Drama Tuesday - We learn drama by making drama – a Process Drama example

We learn Drama by making Drama. By using the Elements of Drama such as role, situation, voice, movement and tension, we learn how drama tells stories in our bodies.

In this short video I share with you some drama making from a workshop I ran in Baoding, China, in November 2019. 

We used drama to bring to life the story of the Magic Lotus Lantern, a traditional story. We used drama strategies to build a series of dramatic action episodes exploring key moments in the story. This is a Process Drama.

In the traditional story of the Magic Lotus Lantern, on  the  Huashan Mountain there lived a guardian, the beautiful goddess Sanshenmu who had a brother Erlang who wanted to control his sister. 

We visualised the scene on the mountain. We created the mountain in the drama space using lengths of coloured fabric and sounds using our voices and recordings.

Our Process Drama explored the relationship between brother and sister in role and out of role. We edged into the drama using physical activities of gatekeepers. We improvised scenes between siblings in everyday life.

We moved back into the story narrating how Sanshenmu had a magical treasure – a lotus lantern whose light could scare away all evil. We embodied using symbol as a fundamental building block of drama.

In the story, one winter, a scholar Liu Yanchang, a human, visited the temple and saw the image of Shenmu and was struck by her beauty. He thought that she was so beautiful he would ask her to be my wife. Shenmu was also struck by the authentic love of the young scholar. But she knew that it a deity like her could never fall in love with a mortal. Liu Yanchang left Shenmu not knowing she was pregnant.

Skipping ahead in this account, Erlang angered by this love story, stole the Magic Lotus Lantern and banished Shenmu to live inside a dark cave buried under a mountain. There she gave birth to a child.

We created the dark cave and the birth of the child. 

Liu Yanchang returned after his success in the examinations but when he came to the Shenmudian temple he found it deserted. Just as he turned to leave, he heard a baby crying.

He was puzzled at finding a baby in the temple. Bu t then he found Shenmu’s letter written on the silk and knew that the baby was Chenxiang. He took the child and raised it, teaching him to read and write as any mortal would. But he kept the secret of Shenmu from Chenxiang. 

However, one day, the boy discovered the silk letter. He went searching for his mother.

The child grew and fought his uncle Erlang and won the Magic Lotus Lantern an d used it to break open the mountain and rescue his mother. 

I will let the drama speak for itself.

We learn drama by making drama.

Acknowledgment: The workshop was run for Cambridge Education, Baoding with Early Childhood educators and organised by IDEC, Berijing. 

Bibliography

The following resources unpack Process Drama

Bowell, P., & Heap, B. S. (2013). Planning Process Drama: Enriching teaching and learning (2nd Edition). Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge.

Bowell, P., & Heap, B. S. (2017). Putting Process Drama into Action: The Dynamics of Practice. Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge.

O'Neill, C. (1995). Drama Worlds A Framework for Process Drama. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

O'Toole, J. (1992). The Process of Drama: Negotiating Art and Meaning. London: Routledge.

Taylor, P. (Ed.) (1995). Pre-Text and StoryDrama: The Artistry of Cecily O'Neill and David Booth. Brisbane: NADIE The National Association for Drama in Education.