Seeking Truer Forms of Folklore Subversion
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Transcript of Seeking Truer Forms of Folklore Subversion
Reeves,
Alanna Reeves
Dr. Christine Garlough
Gen/WS 310 Final Paper
Due: May 18, 2012
Seeking Truer Forms of Folklore Subversion
Through Creative Drama
Fairytales and folktales have been used for hundreds of years to indoctrinate
children, sometimes with values that are not in their best interest. Taking a closer look at a
story like Beauty and the Beast for instance, one could make the argument that it reads like
an allegory for submitting to domestic violence. Because Belle is patient and kind enough
to “the Beast,” he eventually changes, and the implicit message to those hearing the tale is,
“and maybe your ‘Beast’ will change, too.”
Some theorists and authors have proposed subverting traditional folk and fairy tales
by presenting them from a feminist (or otherwise “liberal/emancipatory”) lens, but I find
that these tales can still be problematic. While these tales claim to be emancipatory by
providing an alternative outlook on the world, I argue that no fairytale can be truly
emancipatory for children as long as adults are the ones who are doing the re-writing. I
believe that instead of providing children with a different “answer” for life’s troubles
through unorthodox fairytales, we would better prepare our children to tackle life’s
struggles by asking them provide their own alternative to folk and fairy tales. By pairing
creative drama and forum theatre practices with folklore, we can use these popular stories
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to help children build empathy, develop multiple points of view on traditional stories and
find their own alternative solutions to the problems presented in the tales.
A SHORT HISTORY OF FOLKLORE, FAIRYTALES & SOCIAL INDOCTRINATION
In his book Fairytales and the Art of Subversion, Jack Zipes explores the ways that
fairytales and folktales are far from “harmless” stories we tell our children (56). He claims
that these tales have been told and retold throughout the ages as part of a “civilizing
process” that is educational at the same time that it is entertaining (31). Zipes notes that
the while the tales have their roots in the “folk” cannon, they have been appropriated and
changed over time by elite classes to reflect the social mores of those who hold power.
Because of this appropriation, Zipes says that his “foremost concern is how fairy tales
operate ideologically to indoctrinate children so that they will conform to dominant social
standards that are not necessarily established in their behalf” (33). He goes on to
demonstrate how the aristocratic-bourgeoisie used fairytales to indoctrinate children to
reflect their particular social attitudes and morals. These morals were often gendered,
classist, and repressive as they sought to influence both the inner feelings and outward
behavior of children (Zipes 43-44).
Zipes argues that during the post-1945 period, West German authors and critics
became aware that the nationally lauded Brothers Grimm folktales and fairytales were not
merely harmless bedtime stories, but tools used for social indoctrination of children in a
bourgeois society. In the 1960s, there was a backlash against the traditional fairytale and
authors began writing tales that pushed back against the racist, sexist and classist
overtones in the “classics” by subverting these tales to create stories that were more
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“emancipatory” for children (Zipes 58). These tales sought to “understand how the
messages in fairytales tend to repress and constrain children rather than set them free to
make their own choices” (Zipes 59).
As quoted by Vanessa Joosen in her article, Fairy-tale Retellings between Art and
Pedagogy, children learn “behavioral and associational patterns, value systems, and how to
predict the consequences of specific acts or circumstances” through fairytales and folktales
(129). As such, many feminists have pushed back against the gendered lessons that are
both implicit and explicit within many traditional stories. Many authors of subversive or
“emancipatory” fairytales do not question the didactic nature of the tales, but instead use
them to convey their own ideology and, in doing so, some of these tales may carry
messages that are just as harmful and prejudicial as many of the traditional tales are.
As a case study for the ways that these tales may still contain harmful messages for
children, I use Jane Yolen’s story, Sleeping Ugly. In this story, Yolen (rightly, I believe)
attacks the so-called “beauty contest” that is characterized in many traditional folk and
fairy tales. In the traditional tales, beauty is often equated with kindness, meekness and
industry, while ugliness is equated with the “evils” of the world. Yolen reverses this trope
in her story; however, she may be instilling other prejudicial attitudes in her young
readers. In the story, two young girls, Princess Miserella and Plain Jane (an orphan) have
fallen under a fairy’s spell and both have fallen asleep. When a Prince arrives many years
later and must choose which girl to wake up, the tale reads: “The prince looked at Miserella
[…] Even frowning she was beautiful. But Jojo knew that kind of princess. He had three
cousins just like her. Pretty on the outside. Ugly within” (as quoted in Joosen 132). The
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prince makes this judgment solely based on appearance and chooses to awaken the “uglier”
princess.
