Documents 

In this thesis, David Lane explores how community-engaged, improvisatory approaches facilitate generative dialogue and co-learning among participants and facilitators engaged in three culturally diverse youth performing arts programs: Art Not Shame, Bridging Worlds Through Music, and CIRQINIQ. Lane looks at intercultural engagement from two perspectives: the troubled relationship between institutionalized authorities and community-based actors; and the interpersonal and intrapersonal experiences of those engaged in the programming of his collaborating partners. The research design employs an emergent, multidisciplinary approach through which Lane enacts a diversity of roles including co-learner, workshop facilitator, and creative researcher. He integrates with and contributes to the regular programming of collaborating partners to interrogate and embody collaborative and creative ethics. His findings assert that improvisatory interventions must be contextually and morally framed and that the repersonalization of scholarly and creative engagements generates opportunities through which differences and tensions can be actively shared, embraced, and critiqued. When employed in a power-conscious and culturally affirming way, improvisatory approaches can serve as a foil to colonial, authoritative structures that persistently exclude and exploit underserved and aggrieved persons. He shares how relational and reciprocal co-creation can serve as a scalable intervention that can bring a humanized, truthful, and responsive praxis into relationships at interpersonal and institutional levels.