Give Me Your Hands: Therapeutic Experiences of Collective Theatre Creation in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

Authors

  • Christopher Cook University of British Columbia
  • William Borgen University of British Columbia

Abstract

In January 2016, a group of community members undertook a theatre project at the University of British Columbia’s Learning Exchange in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. For 22 months, group members wrote, rehearsed, and performed a collectively created script entitled Voices UP!. This research article casts four of the community members who took part in Voices UP! as co-inquirers, exploring their experiences of collective playmaking in terms of benefit to mental well-being. The article presents the study’s results in the form of a theatrical script, followed by a discussion that focuses on research outcomes relevant to therapists exploring creative art practices, including social connection through collaborative artmaking, puppetry as a unique theatrical tool for building therapeutic relationships and embodied expression, collective theatre creation and witnessing, and the unique challenges when terminating arts-based projects.

Author Biographies

Christopher Cook, University of British Columbia

Christopher Cook is a registered clinical counsellor, a theatre artist, and a Ph.D. candidate in counselling psychology at the University of British Columbia.

William Borgen, University of British Columbia

William Borgen is a professor of counselling psychology at the University of British Columbia. His main research interests are career counselling, career/life transitions, developmental approaches to counselling, and group counselling.

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Published

2020-08-27

How to Cite

Cook, C., & Borgen, W. (2020). Give Me Your Hands: Therapeutic Experiences of Collective Theatre Creation in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Canadian Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 54(3), 324–348. Retrieved from https://dev.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/rcc/article/view/69478

Issue

Section

Special Issue Articles/ Articles d'édition spéciale