I argue that, far from creating a more equitable and understanding world, this
retelling may, in fact, simply be indoctrinating children with a different kind of bias. Joosen
briefly makes this connection in her article, but defends it by saying that simply exposing
readers to this kind of alternative retelling “teach[es] children and adults to be critical of
their own reading” by revealing a position that bucks the traditional discourse (134). She
argues that because the tale will very likely be read against a knowledge of traditional fairy
and folk tales, readers will be critical of both the original tales and Yolen’s tale as they
reading the alternative text. While I understand the argument, I do not completely agree
with it. Even if one agrees that Yolen’s story, when compared to traditional tales, can help
readers to develop a critical eye and multiple points of view, Yolen’s tale still equates outer
appearance with an “inherent” inner personality which does not buck traditional fairy tale
tropes and may reinforce damaging “lessons” about appearance.
While fairytale retellings like Yolen’s often claim to be emancipatory, they are re-
written and subverted to represent the morals and politics of yet another community of
adults. Throughout history, fairytales have been appropriated and rewritten by the
bourgeoisie, by socialists, by the Nazis, by feminists and by a whole slew of other political
and social groups. While I personally find some of these tales and the ideologies they
forward to be more problematic than others, most tales (regardless of the author’s best
intentions) run the risk of over-simplification and stereotyping. I argue that a better way
forward may be to ask children to unpack the messages in folk and fairy tales and to
facilitate them in subverting the genre in the way(s) they choose.
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CHILDREN AS AGENTS
According to Tadesse Jaleta Jirata, children are absolutely capable of analyzing and
interpreting folktales that they hear and tell. In his research, Jirata followed children in
Southern Ethiopia and listened to the ways they told tales and discussed them with one
another. While folktales in this culture still serve a didactic purpose when adults are
narrating for children, children are able to relate to the stories differently when interacting
in peer groups (Jirata 273). When children are performers of the tales rather than just the
consumers, they can practice agency by choosing the tales they feel are most valid.
Furthermore, in the context of peer-performed tales, the children can actively engage in a
discourse with the narrator and argue for or against points raised by the storyteller,
discuss the moral of the story, and explore the story’s implications for their lives (Jirata
270). From Jirata’s research, it is clear that children are capable of much more than
subconsciously absorbing and accepting fairytale indoctrination- they are capable of
unpacking the messages in a folktale and debating their legitimacy (275). As these children
tell each other stories, they are active in their own socialization. As such, Jirata argues that
it is important to encourage children to participate in “local expressive cultures” (289).
Facilitating spaces where children can interpret their own folk culture can help them to
explore their own opinions and help them to learn from, and perhaps even change their
own social environments (Jirata 289).
THE BENEFITS OF PAIRING DRAMA WITH FOLKLORE
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Beyond simply performing and discussing folk and fairy tales, students can enact
their discourse through drama. In her article, Crossroads of Folklore and Eduaction, Paddy
Bowman speaks to the ways that folklore can help teachers to achieve important
educational goals. She quotes Bert Wilson who says, “Folklore can help us learn what it
means to be human” and likens it to “’taking the pulse of another’s soul,’ dissolving time
and placing oneself in another’s shoes.” (67). Similar arguments have often been made
about theatre. Theatre practitioner Augusto Boal says that theatre is “the art of looking at
ourselves” (15), and many theatre practitioners have argued that theatre and dramatic play
can teach us about the human condition and foster empathy and understanding in ways
that more traditional forms of learning cannot. As such, I argue that the two disciplines
have much in common and are rife with intersections that can be potent in the classroom.
Furthermore, I believe that theatre is an excellent tool for helping children to unpack the
meanings behind traditional folk and fairy tales and can facilitate them in their own
retellings of these tales.
