Rest, Ritual and Reclamation: Reimagining Schools Through African Drama Therapy Practice

Abstract

This practice-based article explores how theatre and drama therapy can reimagine the role of schools in contexts shaped by apartheid legacies, inequality, poverty, violence, and securitisation. It draws on my work at Life Choices, a youth development organisation working across schools and communities in the Cape Flats area, Cape Town, South Africa. Within this broader work, the Uhambo Lwam Drama Therapy Project, funded through The Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in South Africa AFHESA based at Tekano, is implemented at Sophumelela High School in Samora Machel. Learners navigate under-resourced and at times vandalised school environments alongside the realities of gangsterism and community trauma. In response, schools often adopt heightened security measures that create controlled and restrictive spaces, limiting emotional expression and relational connection. I position theatre and rest as pedagogical responses to young people’s psychosocial needs. These arts-based practices support agency, empathy, and imagination, enabling learners to rehearse more humane and expansive futures.