Abstract

Performance can foster social imagination, help us understand the connection between historical processes and personal experiences, and to see how social structures and forces shape our lives and identities. The use of performance can help both educators and learners to expose the pedagogies of oppression—how education can reproduce or reinforce the existing power relations and ideologies in society. Performance when deployed as a critical pedagogy can enhance the agency of both educators and learners, encouraging them to question and challenge the status quo, and provoke individual and social transformation. Performance as pedagogy can contribute to an awareness of one’s own values, beliefs, and actions, and how they affect oneself and others, as well as promote a culture of dialogue, respect and inclusion in the classroom or school.