As Manon van de Water points out in her course reader Theatre and Drama 362,
drama is an especially successful tool for empowerment and awareness as it is able to
speak both to emotional intelligence (self awareness, self control, self-motivation, empathy
and relationship skills) and multiple intelligences (verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical,
visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic, bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and
naturalist). She says that drama has an excellent ability to speak to each of these
categories, particularly when people participate in the drama as they might in forum styles
of theatre like Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed.” Van de Water says, “[p]erhaps
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one of the most holistic and practical aspects of using drama is that it can cut both ways:
dealing with subject matter while exploring the human condition” (47).
Theatre manages not only to give the facts, but also to speak to many different kinds
of intelligence. Drama is able to do this because it is immediate, occurring in the present,
right before our very eyes, and because it is interactive. A relationship exists between the
audience and the actors, and in the best kinds of drama, the line between the actor and
spectator is quite blurry. In these situations, many parts of the brain are stimulated at
once, providing a more complete learning experience that can resonate with a person on a
deeper level than perhaps simply reading a story or watching a movie might.
Forum theatre like Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed” can be very
empowering for children. Boal’s methods align closely with the system of creative problem
solving presented by Jerry Flack in A Goldilocks Problem With a Three-Bear Solution. Flack
argues that creative problem solving uses three basic stages: 1) Identifying a problem, 2)
Producing ideas, and 3) Implementing and evaluating ideas (50). Forum theatre, as
presented by Boal, closely aligns with this “creative problem solving” strategy.
Forum theatre seeks to create discussions about oppression and how it can be
overcome. Augusto Boal says, “[i]n Theatre of the Oppressed, reality is shown not only as it
is, but also, more importantly, as it could be” (6). This is typically achieved by presenting a
story in theatre-form that the audience, or as Boal likes to call them, the spect-actors, can
later participate in. After a story has been told a first time, it is re-told and spect-actors are
encouraged to yell “stop!” at a point in the story where the protagonist has made a
“mistake” in overcoming his or her oppression (compare to Flack’s “identifying the
problem”). The spect-actor who has stopped the action then takes the place of the original
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actor and presents his or her new tactics in-role in the scene, trying to find an alternate
outcome (compare to Flack’s “producing ideas”). The idea is then evaluated by other spect-
actors who can either accept the “solution” or enact solutions of their own. In theory, the
action on stage will help manifest action offstage; the drama continues into real-life where
tactics that have been addressed onstage can be put to use offstage in overcoming real-life
obstacles. Both Boal’s forum theatre and Flack’s creative problem solving methods posit
that as participants “practice” solving problems using their techniques, they are preparing
to confront problems in daily life (Boal xxiv, Flack 51).
Ron Smith, a theatre practitioner who worked with oppressed populations in
Taiwan has already explored some ways that the “Magical Realism” of folk and fairy tales
relate to Boal’s forum methods. Magical Realism is a style that inserts the fantastic into
real-life settings (like folk/fairytales) with the intent of facilitating a deeper understanding
of reality. Smith says it is “a mode suited to exploring and transgressing boundaries” and
that it “often facilitates the fusion, or coexistence, of possible worlds, spaces, systems that
would be irreconcilable” (110). Magical Realism can heighten the sense of liminal space
and can help participants to realize solutions that may not have seemed possible under the
constraints of daily life. This sense of liminal space is a trait that is shared with the forum
work in Theatre of the Oppressed methods, and points to the ways that the two disciplines
can easily blend into and borrow from one another.
PERSONAL CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE
I believe in theatre as a tool for dialogue and empowerment. In a culture that is
increasingly obsessed with minutia of the individual (see: facebook, twitter, and much of
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the blogging culture), theatre is, by nature, a collective gathering where ideas are
exchanged, both visceral and rational connections are made, and fruitful dialogue can
occur. Because it is couched in the imaginary, theatre is an excellent medium for breaking
down barriers, shattering the remnants of predetermined thought, and opening up new
ways of thinking. Through imagination, audiences are challenged to see beyond how things
are to how things could or should be. Theatre is a practical tool for discussing “hot-button”
issues because it is a liminal space. Dialogue no longer has to center around “you” and
“me,” but can now take place about characters and those characters’ choices. This allows
for a distancing effect where dialogue does not have be personal. By taking an outside-
looking-in perspective, audience members can learn about themselves or their peers in a
way that is difficult to do when one is in the moment.
