

ABSTRACTSteve Waters has suggested that climate change can be understood through the optic of classical tragedy. Building on Waters's interpretative frame, then, this article asserts that British society—a protagonist in the environmental drama—has authored its own downfall through destructive acts that were of our own making, though not necessarily our fault. Moreover, as we repeat, with the alacrity of the doomed, our fatal flaw—the catastrophe, it would seem—has become inevitable. Accepting and developing Waters's assertion, this article will consider notions of tragedy, folklore, nation and environment in relation to Jez Butterworth's 2009 play Jerusalem. The fall of great Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron in this piece signals a fall of heritage, of nation, of man. It is presumably, therefore, no accident that great Shakespearean Mark Rylance was cast as this play's bleak hero. Furthermore, if, as Adrian Poole has noted, tragedy stages ‘moments of crisis in a community's understanding of itself’, then Jerusalem stages the destabilization of space, place and history. The play replenishes traditional modes of theatre-making with urgency and integrity. In this way, it marks a countermove to the dominant (and vital) preoccupation within ‘political’ theatre practice in recent years with formal experiment. The article, then, not only considers what position this play occupies within the new topography of British theatre but also interrogates local tales, national politics and global disaster. In short, this article asks if Jerusalem stages the end of hope.

Introduction Fashion has long been associated with resistance movements across Asia and Australia, from the hand-spun cotton Khadi of Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom struggle to the traditional ankle length robe worn by Tibetans in the ‘White Wednesday Movement’ (Singh et al.; Yangzom). There are many reasons why fashion and activism have been interlinked. Fashion can serve as a form of nonverbal communication (Crane), which can convey activists’ grievances and concerns while symbolising solidarity (Doerr). It can provide an avenue to enact individual agency against repressive, authoritarian regimes (Yangzom; Doerr et al.). Fashion can codify a degree of uniformity within groups and thereby signal social identity (Craik), while also providing a means of building community (Barry and Drak). Fashion, therefore, offers activists the opportunity to develop the three characteristics which unite a social or environmental movement: a shared concern about an issue, a sense of social identity, and connections between individuals and groups. But while these fashion functions map onto movement characteristics, it remains unclear whether activists across the world deliberately include fashion into their protest action repertoires. This uncertainty exists partly because of a research and media focus on large scale, mass protests (Lester and Hutchins), where fashion characteristics are immediately visible and amenable to retrospective interpretation. This focus helps explain the rich volume of research examining the manifestation of fashion in past protests, such as the black, red, and yellow colours worn during the 1988 Aboriginal Long March of Freedom, Justice, and Hope (Maynard Dress; Coghlan), and the pink anti-Trump ‘pussyhats’ (Thompson). However, the protest events used to identify these fashion characteristics are a relatively small proportion of actions used by environmental activists (Dalton et al.; Gulliver et al.), which include not only rallies and marches, but also information evenings, letter writing sessions, and eco-activities such as tree plantings. This article aims to respond to Barnard’s (Looking) call for more empirical work on what contemporary cultural groups visually do with what they wear (see also Gerbaudo and Treré) via a content analysis of 36,676 events promoted on Facebook by 728 Australian environmental groups between 2010 and 2019. The article firstly reports findings from an analysis of this dataset to identify how fashion manifests in environmental activism, building on research demonstrating the role of protest-related nonverbal communications, such as protest signage (Bloomfield and Doolin), images (Kim), and icons, slogans, and logos (Goodnow). The article then considers what activists may seek to achieve through incorporating fashion into their action repertoire, and whether this suggests solidarity with activists seeking to effect environmental change across the wider Asian region. Fashion Activism Fashion is created through a particular assemblage of clothes, accessories, and hairstyles (Barry and Drak), which in turn forms a prevailing custom or style of dress (Craik). It is a cultural practice, providing ‘real estate’ (Benda 7) for an individual to express their social roles (Craik) and political identity (Behnke). Some scholars argue that fashion became overtly political during the 1960s and 70s, as social movements politicised appearance (Edwards). This has only increased in relevance with the rise of far right, populist, and authoritarian regimes, whose sub-cultures enact politicised identities through their distinct fashion characteristics (Gaugele and Titton; Gaugele). Fashion can therefore play an important role in protest movements, as “political subjectivities, political authority, political power and discipline are rendered visible, and thereby real, by the way fashion co-establishes them” (Behnke 3). Across the literature scholars have identified two primary avenues by which fashion