Alyson has worked around the world as a performer, theatre maker and community artist, with a particular focus on cultural development and social change.
In Australia Alyson has made theatre with remote Indigenous communities, young people, people with disabilities and mental illness, prisoners and former refugees, as well as in Cambodia, Nepal, the United Kingdom and New York. She is a freelance theatre maker, director and producer, and frequently collaborates with Outback Theatre for Young People (director/producer) and Sydney Theatre Company (teaching artist).
In 2015 Alyson received the Australia Council for the Arts' Kirk Robson Award, which recognises outstanding leadership from artists working in community arts and cultural development.
A wellbeing program for primary and secondary schools
Drama for Emotional Health uses drama as a tool to encourage thought, discussion and communication skills amongst students with low self esteem, challenging behaviours, or mental health issues. Over 8 sessions it provides a safe space for young people to explore their emotions and behaviour in a practical and engaging way using carefully designed games and role play.
Participants in this program will:
- increase their confidence and self esteem
- foster respectful relationships and friendships
- consider choices about their behaviour and explore how it impacts others
- identify personal goals
- develop communication skills
Each program is individually tailored to the need of the group. We use GAMES to encourage team work and respectful relationships; IMAGE THEATRE to embody emotions, reflect on our choices and as a form of communication without the reliance of words and FORUM THEATRE; a role playing tool that allows students to place themselves into the challenging situations they face and collectively find practical ways to manage them.
Since 2011 the program has been delivered across Australia alongside teachers, youth and community workers and school counsellors.
Programs have taken place with:
- Young men and women at risk both in schools and through community services
- Young people with low confidence
- Perpetrators and victims of bullying
- Young people in schools identified as having challenging behaviours
- Young people in remote NT Indigenous communities, exploring bullying and building confidence.
- Young mothers
Participants will compete a self evaluation before after after the program,
with the results compiled into a report that is given upon completion.
'I have personally witnessed the difference this program makes to participants' confidence, aspirations and overall wellbeing. It's this type of program that has the potential to bring about lasting change.'
- Elissa Shuey, The Smith Family NT
Contact Alyson to discuss how a Drama for Emotional Health program can suit your needs.
Producing, directing and facilitating community based programs for adults and children
With grassroots community arts at her core, Alyson has partnered with a range of arts and community organisations as a creative producer, theatre director, drama facilitator and project manager.
Current collaborations:
Outback Theatre for Young People - Director/Producer - 'Bordertowns'
Rozelle Neighbourhood Centre - Producer, Ever After Theatre - 'How to Build a Home'
Sydney Theatre Company - Teaching Artist - 'School Drama'
Past collaborations:
Hothouse Theatre - Director/facilitator - Black Border Theatre
Darwin Community Arts - Project manager - 'Viral' schools tour
Rozelle Neighbourhood Centre - Producer - 'Reimagining the Village'
For teachers, community and youth workers, artists and activists.
Alyson provides both public and in-house training and professional development workshops that are ideal for teachers, community and youth workers, artists and activists who are seeking new ways to engage students and the community.
“A clear, concise and professionally facilitated workshop that was both fun and informative and well structured and well paced. Alyson is an accomplished and highly skilled facilitator with a lightness of touch that compliments the depth of the work.”
Explore, experience and practise drama-based activities in this workshop that will introduce you to Drama for Emotional Health, using Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) methodology. Born in Brazil in 1971 with the specific goal of dealing with local social and political problems, Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed is now practiced all over the world in theatre’s, community settings and classrooms.
Focusing on games, image theatre and forum theatre, you will have the opportunity to take part in a variety of practical activities and learn how to use these methods to engage and challenge the students and participants you work with.
With an emphasis on emotional intelligence, learn how to use theatre activities such as role play and tableaux's to encourage active participation.
No need for previous drama experience, just a willingness to actively explore new methods of working.
Alyson has facilitated this training in a range of settings;
- with teachers and community members for Hothouse Theatre and Darwin Community Arts,
- with lawyers at the Northern Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency
- with artists and child protection workers at Phare Ponleu Selpak in Cambodia
To discuss hosting a professional development workshop with your schools or organisation, contact Alyson to create the most beneficial program for your needs.
Director, producer and co-writer: Alyson Evans
Red Door Arts, Rozelle Neighbourhood Centre
Connect is an immersive theatre performance through the streets of Rozelle that explores the community through the eyes of people with disabilities.
“The work is delicately composed to take us through a visceral and emotional journey, going deeper and deeper as time passes, into our personal humanity. It is a meditative and profoundly reflective process that allows art to do its most sacred job, which is to make people better.” – Suzy Goes See
Alyson Evans
Albury | Sydney | Darwin
p: 0487 602 330
e: mail@alysonevans.com
w: www.alysonevans.com
