This book is a call to action to address the sometimes difficult transition many soldiers face when returning to civilian life. It explores the development, performance, and reception of Contact!Unload, a play that brings to life the personal stories of veterans returning from deployment overseas.

The play presents an arts-based therapeutic approach to dealing with trauma. Researchers in theatre and group counselling collaborated with military veterans through a series of workshops to create and perform the work. Based on the lives of military veterans, it depicts ways of overcoming stress injuries encountered during service. The book, which includes the full script of the play, offers academic, artistic, personal, and theoretical perspectives from people directly involved in the performances of Contact!Unload as well as those who witnessed the work as audience members. The play and book serve as a model for using arts-based approaches to mental health care and as a powerful look into the experiences of military veterans.

Les mer
This important book explores an arts-based therapeutic approach to mental health care, bringing to light the journeys of contemporary military veterans as they adjust to civilian life post-deployment.

Introduction / Graham W. Lea and George Belliveau

Part 1: Researching, Developing, and Creating

1 Staging War: Historical Contexts of Theatre and Social Health Initiatives with Veterans / Michael Balfour

2 Contact!Unload: The Cauldron / Chuck MacKinnon

3 Facilitating Therapeutic Change through Theatre Performance / Alistair G. Gordon, Marv Westwood, and Carson A. Kivari

4 A Soldier’s Tale: “Nobody Understood What I’d Done” / Britney Dennison

5 Listening through Stories: Insights into Writing Contact!Unload / Graham W. Lea

6 Suicides to Sydney / Foster Eastman

7 Coming Home / Tim Laidler

8 Reconnaissance and Reclamation: Learning to Talk about the War / Anna Keefe

9 Impact on Veteran Performers / George Belliveau, Blair McLean, and Christopher Cook

10 Holding on to the Script / Phillip Lopresti

Contact!Unload: Annotated Playscript

Part 2: Performing, Witnessing, and Evaluating

11 Finding My Truth / Timothy Garthside

12 Unpacking Contact!Unload Using Relational-Cultural Theory / Candace Marshall with Graham W. Lea

13 Contact!Unload Revisited: Degrees of Separation / Lynn Fels

14 Remembering / Carl Leggo

15 A Poet(h)ic Reflection on Contact!Unload: Voices of Women Through War

/ Heather Duff

16 Soldiers Lead the Way in the Fight for Mental Health among Men / John S. Ogrodniczuk

17 Audience Experience of Vicarious Witnessing in Performing War / Marion Porath, Marla Buchanan, and Elizabeth Banister

18 Understanding the Impacts of Contact!Unload on Audiences / Jennica Nichols, Susan M. Cox, and George Belliveau

19 Vulnerable Strength Seen / JS Valdez and Jennica Nichols

Conclusion / George Belliveau and Graham W. Lea

Contributors; Index

Les mer
Accessible and moving, Contact!Unload lays bare the deep work that went into creating the namesake play from soldiers’ stories. By the end, the reader understands the challenge of fighting an internal battle after war.
Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780774862622
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
University of British Columbia Press
Vekt
510 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
272

Biographical note

George Belliveau is the head of the Department of Language and Literacy Education and a professor of drama/theatre education at the University of British Columbia. He is a professionally trained actor and has participated in over 100 theatre productions as an actor, director, or playwright. He is a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada.

Graham W. Lea is an assistant professor of theatre education at the University of Manitoba. He has also taught at the National Institute of Education /Nanyang Technological Institute in Singapore, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Prince Edward Island. He has been involved in theatre for thirty years, working as a playwright, stage-manager, director, actor, musician, and technician.

Marv Westwood is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He is recognized internationally for the development of the Veteran’s Transition Program.

Contributors: Michael Balfour, Elizabeth Banister, Marla Buchanan, Christopher Cook, Susan Cox, Britney Dennison, Heather Duff, Foster Eastman, Lynn Fels, Timothy Garthside, Alistair G. Gordon, Anna Keefe, Carson A. Kivari, Tim Laidler, Carl Leggo, Phillip Lopresti, Chuck MacKinnon, Candace Marshall, Blair McLean, Jennica Nichols, John S. Ogrodniczuk, Marion Porath, JS Valdez