My teaching philosophy and my philosophy as an artist are inextricably intertwined.
I believe in posing difficult questions rather than providing tidy answers. I believe that
good theatre and good teaching empowers audiences and students to seek their own
answers, to experiment and explore many options, and to open oneself up to the diverse
perspectives of one’s peers. Furthermore, good theatre and good teaching are both
accessible to the masses. While I strongly believe in the aesthetic quality of theatre, I
believe that strong craftsmanship can circumvent the need for big budgets. A back-to-
basics approach with minimal sets, costumes, and other production elements reinforces the
notion of liminality, positions the imagination as primary, and opens up the craft to those
who do not have access to the budget necessary for production-heavy shows.
Furthermore, by highlighting the theatrical space as liminal, I hope to encourage those who
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participate in the theatrical event to resist the urge for catharsis and to engage in it with a
critical eye.
In creating classroom experiences that align with my teaching philosophy, I propose
an alteration on Boal’s forum theatre methods and blend it with Magical Realism to address
fairy tales in classroom settings. Because most fairy tales end “happily ever after” and
already propose a solution, I often use “unfinished” fairytales or folk tales in my
classrooms. I tell the story to children but stop at the main point(s) of conflict and ask
children to enact the rest of the story with their own proposed solutions. This is often a
great way for children to try out multiple alternative endings to fairytales and can foster
great teamwork skills as children learn from and add to each other’s solutions. Because the
children are not given an answer, they must think critically to find their own solutions or
coping mechanisms to deal with the presented problems. In my personal classroom
experience, children often use very relevant “real-life” conflict-resolution skills in these
encounters, although I allow any suggestion (real or magical) to be played out in a scene.
As children try out different solutions, they may find that their solution can create more
problems that they may have to work to overcome. The stories are used to demonstrate to
children that there is no “one” appropriate solution to a problem and that many times what
one perceives as a solution can often bring up more struggles of its own. In theory, the
process is never-ending, as are the struggles that we must overcome in life. As Boal has
often been quoted, “theatre becomes a rehearsal for the revolution.”
I also deviate from Boal’s forum methods because I encourage children not only to
take on the role of the protagonist, but also to take on the role of the antagonist. In Boal’s
work, he refers to this replacement of the antagonist as “magic.” He argues that by
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changing the “givens” of the dramatic action, any solutions that are reached are of no use
and by taking on the role of oppressor and trying to make him/her more sympathetic, one
does not actually overcome any oppression (267). Especially when working with children, I
tend to disagree. Point of view is an especially important part of helping children to
unpack the messages in traditional (and even in so-called “subversive”) fairytales. By
asking children to assume the role of the oppressor, children may begin to empathize with
this character and may find “reasons” for that character’s behavior that were not apparent
at first glance.
In his work, Alvin Granowsky also believes in the benefits of asking children to look
at tales from another character’s perspective. He says that “Point of View” tales provide an
opportunity to understand the need for critical reasoning and fairness in conflict (76).
Asking students to look at a tale from the antagonist’s point of view can help children to
learn to refrain from making judgments until both sides of a story are heard and it can help
students to learn to question a story when only one side is presented (Garnowsky 77). This
practice has both academic as well as “real-world” benefits as students navigate their lives
both in and out of the classroom.