and activism are connected. The first of these relates to activism targeting the fashion industry. This type of activism is found in both Asia and Australia, and promotes sustainable consumption choices such as buying used goods and transforming existing items (Chung and Yim), as well as highlighting garment worker exploitation within the fashion industry (Khan and Richards). The second avenue is called ‘fashion activism’: the use of fashion to intentionally signal a message seeking to evoke social and/or political change (Thompson). In this conceptualisation, clothing is used to signify a particular message (Crane). An example of this type of fashion activism is the ‘SlutWalk’, a protest where participants deliberately wore outfits described as slutty or revealing as a response to victim-blaming of women who had experienced sexual assault (Thompson). A key element of fashion activism thus appears to be its message intentionality. Clothes are specifically utilised to convey a message, such as a grievance about victim-blaming, which can then be incorporated into design features displayed on t-shirts, pins, and signs both on the runway and in protest events (Titton). However, while this ‘sender/receiver’ model of fashion communication (Barnard, Fashion as) can be compelling for activists, it is complex in practice. A message receiver can never have full knowledge of what message the sender seeks to signify through a particular clothing item, nor can the message sender predict how a receiver will interpret that message. Particular arrangements of clothing only hold communicative power when they are easily interpreted and related to the movement and its message, usually only intelligible to a specific culture or subculture (Goodnow). Even within that subculture it remains problematic to infer a message from a particular style of dress, as demonstrated in examples where dress is used to imply sexual consent; for example, in rape and assault cases (Lennon et al.). Given the challenges of interpreting fashion, do activists appear to use the ‘real estate’ (Benda 7) afforded by it as a protest tool? To investigate this question a pre-existing dataset of 36,676 events was analysed to ascertain if, and how, environmental activism engages with fashion (a detailed methodology is available on the OSF). Across this dataset, event categories, titles, and descriptions were reviewed to collate events connecting environmental activism to fashion. Three categories of events were found and are discussed in the next section: street theatre, sustainable fashion practices, and disruptive protest. Street Theatre Street theatre is a form of entertainment which uses public performance to raise awareness of injustices and build support for collective action (Houston and Pulido). It uses costumes as a vehicle for conveying messages about political issues and for making demands visible, and has been utilised by protesters across Australia and Asia (Roces). Many examples of street theatre were found in the dataset. For example, Extinction Rebellion (XR) consistently promoted street theatre events via sub-groups such as the ‘Red Rebels’ – a dedicated team of volunteers specialising in costumed street theatre – as well as by inviting supporters to participate in open street theatre events, such as in the ‘Halloween Dead Things Disco’. Dressed as spooky skeletons (doot, doot) and ghosts, we'll slide and shimmy down Sydney's streets in a supernatural style, as we bring attention to all the species claimed by the Sixth Mass Extinction. These street theatre events appeared to prioritise spectacle rather than disruption as a means to attract attention to their message. The Cairns and Far North Environment Centre ‘Climate Action Float’, for example, requested that attendees: Wear blue and gold or dress as your favourite reef animal, solar panel, maybe even the sun itself!? Reef & Solar // Blue & Gold is the guiding theme but we want your creativity take it from there. Most groups used street theatre as one of a range of different actions organised across a period of time. However, Climacts, a performance collective which uses ‘spectacle and satire to communicate the urgency of the climate and biodiversity crisis’ (Climacts), utilised this tactic exclusively. Their Climate Guardians collective used distinctive angel costumes to perform at the Climate Conference of Parties 26, and in various places around Australia (see images on their Website). Fig. 1: Costumed protest against Downer EDI's proposed work on the Adani coalmine; Image by John Englart (CC BY-SA 2.0). Sustainable Fashion Practices The second most common type of event which connected fashion with activism were those promoting sustainable fashion practices. While much research has highlighted the role of activism in raising awareness of problems related to the fashion industry (e.g. Hirscher), groups in the dataset were primarily focussed on organising activities where supporters communally created their own fashion items. The most common of these was the ‘crafternoon’, with over 260 separate crafternoon events identified in the dataset. These events brought activists together to create protest-related kit such as banners, signs, and costumes from recycled or repurposed materials, as demonstrated by Hume Climate Action Now’s ‘Crafternoon for Climate’ event: Come along on Sunday arvo for a relaxed arvo making posters and banners for upcoming Hume Climate Action Now events… Bring: Paints, textas, cardboard, fabric – whatever you’ve got lying around. Don’t have anything? That’s cool, just bring