How is drama travelling a year into the Pandemic?

We are a year into the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic. Even though the roll out of a vaccine is happening in countries around the world, there are still students not in classes – not in drama classes. In many places, theatres remain closed and creatives are out of work.

The immediate responses to the Pandemic are one sign of the vital concerns felt in the drama education community – a pragmatic response.(See, for example, the support from IDEA:  https://www.ideadrama.org/Supporting-teaching-drama-and-theatre-in-these-times)  

But how are we travelling now 12 months on?

If anything, the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic has provided increasing opportunities for these alternatives to drama teacher education to flourish. In the midst of disruption there are  entrepreneurial openings (for example, Roundabout Theatre Company, 2021. https://sites.google.com/schools.nyc.gov/theater-ralp/home). 

The rescue has two modules – with grade related resources. Module 1 focuses on using your voice; Module 2 is an Introduction to Design. There are lesson plans and video resources to support instruction as well as independent  student learning.

There are professionally produced videos with personable presenters published in a YouTube channel. Check out the Using Your Voice: Vocal Warmups video to see if it will work for you.

For teachers working in Zoom environments these are valuable resources.

As always, check that these resources are suitable for your students.  also, question whether the US accents are useful or helpful. 

Australia

Closer to home, the Inclusive Creative Arts digital teaching resources produced by the New South Wales Arts Unit are also worth considering. 

https://digital.artsunit.nsw.edu.au/the-arts-unit-home/art-bites?subject=drama 

These Arts Bites are another source for stimulating drama activities. The accents are Australian and the presenters are enthusiastic and focus on speaking directly with students. 

The question still remains

What is unclear is how they present antidotes to trends towards dis-embodied drama education. The lure of the on-line world and the ZOOM meeting present traps for embodied drama learning and teaching. 

Drama is practical, hands on, embodied learning. How does that change in the “new normal”?

Whatever approach is taken to drama teacher education, there needs to be an underlying robust, durable, practical schema to serve as a living and responsive guide to our work.

Learning to teach drama focuses on embodied learning in the arts  (Bresler, 2004). Through practical, hands on experiences in the drama we model the ways that your students learn the arts and ways that you teach the arts. This engenders embodied teaching.

Bibliography

Bresler, L. (2004). Knowing Bodies, Knowing Minds - Towards Embodied Teaching and Learning. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Music Monday - The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on zoom.

On Saturday evening I drove into WAAPA at Edith Cowan University to see a production on zoom of the musical Spelling Bee, performed by Diploma of Music Theatre students under the direction of creatives Nicole Stinton (director and co-ordinator of the Diploma course), Tim How (musical director) and Jayne Smeulders (choreography). 

 I was curious to see this production. Very unusually, the audience were to gather in a lecture theatre on campus while the performers remained at home, ready to perform live over zoom. Across Perth, cast members farewelled their parents and families as the latter prepared to drive to WAAPA, and then the performers themselves settled in front of their laptops at home, ready to perform. Strange times indeed.

I confess that I was hoping that this might be the last zoom performance I would watch for the foreseeable future. Over the past few weeks I have seen several plays on this platform and although each had its merits, it was always hard to ignore the unfavourable comparison with a live performance. Spelling Bee would certainly be different in the sense that the performance was to be largely live – with some pre-recorded backup vocals and a couple of film sequences.

In the lecture theatre the atmosphere was that of excited curiosity – how was this going to work?

We were instructed to feel comfortable applauding after songs -although the performers at home wouldn’t hear us, the creative team had allowed for applause breaks.

And so the show started. 

It was certainly more comfortable to watch on a large screen rather than home laptop. That was my first observation.

The premise for this production was ‘that due to Covid 19, the annual spelling bee had been forced online. The rules would be the same as usual, with one additional rule being that spellers must have both hands visible on screen as they spelled.’

In this production the four audience members in the original script became additional characters – the exchange student from Australia who had become stranded in the USA due to the pandemic, one of the speller’s Dads, and so on.

Solo songs were performed to backing tracks played in the singer’s own space. Back-up vocals had been pre-recorded. 

The rehearsal process had clearly taken care and time with playing to the camera and to finding visual and aural clarity in dialogue between characters. There was a strong and vibrant energy in this performance -and a clear sense of ownership of and commitment to the production. There was some vocal pushing (perhaps because it was the final show) but there were also many memorable moments – one was the Dan Schwartz character who spent the performance cooking in his own kitchen, while manning the bell in the spelling bee.  A convincing variation on how it is usually played. An unscripted (I think) but hilarious moment was when the family pet dog started barking. Even on the zoom platform, live performance throws up the unexpected!

At the end of the show the audience were clearly delighted with what they had experienced.  I enjoyed every moment.

I spoke with Nicole Stinton afterwards and confirmed that she had chosen the musical before Covid 19 struck. It is hard to imagine a musical better suited to an online production.

I imagine that there will be many post-grad dissertations in the coming years about performing online during a pandemic. This production and its creatives would certainly have much of value to lend to the conversation.

Bravo to all.

Media Term Thursday #36

zoom

zoom lens

A zoom lens has a variable focal length. It can be adjusted to provide any shot size you wish within its range without needing to move the camera. The image size grows or reduces as you zoom in or out.” Excerpt From:

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