In the Master's thesis, the author focuses on the topic of body awareness in the School of Contemporary Performative Street Arts (ŠUGLA) that takes place every year in the organisation of Ana Monro Theatre in Ljubljana. The main goal was to discover which aspects of the changes in perception and experience of one's body were reported by the participants at the end of the programme. The aim was also to raise awareness of how participation in art programmes contributes to better physical and mental health, in particular in terms of accepting oneself and one's body and contact with one's own emotions.
The theoretical part involves the presentation of literature of the mentioned topic. It focuses on theatre in public space, physicality of performance, body awareness, interoception, embodiment, emotions and the use of theatre elements in psychotherapy. In the empirical part the author collected data through interviewing the participants of the ŠUGLA program. The data was analysed with grounded theory, through which five main categories – describing main characteristics and the context of body awareness in the School of Contemporary Performative Street Arts – were identified: changes, experiencing the body, body awareness, evaluation of body processes and context. Every category was interpreted in detail, using subcategories, and scientifically supported with existing literature.
The literature of street theatre topic and body awareness in the region of Slovenia is scarce. Foreign literature contains more content on the topic, however, it still lacks research of theatre programs and their influence on body awareness from the perspective of performance as well as from the perspective of mental health. Regarding this field of research, this Master’s thesis is a welcome contribution as it brings forward the positive effects of theatre programmes on body awareness and, consequently, on mental health.
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