A recent classroom experience outlines the benefits of asking children to take on the
oppressor role in dramatic play. I often use a folktale with children in my classes called The
Ram in the Chile Patch, where a rude Ram wanders into a little girl’s garden and begins to
eat all her chiles. In this drama activity, I stop the story before a solution is reached and
asked the children to come up with a solution for dealing with the Ram. I typically play the
Ram at the beginning of these exercises and after several unsuccessful tries to get the Ram
to leave, I ask the children if they want to play the Ram. One by one, I allow them to enter
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into that role and come up with their own responses to the other farm animals who are
trying to convince him to leave the patch. One particularly interesting intervention
occurred in a recent class. When the “farm animals” chided the Ram by saying “If you don’t
get out of this patch, you won’t have any friends!” the Ram replied, “I don’t care – I already
don’t have any friends.” In role, the student playing the Ram suggested that perhaps the
Ram was acting like such a bully because he had no friends. This didn’t change the Ram’s
rude actions toward the other animals on the farm, but when the other “animals” in the
classroom were exposed to this suggestion, their tactics for dealing with the Ram changed
dramatically. Instead of “ganging up” on the Ram and (in my opinion) continuing the cycle
of bullying, the students tried to find ways to reach out to the Ram. One student
complimented the Ram’s big, strong horns and said she wished she had a friend with horns
like that because there was a big rock in her pen that she was always tripping over and she
was too small to move it (this student was a playing a duck). Suddenly all the other
students had tasks for the Ram to do and many of them offered social and economic
rewards for the Ram’s assistance. By finding a way to empathize with the Ram by finding
the “root cause” of his naughty behavior, students managed to convince the Ram to use his
horns for good, thereby earning himself a place in the farmyard “community.” None of
these solutions are in the original folk tale – the traditional tale ends with a small ant biting
the Ram on his bottom and causing him so much pain that the Ram runs screaming out of
the pen. While the original folktale asserts that sometimes the smallest person can also be
the mightiest, it did not address the point of view of the Ram, thereby missing out on some
of the complexities that might exist within the tale.
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In the discussion time following the drama activity, children reflected on how they
felt while playing the different roles. It was interesting to me that many of the children
described the Ram as frustrated, sad, and lonely rather than just as rude and hungry. Many
of them expressed that they felt less empowered in that role than they did in other roles
because everyone on the farm was “ganging up” on them and they felt like no one liked
them. While the Ram is traditionally thought of as an oppressive force in this play that one
should not feel sympathy for, the children were able to empathize with his position after
playing him in-role.
I argue that this kind of role-play is perhaps even better than a subversive adult-
written “Point of View Story” in helping students to see multiple sides of a given situation.
In the drama activity, the child who owns the chile patch is still “right” in her assertion that
the Ram should not be eating her chiles without her permission and the rude actions of the
Ram are not excused. Still, the students are able to empathize with the Ram and are able to
start asking why the Ram is behaving in such a rude manner. Rather than simply exposing
children to an alternative viewpoint, the students are able to discover possible multiple
viewpoints on their own. In this setting, children learn from each other just as the children
from South Ethiopia did in Jirata’s study. This kind of child-led play can encourage children
to ask questions about the information they receive and come to their own conclusions
about the equity of the stories as they are presented.
OTHER POINTS OF DRAMATIC INTERVENTION
Another interesting way that children can explore point of view is through what
Karen Hicks and Jordan Austin called “The Fairytale Trials.” While the forum-theatre and
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role-playing exercises mentioned above are great for asking children to solve problems as
the are happening, the mock trials are a way of exploring the fairy tales after the actions
have occurred. Now that the story happened, how do we analyze them using our own
social systems, like the legal system? The creative drama exercises that I presented above
ask children to solve problems on an interpersonal level, but the mock-trial activity asks
children to respond to problems on a community level. With this exercise, children are
learning to deconstruct fairytales while simultaneously learning about the inner-workings
of institutions and how they can be employed to resolve conflict between dissenting parties
(Hicks & Austin 39).
In her classroom activity, Austin gave her 5th grade students a list of fairytales and a
list of laws that the tales might violate. The students then analyzed each tale to see which
laws (if any) may have been violated in the story. For instance in the story Hansel and
Gretel, students found infractions like first- and second-degree trespass, harboring a
runaway child, and child abuse (Hicks & Austin 39). After the legal issues were discovered,
the classroom staged a trial to analyze the charges.
