What is it about?
Taking Pierre Bourdieu's notions of distinctions and taste as a starting point, this article examines the influence of cultural identification on the choices that young people make about attending live theatre. The article draws on the findings of a large Australian study funded by the Australian Research Council, TheatreSpace which included research teams from Melbourne, Sydney and Griffith Universities and thirteen industry partners. 40% of the 726 participants in the New South Wales component of the study spoke a language other than English at home, most were attending with their schools and many had never attended the theatre with their family.
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Why is it important?
The article highlights significant issues about cultural relevance, accessibility and the often unintended challenges and confrontations that theatre can present to young first-generation Australians. The article also notes the absence of works from or about non-Western cultures in the 21 case study productions.
Perspectives
How do theatre programmes and arts education curriculums meaningfully align with the values, tastes and aspirations of young people who come from different cultural traditions? From a positive perspective, our cultural providers have arrived at a point in time with unprecedented opportunities to draw on diverse traditions to expand and renew our mainstream cultural practices. That said, however, the findings reported here suggest that we have a way to go before our major theatre institutions are able and perhaps willing to reconfigure ownership and re-imagine practice.
Dr Josephine D Fleming
University of Sydney
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Reimagining the Wheel: The Implications of Cultural Diversity for Mainstream Theatre Programming in Australia, Theatre Research International, June 2014, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0307883314000054.
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