This article describes how the author engaged a group of high school drama students, in a rural Alberta community of majority Aboriginal population, in doing Popular Theatre as a form of participatory research. Popular Theatre is a process by which members of a community identify issues of concern, analyze conditions and causes, and search for solutions or alternative responses. It draws on participants' experiences to collectively create theatre and discuss issues through theatrical means. Through the research, the author aims to better understand the experiences of youth that might deem them "at-risk," from their perspective, and explore the potential of Popular Theatre in doing so. The author's interest in "at-risk" was based in her prior work with so-called "at-risk" youth, and as this paper reveals, the author's own risky experiences as a youth. She presents two autoethnographic stories that involve risky youth behaviour; two school dance stories, which reflect on her research with students. The first describes an incident that occurred at a school dance while the author was in the community doing the research. The other story describes a school dance experience from her own youth. The two stories juxtaposed show how her autobiographical experiences influenced her response to the research. (Contains 3 notes.)