Drama Tuesday - Belonging

What does it mean to belong to a community – a guild – of drama teachers? 

In setting up the drama teaching course at Murdoch University in 2002 I involved two metaphors

• building a reporter of resources to support teaching drama on Day 1

• enrolling students in a guild or association of drama educators.

It is useful to think about why I find the concept of belonging to a group of drama educators an important foundational concept. 

It is not simply because as a graduating teacher i had impressed on me the importance of belonging. Though that is part of it. I have in professional life always been a joiner. 

This post is reflecting on the role of belonging. 

Wikipedia

Teaching drama can be isolated. Unlike, say, teaching English, in many schools, as drama teacher you are on your own because there may be only one of you in a school. 

There are many ways of belonging to a community even if you are a one person band. 

• You can establish networks and use buddy systems.

• You can be a member of a community when you are not physically located together.

• You can belong to a virtual community.

• You can belong to a corresponding community exchanging emails and snail mail and telephone calls.

• You can belong to a community by reading what others say and write and do by reading professional journals.

• You can contribute to your professional community by writing of your experiences in professional journals yourself.

• You can take responsibility for the future of the community. You can be a leader and a worker for the field. You do that from inside your drama workshop but also beyond. What you say and do with colleagues in your school, in your profession is a necessary part of contributing to the future of drama as a part of the curriculum for all students.

Belonging means that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time

Drama Victoria Facebook

One of the difficulties for productive and creative teachers is that they often reinvent their  particular wheels. Rather than efficiently re-using and re-cycling their teaching notes and resources, they make new ones each year. 

So, isn’t the issue: how do we better organise our pool of resources so that we can effectively and efficiently access them when we need to? And adapt them as our thinking about teaching drama changes, develops and grows

Using available resources better

Similarly, there seems to be a rejection of commercially published materials and textbooks. While I have never been able to use one textbook and one textbook alone, I do draw from many sources in my own teaching. But the most useful resources are people - and that brings us back to why it is necessary to have a sense of belonging.

Drama Thursday - Undecided

Undecided

Fringe Show 27 January 2021

We are so used to the message to turn off your mobile phones being intoned as we enter the theatre, it is refreshing to enter the Rehearsal Room at the State Theatre Centre, to be told Turn on your phones and login to the address on the screen. 

Undecided polls the audience with questions throughout the 60 minutes of the show and the audience “decides” what happens next (well, within the imposed limits, they decide!). 

This is a cute premise on which to stage a Fringe show. 

The audience (after a preliminary warm up about voting for mint or gum) decide whether the deliberately ambiguously named Jamie and Sam are to be played by male or female actors. And so the action unfolds. 

The plot is thin though clothed in a smear of existential angst.

Of course, there are precedents for audience deciding the outcome of a play. The Mystery of Edwin Drood uses this device – though there there are really only three possibilities and endings in that show. And given the unfinished nature of Dickens’ last work, the sense of unfinished business and different possibilities works – kind of. This had more risk to it. 

Whether this theatrical device could be sustained in this play beyond the 60 minutes playing time is worth considering. Probably  and possibly not. 

The performances are lively and energetic. Imagine the task of carrying in your head the different alternative texts for the Sam and Jamie roles. The ensemble of four are well matched. The voices are clear and the sense of style is spot on appropriate. They work hard and are animated, giving the audience a good sense of fun. 

Note to Jamie (male) watch tendency to subconscious hair flicking. You need an eagle eye and terrifying director (I am reminded of Ruth Osborne from CDC and the Youth Theatre Company in her notes about this issue. Hair flicking that carries you out of role and character is just plain distracting for audiences)

The music moves along at a fair clip and has plenty of bounce and oomph. If you have the vague sense of recognising musical memes, don’t be surprised. There is a skill in writing musical parodies. 

One of my pet hates in theatre are poor sight lines. We all know how difficult it is to find venues during Fringe (even in COVID times). But, I really don’t like it when the action disappears amongst the shoulders of the people in the seats in front of me. The problem is easy to fix – if the audience can’t see, why don’t you fix it. 

The world of drama is changing faster than we might recognise.

For example, we are used to being told to silence our phones in theatres (and not to take calls during the show). Of course, this reverential atmosphere has not always been the case. According to reports from the past, the audiences in theatres were often boisterous and disrespectful – or even paying attention to the action on the stage.

What else is changing?

Are our definitions of drama and theatre and performance changing?

Is that useful or helpful?

Fringe shows open doors to many different forms of drama and theatre and performance. 

It is healthy that there is an open-ended and inclusive approach. Yet, the old saying anything goes may not be helpful. 

Innovation drives practice. 

What are the innovations in drama practice that we should be paying attention to?

How is technology changing our understanding of drama and theatre?

It is not just the current pandemic that is causing re-thinking of our perceptions of drama and theatre. 

There are changed expectations about the type of performance, the role of cause and effect narratives, relationships between audience and actors.The title of the Fringe show was Undecided and this is perhaps indicative of a need to rethink our previously held assumptions. 

