Heroism as the aesthetic dimension of solidarity

This paper speculates about whether the concepts of heroism and heroic action have any residual relevance for both practice and research in applied theatre. I say residual in order to note from the outset that there are legitimate points of resistance and concern with regard to the heroic; that it can promote a form of worship within human relations that obscures rationality and equality; that, as such, it can be used as a source of ideological complicity, smuggling hegemonic ideas into mainstream consciousness; and that, in particular, it can distort the politics of representation and identity, most notably with regard to gender but also, from my own field, disability, in which the demarcations of hero and villain are too often observed as non-disabled and disabled respectively.