Abstract

ABSTRACT
The Trickster Thread: Using the Arts as a Tool for Individual and Social Transformation
Sue Proctor
Doctor of Philosophy (Individualized Program in Social Science) Concordia University, 2025
The history of Commedia dell’arte and the Trickster is centuries long. The archetype of Clown and Trickster continues in many shapes and forms (Green & Swan 1993; Holm 1998; Mawer 1932; McCormick 2010; Nye 2016; Towsen 1976; Proctor 2013). In the arts, through performing, teaching, working in healthcare and personal development as a clown, I have encountered and engaged with the Trickster. This thesis traces the thread of the Trickster through these multiple practices to realize what the Trickster might have to offer in the present day.
Commedia and the Trickster (or Clown) have inspired much of my work, from the Manitoba Developmental Center (MDC) where the tools of Commedia and clowning were effective in facilitating creative drama with adults diagnosed with severe intellectual and physical disabilities, to my work with children and others through the Manitoba Artists in the Schools program (AIS), Manitoba Theatre for Young People (MTYP), the Arts Ability Project with the Canadian Centre on Disability Studies (CCDS) and presently with Arts Inclusion at the Crescent Arts Centre (CAC). The improvisation, mime, masks and puppetry from Commedia dell’arte followed me as did the sense of humour, play, reversal and paradox from the storytelling Trickster. Based on my personal journey, this thesis brings together aspects of this comedic practice in literature, performance and socially engaged arts to envision an approach that is able to revitalize arts process, practice and performance to make the arts more meaningful, accessible and inclusive to the public.