yourself. Events highlighting fashion industry problems were less frequent and tended to prioritise sharing of information about the fashion industry rather than promoting protests. For example, Transition Town Vincent held a ‘Slowing Down Fast Fashion – Transition Town Vincent Movie Night’ while the Green Embassy promoted the ‘Eco Fashion Week’. This event, held in 2017, was described as Australia’s only eco-fashion week, and included runway shows, music, and public talks. Other events also focussed on public talks, such as a Conservation Council of ACT event called ‘Green Drinks Canberra October 2017: Summer Edwards on the fashion industry’ and a panel discussion organised by a group called SEE-Change entitled ‘The Sustainable Wardrobe’. Disruptive Protest and T-Shirts Few events in the dataset mentioned elements of fashion outside of street theatre or sustainable fashion practices, with only one organisation explicitly connecting fashion with activism in its event details. This group – Australian Youth Climate Coalition – organised an event called ‘Activism in Fashion: Tote Bags, T-shirts and Poster Painting!’, which asked: How can we consistently be involved in campaigning while life can be so busy? Can we still be loud and get a message across without saying a word? The iconic 21st century activist "t-shirt and tote-bag" combination is hard to miss these days! Unlike street theatre and sustainable fashion practices, fashion appeared to be a consideration for only a small number of disruptive protests promoted by environmental groups in Australia. XR Brisbane sought to organise a fashion parade during the 2019 Rebellion Week, while XR protesters in Melbourne stripped down to underwear for a march through Melbourne city arcades (see also Turbet). Few common fashion elements appeared consistently on individual activists participating in events, and these were limited to accessories, such as ‘Stop Adani’ earrings, or t-shirts sold for fundraising and promotional purposes. Indeed, t-shirts appeared to be the most promoted clothing item in the dataset, continuing a long tradition of their use in protests (e.g. Maynard, Blankets). Easy to create, suitable for displaying both text and imagery, t-shirts sharing anti-coal messages featured predominantly in the Stop Adani campaign, while yellow t-shirts were a common item in Knitting Nanna’s anti-coal seam gas mining protests. Fig. 2: Stop Adani earrings and t-shirts; Image by John Englart (CC BY-SA 2.0). The Role of Fashion in Environmental Activism As these findings demonstrate, fashion appears to be deliberately utilised in environmental activism primarily through street theatre and the promotion of sustainable fashion practices. While fewer examples of fashion in disruptive protest were found and no consistent fashion assemblage was identified, accessories and t-shirts were utilised by many groups. What may activists be seeking to achieve through incorporating fashion via street theatre and sustainable fashion practices? Some scholars have argued that incorporating fashion into protest allows activists to signal political dissent against authoritarian control. For example, Yanzoom noted that by utilising fashion as a means of communication, Tibetan activists were able to embody their political goals despite repression of speech and movement by political powerholders. However, a consistent fashion repertoire across protests in this Australian dataset was not found. The opportunities afforded by protected protest rights in Australia and absence of violent police repression of disruptive protests may be one explanation why distinctive dress such as the masks and black attire of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters did not manifest in the dataset. Other scholars have observed that fashion sub-cultures also developed partly to express anti-establishment politics, such as the punk movement in the 1970s. Radical clothing accessorised by symbols, bright hair colours, body piercings, and heavy-duty books signalled opposition to the dominant political ideology (Craik). However, none of these purposes appeared to play a role in Australian environmental activism either. Instead, it appears that Maynard’s contention that Australian protest fashion barely deviates from everyday dress remains true today. Fashion within the events promoted in this large empirical dataset retained the ‘prevalence of everyday clothing’ (Maynard, Dress 111). The lack of a clearly discernible single protest fashion style within the dataset may be related to the shortcomings of the sender/receiver model of fashion communication. As Barnard (Fashion Statements) argued, fashion is not always used as a vehicle for conveying messages, but also as a platform for constructing and reproducing identity. Indeed, a multiplicity of researchers have noted how fashion acts as a signal of what social groups individuals belong to (see Roach-Higgins and Eicher). Activist groups have a variety of goals, which not only include promoting environmental change but also mobilising more people to join their cause (Gulliver et al., Understanding). Stereotyping can hinder achievement of these goals. It has been demonstrated, for example, that individuals who hold negative stereotypes of ‘typical’ activists are less likely to want to associate with them, and less likely to adopt their behaviours (Bashir et al.). Accordingly, some activist groups have been shown to actively promote dress associated with other identity groups, specifically to challenge cultural constructions of environmental activist stereotypes (see