This activity takes on a decidedly “theatrical” tone as children are asked to role-play
a character from the tale and state that character’s position as a witness to the crime in the
story. “Point of View” stories like those written by Alvin Granowsky or Jon Sciezka could be
used as a starting point to help stimulate ideas for children who are struggling to provide a
“slant” to their story, but I would strongly suggest that teachers use a “Point of View “story
that is based on a different folktale than the one that class is using in the trial. To help
them further prepare for “trial,” students in Austin’s class were also encouraged to
consider how their word choice might influence their jury’s (or audience’s) perceptions.
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Through this activity, children were made aware of author bias (Hicks & Austin 41).
Finally, students were asked to consider how their body language, tone of voice and dress
could also be “unconsciously analyzed by spectators” (Hicks & Austin 41).
By participating in the mock trial, Hicks and Austin report that the students learned
that often it is difficult to differentiate “fact from opinion, hearsay, and circumstantial
evidence and true character traits from gossip” (42). Students also learned how effective
they were in communicating their position to an outside party, but perhaps the most
important results occurred after the trial ended. Austin reports a change in her classroom
after the trials took place. She claims,
The students began to be much more specific in their wording, careful in their
judgments, aware of bias and prejudice and slant, and more organized in the
processes they used to resolve conflict. No longer did they rely on the teacher to
resolve all disputes. They had learned their own power (42).
CONCLUSION
While adult-written fairy and folk tale retellings can be one part of addressing
the problematic messages contained in traditional tales, it may not be the best way to help
children unpack and question the messages they hear. By asking children to come up with
their own conclusions about fairytales and the equity or inequity contained in them,
children are given agency to draw their own conclusions about the tales and their
relevancy in their lives. Pairing drama with fairytales can help children build empathy,
learn both interpersonal and community-wide problem-solving techniques and learn that
all stories can contain multiple points of view. As Boal’s theories and the classroom case
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studies in this paper show, dramatic play really can be the “rehearsal for the revolution” as
children unpack and subvert the messages found in traditional tales.
Playwright Tony Kushner once said,
All art of every sort changes the world. Perhaps an artist aims at less direct,
precise, immediate an effect than a president or legislator will have; but more
effect, more potency, more agency than the ordinary is inevitably an artist's
aspiration .... Art is not merely contemplation, it is also action, and all action
changes the world, at least a little” (as quoted in Smith 112).
It is my hope that by pairing dramatic arts and folktales, we can help children to take
agency over and intervene in the messages of traditional tales and, in doing so, we will help
them to be agents who take action to change their world, at least a little.
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Works Cited
Austin, Jordan & Hicks, Karen. "Experiencing the Legal System: Fairy Tale Trials for Fifth
Graders." The Social Studies 85.1 (1994): 39-43. Ethnic NewsWatch; ProQuest
Research Library. Web. 18 May 2012.
Boal, Augusto. Games for Actors and Non-Actors. Second ed ed. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Print.
Bowman, Paddy. "Standing at the Crossroads of Folklore and Education." Journal of
American Folklore, 119.471 (2006): 66-79.
Flack, Jerry. "A Goldilocks Problem with a Three-bear Solution." Teaching Pre K-8, 28.8
(1998): 50-52.
Granowsky, Alvin. "The Other Side of the Tale." Teaching Pre K-8, 27.1 (1996): 76-77.
Jirata, Tadesse Jaleta. "Children as Interpreters of Culture: Producing Meanings from
Folktales in Southern Ethiopia." Journal of Folklore Research, 48.3 (2011): 269.
Joosen, Vanessa. "Fairy-tale Retellings Between Art and Pedagogy." Children's Literature in
Education, 36.2 (2005): 129-139.
Smith, Ron. "Magical Realism and Theatre of the Oppressed in Taiwan: Rectifying
Unbalanced Realities with Chung Chiao's Assignment Theatre." Asian Theatre
Journal 22.1 (2005): 107-21. Web. 25 Sept. 2010 < http://tiny.cc/79tad>
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van de Water, Manon, and Jinni Tenneyson. "Theatre and Drama 362." University of
Wisconsin. Madison, WI. 2001. Reading.
Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, New York: Routledge, 2012. Print.
Taken from Adademia.com
https://www.academia.edu/1590239/Seeking_Truer_Forms_of_Folklore_Subversion_Through_
Creative_Drama on April 28 2014
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