International development initiatives increasingly use programmes involving arts participation to facilitate desired outcomes, such as improved psycho-social wellbeing and conflict resolution. Research into effectiveness of these interventions has increased commensurately. However, this research has not necessarily been of high quality. This article reports a systematic review of 67 studies of arts-based international development initiatives, to examine research methods used and quality of their application. Methodological strength and integrity was analysed against criteria important for research quality in this field. These include: use of participatory methods; clarity of research question; methodological rigour and system; supportable claims of causal links and supportable generalisations. Findings indicate only one-third of studies were found to employ robust methods. Challenges including inappropriate selection of research methods to match stated research questions, lack of adequate reporting of data to allow readers to assess validity of claims, and overly strong claims made with insufficient support.

From breaching breaths to wild dialects with the clouds, LungSong brings attention and feeling to the scientific labor of climate change research through an activation of relations between bodies, airs, atmospheres and cosmologies. Catalysed by a residency at the Lauder Atmospheric Research Station (NIWA) and meetings with scientists and technicians who are involved in ‘ground truth’ readings and data collection of the changes taking place in our atmosphere due to global warming, LungSong is an eco-feminist response to the temper(ature) of our times. LungSong is an ongoing event of reckoning with the state we are in - responsive and resistive, eruptive and sensing - it is shaped by the living experience of planetary and human breaths and the writings of Luce Irigaray.

A 5-minute family-friendly short film. When a girl makes a magical discovery in her egg box, she sets out to discover which of her chickens laid the golden egg.

The Five Provocations is a 94 minute, fictional, magic-realist, ensemble drama feature film that investigates the process of crafting and capturing performance on film. Dr Black wrote, directed and produced the feature film as practice-led research. She examined alternative approaches to film production in response to the research on the mediation of live performance, improvisation as a screenwriting tool and gender disparity in screen media. She determined that when performance is used as an initiator to film development it not only provides a more collaborative process but also enables the ability for more authentic screen performances.Her findings produced a successful feature film The Five Provocations that demonstrates a working method for working with cast to develop story.

I Feel Ya is a three-minute, dance film/music video that investigates the juxtaposition of music and image to explore familiar (largely stereotypical) depictions of older women with fraying mental health on screen. The challenge is to subvert the hero’s journey being gender skewed to a male saviour. In this scene the women who appears to be isolated, alone and vulnerable, possibly suffering from agoraphobia becomes the hero when she lures out a more reclusive male figure from a room in the house. She becomes the saviour.

Junba for Yilala was written by Johnny Nyunjuma Divilli in 2017 and 2018 withcontributions from Francis Nunburrngu Divilli, Rona Goonginda Charles, MatthewDembalali Martin and Sally Treloyn.Each year, young Ngarinyin, Worrorra and Wunambal dancers and singers, supported byelders, teach younger community members Junba choreography and practices. Junba forYilala: An instruction book was written by Johnny Nyunjuma Divilli to provide young boysand young men with a resource to support this teaching and learning.In developing the book, Nyunjuma also drew upon contributions from his brother FrancisNunburrngu Divilli, elder Matthew Dembalali Martin, Rona Goonginda Charles, andethnomusicologist Sally Treloyn.The book includes photos that document the revival of skin-based bodypaint designs andtechniques by Divilli, Martin, and others, in 2016. The book also includes transcriptions ofinterviews with key teachers of Junba in the Ngarinyin community conducted by Divilli in2016 and 2017 that document how they learned Junba as children.

The Rainbow Serpent and the Young Man Wunggurr nyindi Warrunga jirri was illustrated and told by Eamarlden Rivers in 2016 in Mowanjum, an Aboriginal Community in the Kimberley, Western Australia. In May 2018 Matthew Dembalali Martin and Pansy Ngalgarr Nulgit retold Eamarlden’s story in Ungarinyin with the assistance of Rona Goonginda Charles, at Mangkajarda wetlands near Mowanjum. The retelling of Eamarlden’s story was translated by Matthew Dembalali Martin, Pansy Nalgarr Nulgit, and Thomas Saunders. The translation was edited by Sally Treloyn to fit the format of Eamarlden’s book. This is a new story in English by a young Nyikina and Ngarinyin dancer and storyteller, retold in Ngarinyin language by elders in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. A young man, chased by his brothers, is protected by the Rainbow Serpent until they join together to dance Junba. The Rainbow Serpent and the Young Man, Wunggurr nyindi Warrunga jirri is a cultural story about bullying and the healing power of Country and dancing.

J is for Junba was developed by Rona Goonginda Charles and Sally Treloyn as a resource tosupport teaching and learning through Junba in Ngarinyin language speaking communities.Pansy Ngalgarr Nulgit provided Charles and Treloyn with sample sentences in Ngarinyinlanguage for each word in the course of several sessions at Mangkajarda wetlands nearMowanjum. These sample sentences were then transcribed and translated by Pansy NgalgarrNulgit, Rona Goonginda Charles, Thomas Saunders and Sally Treloyn with assistancefrom Matthew Dembalali Martin. Francis Nunburrngu developed illustrations overseveral months.The book follows the format of a typical English-language alphabet book, A – Z, andincludes sounds that are additional to (e.g., rn, rl, rd, ny) and absent from (e.g., c, f, h, k, p, q,s, t, v, x, z) Ngarinyin language and orthography. A guide to reading Ngarinyin language isat the end of the book

Lip(s) was a multi-sensory exhibition presenting different perspectives on the body, circularity and femininity while exploring the intersections between diverse disciplines: sculpture, sound, installation, dance, painting, poetry and film.

LungSong is a 60 minute performance that calls attention to life at all scales. A performance cosmology and a call to action, this performance generates affinities between scientific research on climate change and artistic innovation. In contemplating an apocalypse of the skies, from one of the places in the world with the cleanest air, LungSong, became a meeting place for artists and scientists to engage in research that resisted the ‘forgetting of air’ (Irigaray 1999). See https://vimeo.com/335979067

Can the arts inspire climate action? Living Archive of Breath brings attention and feeling to the scientific labor of climate change research through an activation of relations between breath, air and atmosphere. Catalysed by a residency at the Lauder Atmospheric Research Station (NIWA) and meetings with scientists and technicians who are involved in ‘ground truth’ readings and data collection of the changes taking place in our atmosphere due to global warming, Living Archive of Breath emerged as an artists’ testimony and measure of the temper(ature) of our times. We are all breathing the same air, through inter-arts and inter-cultural collaboration we invited witnessing air, atmospheres, breaths and cosmologies in relation. Choreographer Carol Brown, sound artist Russell Scoones, performer/researcher Tia Reihana and dancer Neža Jamnikar took audience on a journey to the edge of Lake Wanaka. En route audience listened to stories and sounds emerging from the Company’s collaboration with atmospheric research scientists at NIWA’s Lauder Station.

This essay considers the archived costume in relation to the concept of the celebrity performer’s persona. It takes as its case study the Shakespearean costume of Indigenous actress Deborah Mailman, housed in the Australian Performing Arts Collection. It considers what the materiality of the theatre costume might reveal and conceal about a performer’s personas. It asks to what extent artefacts in an archive might both create a new persona or freezeframe a particular construct of a performer. Central to the essay are questions of agency in relation to the memorialisation of a still living actress and the problematisation of persona in terms of the archived object. Can a costume generate its own persona in relation to the actress? And what are the power dynamics involved in persona construction when an archived costume presents a charged narrative which is very different to the actress’s current construction of her persona?