About this event

We've all been there: you're watching a musical and it's not going the way you want. Maybe a character is annoying you, or a plot line seems unnecessary. Well, now the power is in your hands! UNDECIDED is a choose-your-own-adventure musical where the audience vote on which direction the story takes next!

A live pianist and eager cast will be faced with the challenge of creating a totally different experience every night, starting with a big decision; will the first character - Jaime - be played by a woman or a man? Could this be the ultimate in audience satisfaction? The choice (and the blame) is yours!

UNDECIDED is a new musical adventure written and directed by John McPherson (Lawyers and Other Communicable Diseases, Greenwicks!) and co-written by James Palm (Threshold).

Drama Tuesday - Participating in Drama in virtual space

Ihave been preparing a recorded presentation for IDEC in Beijing China. The presentations focus on Building Confidence in Drama Teaching and on Progression in Drama. As part of this preparation there is a Question and Answer section and I share part of a really interesting question: 

问题：戏剧是在虚拟的情景进行体验。但有时幼儿对虚拟的场景感到害怕或不愿意参与。比如，教师构建了一个在森林里的场景，但是，个别幼儿表示不愿意去森林探险。这个时候，是否应该允许幼儿进行旁观？或者进行引导？

Question: Drama is experienced in a virtual situation.But sometimes young children are afraid or unwilling to participate in the virtual scene.For example, the teacher constructed a scene in the forest, but some children expressed their reluctance to explore the forest. At this time, should teachers allow children to be an onlooker? Or teachers should do some guidance?

To answer this question I started by thinking about participation in drama.

What is participation in drama learning and teaching – either in the virtual classroom or in the shared physical space of the drama workshop. 

In drama teaching we design our learning activities so that there are opportunities for students to participate physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally. 

By this we mean that students are actively using their physical bodies. They move through space and time. They interact with each other. They use their voices. They use their muscles and limbs and move with a sense of weight, time, space and energy (Laban).

They use their minds and thinking in collaboration with their physical selves. They explore ideas, express and communicate with words, thoughts, images and imagination. 

They interact socially – having a sense of themselves and their personal identity that is shared with others in developing social and cultural identity. 

They engage with their emotions, recognising their capacity to experience and share feelings. 

In drama we want students to be doing, thinking and feeling. 

As teachers we will encourage participation at all these levels and help students understand what we are looking for from them. 

What is the application of these ideas of participation in  the virtual drama classroom?

Learning drama in the changed world means that we are all coming to terms with teaching and learning drama in the virtual world. 

We need better research to guide us. But here are some starting thoughts about 

diagnosing the issue of participation in drama with the student in the virtual space. 

To understand the issue, let us ask ourselves some questions:

• In the virtual classroom, what screen is the student looking at – an iPhone or similar? A laptop? A TV screen?

• How much space is there for moving and participating?

• Who else is in the space with the child? Is she on her own? Other there others who are watching? Is there someone like a caring parent or other who is supporting and encouraging them?

• What is the time of day? Is this part of a routine of on-line teaching or a one-off session?

• What other experiences has the child had of online learning?

• Are they confident communicators?

• What is the child’s age and stage of development?

The reason I ask these questions is because the context matters. We need to diagnose what the underlying issue is.

• Is this a drama learning issue?

• Or a general learning issue?

• Or is this a technology issue?

Some students will respond well in the on-line environment and others will find it difficult. It may be that their language competence and confidence is not yet ready for the online learning situation where their voices and images will be mediated and shared. It may be  that their technology access or confidence is limited. We need to look at the student’s situation to understand the problem.

The first thing that we must do as drama teachers in the virtual classroom is to talk individually with each child and ask them for their answers to why they are reluctant about participating. To have that conversation we need to build rapport with the individual child.

For example, 

• What is the image of us as teacher that the student has – how do we fill the frame of the screen? Are we close to the camera and look directly at them on the screen?

• How are we using our voice? Are we quiet and close or are we using our teacher voice when we have a classroom of students?

• Have we adjusted our pace of speaking? Our tone? Our vocal dynamics?

• Do we listen when the students respond?

• To work in the virtual drama classroom (or any drama class) students need to have clearly explained expectations. We call this the drama contract.

We need to establish with these students in the virtual space our drama contract. Students in the virtual classroom need to know some basic information about drama learning. As teachers we need to explain and students need to understand that: drama is practical and embodied learning. We need to explain to all our students that while we know that students have different ways of showing their learning, in this class you need to show your participation by doing, thinking and sharing your feelings. 

In practical terms, it may be that we need to show reluctant students what we are hoping they will do in the drama lesson. We could show them video clips of students in drama and explain to them what the students in the video clip are doing.  

As with all teaching, we need to plan with a sense of progression – of planning activities in drama that match the age and stage of development of the children in our class. 

Teaching drama is a complex skill and these are some of the things we consider as we plan our drama teaching.

Bibliography

Goksel, E. (2018). Exploring Drama in Education. An Interview with Professor Jonothan Neelands. ETAS Journal, 35(2 Spring), 13. 

