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Areas of Research & Creative Activity  
Indigenous theatre and language revitalization, theatre in war and (post)-conflict zones, theatre in developing settings,  and more specifically the meaning global economics, aesthetics, social justice and human rights within the field of applied theatre.

Winter 2025/26 Courses:
THEA 104: Theatre Concepts
THEA 106: Ensemble Building
THEA 235A: Theatre for Community Building
THEA 344A: Special Topics in Applied Theare
THEA 435: Advanced Practices in Applied Theatre
THEA 535: Research Methods in Applied Theatre

Brief Biography

Dr. Sadeghi-Yekta holds a BA (Honours) and MA in Theatre Studies from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in Drama (Applied Theatre) from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. She has taught at Simon Fraser University and, prior to her academic career in Canada, served as a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre in London and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Manchester.

As a theatre practitioner, Dr. Sadeghi-Yekta has worked extensively with diverse communities across the globe. Her projects have included collaborations with the Hul’q’umi’num’ community on Vancouver Island, children in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, youth in Brazilian favelas, young women in rural Cambodia, adolescents in Nicaragua, and students with special needs in the Netherlands.

Currently, she is leading research supported by a SSHRC Insight Grant and Connection Grant focused on Coast Salish language revitalization through theatre. She is in the process of establishing a nation-wide Indigenous Arts Hub, designed as a mobile, national gathering space for Indigenous artists, universities and Indigenous theatre companies across the country committed to hosting community circles and cultural events. It will serve a central platform for cultural exchange, resource sharing, and creative collaboration. The Hub will organize virtual gatherings twice a year and facilitate in-person national sharings every two years.

Selected Professional Achievements

Awards

• SSHRC Connection Grant, Principal Investigator, Staging our Voices: an Indigenous Theatre Festival 2025-2027
• SSHRC Insight Grant, Principal Investigator, Staging our Voices: Pathways to strengthening Indigenous languages through theatre 2024-2029
• SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant, Principal Investigator, Staging Indigenous Languages at the Snuneymuxwqun Centre 2022-2023
• SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, Principal Investigator, Championing Indigenous Languages through Theatre 2022-2025
• SSHRC Connection Grant, Principal Investigator, Language Heroes on Stage, an Indigenous Theatre Festival  2020-2022
• SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, Principal Investigator, Hul’q’umi’num’ heroes: reclaiming language through theatre 2016-2019
• SSSHRC Insight Development Grant, Principal Investigator, Setting the stage: Theatre as a tool for Coast Salish language revitalization 2016
• Honorable mention Distinguished Dissertation Award, American Alliance for Theatre and Education 2016

Selected Publications

Books and Book Chapters

• Ware Vicki, Sadeghi-Yekta, Kirsten, Wasim Al-Kurdi, and Tim Prentki eds. Arts-Based Research in Global Development, London: Routledge, (2025). [Peer-reviewed]
• Ware, Vicki, Sadeghi-Yekta Kirsten, Prentki Tim, Al-Kurdi Wasim and Patrick Kabanda eds. Routledge Handbook on Arts and Global Development, London: Routledge, (2024). Peer-reviewed]

• Sadeghi-Yekta, Kirsten and Prendergast, Monica Applied Theatre: Ethics, London: Bloomsbury Methuen (2022)
• Sadeghi-Yekta, Kirsten and Vibert, Elizabeth “Ch. 8: Power in place: Dilemmas in leading field schools to the Global South,” in Out there learning: Critical reflections on off-campus study programs, Toronto: University of Toronto Press (2019) pp. 153-173. [Peer-reviewed]
• Sadeghi-Yekta, Kirsten, Hallewas, Anita and Afolabi, Taiwo “Shifting identities on new territories: creating theatre with and by immigrants,” in Performing Canadian Frontiers: Theatre and (Im)Migration. New Essays on Canadian Theatre ed. Yana Meerzon, Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press (2019) [Peer-reviewed]
• Sadeghi-Yekta, Kirsten “Ch. 5: Competing international players and their aesthetic imperatives,” in Applied Theatre: Aesthetics ed. Gareth White, London: Bloomsbury Methuen. [Peer-reviewed]

Articles

• Tidey Leah, Modeste Donna, Alphonse Chris, Joe Martina, Seymour Sharon, Jones Thomas, Sadeghi-Yekta Kirsten “Policy and Protocol in Indigenous theatre projects: Hul’q’umi’num’ voices, consensus and relationality” in Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 27.3. (2022) [Peer-reviewed]

• Sadeghi-Yekta, K. “Drama as a methodology for Coast Salish language revitalization” in Canadian Theatre Review 181, (2020) [Peer-reviewed]
• Sadeghi-Yekta, K. “Hul’q’umi’num’ language heroes: a successful collaboration between Elders, community organizations, and Canadian West Coast universities” in Research in Drama Education, 24.3 (2019) [Peer-reviewed]
• Sadeghi-Yekta, K. “Y los de Teatro cuándo vuelven? The future of internationalised applied theatre in Nicaragua” in Research in Drama Education, 22.2. (2017) [Peer-reviewed]
• Sadeghi-Yekta, K. “In the Limelight: enthusiasm, commitment and need” in Research in Drama Education, 22.1. (2017) [Peer-reviewed]

TEDx Victoria