Applied theatre and political change in Bhutan

This essay reflects on an applied theatre project which took place in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan in 2010. It investigates how far this project enabled Bhutanese young people to both critique their experiences of Bhutan's integration into the global market economy and experiment with their own alternatives to ‘modernisation’ as it is currently conceived. The essay has two intertwined aims: to investigate the utility of applied theatre for young people in Bhutan to help determine their future; and to assess how the Bhutanese case stories can reflect back on applied theatre as a means of furthering political change. The field of applied theatre is in need of such a provocation, as presently its radical edge has been dulled by its cooption into, and advocacy of, Western development discourse. During the performance process the young participants demonstrated a postcolonial subjectivity which could provide methods for challenging this state of affairs.