also Roces). For example, Bloomfield and Doolins’s study of the NZ anti-GE group MAdGE (Mothers against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment) demonstrated how visual protest artifacts conveyed the protesters’ social identity as mothers and customers rather than environmental activists, claiming an alternative cultural mandate for challenging the authority of science (see also Einwohner et al.). The data suggest that Australian activists are seeking to avoid this stereotype as well. The absence of a consistent fashion promoted within the dataset may reflect awareness of problematic stereotypes that activists may be then deliberately seeking to avoid. Maynard (Dress), for example, has noted how the everyday dress of Australian protesters serves to deflect stereotypical labelling of participants. This strategy is also mirrored by the changing nature of groups within the Australian environmental movement. The event database demonstrates that an increasing number of environmental groups are emerging with names highlighting non-stereotypical environmental identities: groups such as ‘Engineers Declare’ and ‘Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action’. Beyond these identity processes, the frequent use of costumed street theatre protest suggests that activists recognise the value of using fashion as a vehicle for communicating messages, despite the challenges of interpretation described above. Much of the language used to promote street theatre in the Facebook event listings suggests that these costumes were deliberately designed to signify a particular meaning, with individuals encouraged to dress up to be ‘a vehicle for myth and symbol’ (Lavender 11). It may be that costumes are also utilised in protest due to their suitability as an image event, convenient for dissemination by mass media seeking colourful and engaging imagery (Delicath and Deluca; Doerr). Furthermore, costumes, as with text or colours presented on t-shirts, may offer activists an avenue to clearly convey a visual message which is more resistant to stereotyping. This is especially relevant given that fashion can be re-interpreted and misinterpreted by audiences, as well as reframed and reinterpreted by the media (Maynard, Dress). While the prevalence of costumed performance and infrequent mentions of fashion in the dataset may be explained by stereotype avoidance and messaging clarity, sustainable fashion practices were more straightforward in intent. Groups used multiple approaches to educate audiences about sustainable fashion, whether through fostering sustainable fashion practices or raising awareness of fashion industry problems. In this regard, fashion in protest in Australia closely resembles Asian sustainable fashion activism (see e.g. Chon et al. regarding the Singaporean context). In particular, the large number of ‘crafternoons’ suggests their importance as sites of activism and community building. Craftivism – acts such as quilting banners, yarn bombing, and cross stitching feminist slogans – are used by many groups to draw attention to social, political and environmental issues (McGovern and Barnes). This type of ‘creative activism’ (Filippello) has been used to challenge aesthetic and political norms across a variety of contested socio-political landscapes. These activities not only develop activism skills, but also foster community (Barry and Drak). For environmental groups, these community building events can play a critical role in sustaining and supporting ongoing environmental activism (Gulliver et al., Understanding) as well as demonstrating solidarity with workers across Asia experiencing labour injustices linked to the fashion industry (Chung and Yim). Conclusion Studies examining protest fashion demonstrate that clothing provides a canvas for sharing protest messages and identities in both Asia and Australia (Benda; Yangzom; Craik). However, despite the fashion’s utility as communication tool for social and environmental movements, empirical studies of how fashion is used by activists in these contexts remain rare. This analysis demonstrates that Australian environmental activists use fashion in their action repertoire primarily through costumed street theatre performances and promoting sustainable fashion practices. By doing so they may be seeking to use fashion as a means of conveying messages, while avoiding stereotypes that can demobilise supporters and reduce support for their cause. Furthermore, sustainable fashion activism offers opportunities for activists to achieve multiple goals: to subvert the fast fashion industry, to provide participation avenues for new activists, to help build activist communities, and to express solidarity with those experiencing fast fashion-related labour injustices. These findings suggest that the use of fashion in protest actions can move beyond identity messaging to also enact sustainable practices while co-opting and resisting hegemonic ideas of consumerism. By integrating fashion into the vibrant and diverse actions promoted by environmental movements across Australia and Asia, activists can construct and perform identities while fostering the community bonds and networks from which movements demanding environmental change derive their strength. Ethics Approval Statement This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Queensland (2018000963). Data Availability A detailed methodology explaining how the dataset was constructed and analysed is available on the Open Science Framework: <https://osf.io/sq5dz/?view_only=9bc0d3945caa443084361f10b6720589>.