Performing Relational Histories by Embodying an Imagined Otherwise: Examining How Youth Amplify Justice in and through Shakespeare in Detroit
A partnership with Shakespeare in Detroit to explore how young people learn in and through the dramatic arts.
This project examines how Shakespeare in Detroit (SiD), a Detroit-based nonprofit theatre organization, supports youth learning, belonging, and justice through professional theatre, educational outreach, and STEAM-focused arts programming. The collaboration brings together learning sciences research and community-based arts education to better understand how young people learn in and through the dramatic arts—particularly in SiD’s summer youth conservatory.
Focusing on the 2025 STEAM Youth Conservatory and its production of Hamlet, the research explores how youth use the performing arts to connect personal, cultural, and disciplinary histories, all the while imagining more just futures. Findings will contribute insights not only into broader conversations about learning in and through the arts, but also the affective, ‘felt,’ and embodied dimensions of learning in and through the body.
Photo courtesy of Shakespeare in Detroit; Two performers in the 2025 Youth Conservatory production of “Hamlet”
