The focus of the Theatre & Health lab at NYU is to advance research on the psychological, physical, and social benefits of theatre-making and performance. In this research presentation, Dr Sajnani will present an example of a recent collaborative study on the use of therapeutic theatre, an approach to drama therapy with a stated intent to promote the wellness of actors and/or audiences, in a state-wide effort to reduce opioid addiction.

Dr Nisha Sajnani is the Director of the Program in Drama Therapy and the Theatre & Health Lab at New York University. She is also on faculty in the NYU Educational Theatre and Rehabilitation Sciences PhD programs. She is a founding member of the World Alliance of Drama Therapy and the Editor of Drama Therapy Review. Her research reflects an interest in the relationship between aesthetics, affect, and care and the role of improvisation and performance in stimulating discovery and addressing concerns related to difference, identity, migration, and place. This has taken the form of several artistic research collaborations including the Living Histories Ensemble(Montreal Life Stories Project, 2007-2012), Lives That Matter on racism and hashtag activism on college campuses (2015), Mapping Home Amidst a Global Crisis of Place, a photography exhibit on sustainable global mental health with Oscar Palacio (2016), Assemblage, an online exhibit on displacement for Europe Now (2017), as well as essays for Home: An Imagined Landscape (2016), and for Manifesto with the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (2018).