Producing the Revive Youth Festival : navigating resistance within the Revive Youth Producer Program

The Revive Youth Producer Program (YPP) was a year-long, paid youth internship program and Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project that employed Austin teens in live-event and festival production jobs through creative workshops, masterclasses, and experience proposing and producing their one-day festival for teens, Revive Youth Festival. While art programs for youth focus on training live performers, few intentionally hire youth as creative producers and leaders in the production process. In this thesis, the facilitator reflects on their experience working with a team of youth producers who participated in YPP through a lens of resistance within a reflexive practitioner qualitative study. This facilitator/researcher identifies perceived resistance from institutions, youth participants, and themself and recognizes how their own responses to resistance— through negotiation, pushback, and acceptance— serve as catalysts for transformational learning. Using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis methodology, the author analyzes data from intern interviews, work samples, and other artifacts. In doing so, they propose a new lens to comprehend how resistance can lead to transformational learning and create what Robin DG Kelley imagines as a "freedom space" for youth and their communities.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Fine Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities

Grantor

The University of Texas at Austin

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Rawlins-Harris, Deen

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Alrutz, Megan

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Carra Martinez
• Linda Nathan
• Gabrielle Lewis

• Resistance
• Festival
• Youth
• YPAR
• Youth participatory action research
• Producing
• Freedom space
• Transformational learning

Language dc:language.iso

English

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.26153/tsw/60687

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/133356