Neelands, J. (1984). Making sense of drama : a guide to classroom practice. In (pp. 24-32). London Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books published in association with 2D Magazine.

Drama Thursday - Space as an Element of Drama in changing times

In a year when we are thinking about Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic, we have become conscious of social distancing and of teaching in virtual space. Audiences are not yet able to be in the same physical space of theatres. Classrooms have been shut down or moved on line. Yet we still think of space as one of the Elements of Drama. For example, the Australian Curriculum the Arts (ACARA) includes Space and Time in the elements of Drama:

The elements of drama work dynamically together to create and focus dramatic action and dramatic meaning. Drama is conceived, organised, and shaped by aspects of and combinations of role, character and relationships, situation, voice and movement, space and time, focus, tension, language, ideas and dramatic meaning, mood and atmosphere and symbol.

https://australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/the-arts/drama/structure/ 

But, trying to pin down how we use the term space in drama can be tricky. At one level, it’s obvious that when we talk about space we mean the physical immersions of areas in which we work, the height, width, depth within which we move. This is physical space in which drama happens. 

Within this physical performance space we can make choices about how we use space to create dramatic action and show relationships between characters. 

In this scene from a drama performance in Nanjing, November 2020, students show the action of a group of soldiers, tied together in a forest during the Sino-Japanese War. The action of being physically and symbolically tied together amplifies the relationships between the individual soldiers.

You can see how this is developed in the video of the unfolding dramatic action.

This is embodied space – using our bodies to show space. 

In drama we can also show social space between characters to tell the story. Placing actors close to each other, or far apart can provide audiences with ways of reading the social relationships. (the term used is proxemics)

We can also talk about emotional space between  characters. When characters are intensely involved with each other sharing dependency and status – who has high status and importance and who is subservient. 

In this example also from students in China, the relative heights of the actors, and the eyeliner focus of the actors, tells us as audience about the interconnections between these characters. 

Space is also a factor in movement. Laban identified that movement is a combination of Weight, Space, Time and Energy in movement. How we move through space shows character and dramatic action. In the video example from Nanjing, the struggle of the actors is shown how they are constrained in this moment in the story. In drama actors are able to move through space, directly or indirectly; quickly or slowly; with increasing or decreasing tempo; they can be still in the space. There can be contrast between how characters move through space to show the differences between them – an aged or older character moving more slowly, with effort and deliberation contrasted with a younger character moving with freedom and flow. 

One aspect of being in lockdown COVID-19 spaces of learning is how we include and explore the element of space in our lessons. 

How do we think about space in drama in our changed worlds?

It is one thing to talk or write about space but that is not the same as experiencing the use of space in drama. Drama learning must be physical and practical and embodied. Our challenge in these times is to make space the focus of the student learning.

  Bibliography

Laban, R. (1980). The Mastery of Movement. 4th edition revised and enlarged by L. Ullmann. London, MacDonald and Evans.

Pascoe, R. and H. Pascoe (2014). Drama and Theatre: Key Terms and Concepts (3rd Ed.). Perth, Western Australia, StagePage.

Drama Thursday - Restoring beauty and interest in things that have been neglected

 The buzz of anticipation in a theatre audience is palpable. 

I am sitting in the Octagon Theatre on the campus of the University of Western Australia. It’s the first time i have been in a theatre since March. We have been through the long Winter drought of theatre as our society has grappled with the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. I am here because Black Swan State Theatre Company is launching its 2021 season. 

Always hopeful to hear the new season, particularly after the year of no theatre that we have in this plague year. And the program from Black Swan looks interesting:

• a localised Cherry Orchard set in Manjimup and playing in and around the remnants of the Sunset Home on the banks of the Swan River; act 2 in the dying embers of sunset in summer.

• a new production about the relationships between Australian colonial settlement and indigenous people. York.

• a pick up from a Blue Room production.

• a year long quest to find the Shakespeare play that will conclude the season; Black Swan audiences asked to vote on which of the plays of Shakespeare will be performed. The director is named but everything else – actors, creatives – are up in the air.

• a celebration of 30 years of Black Swan as a company that was born out of the success of Bran New Day.

There’s much to look forward to. The Artistic Director, Clare Watson outlined the exciting season of productions for 2021 (not forgetting the Oklahoma production that will be what is left of the 2020 season that was pandemic struck). Revisiting the founding vision of the Company and an embedding of local stories and indigenous spirit.

But, in particular, I was struck by the words of Rick Heath, appointed as Executive Director just eight months ago and immediately before the pandemic shutdown. Describing himself as a pragmatic idealist and that “extraordinariness is for everyone if you choose to lean into it” Rick explored how “logic makes you think; emotion makes you act”.  

We are living in a time when our emotions are important. They are critical to our ell-being, our families and our neighbours, our lovers and relationships, our businesses and communities. Proust said that art is a mechanism that can restore beauty and interest in things that have been neglected – unfairly neglect. He also said that we can learn arts great lessons – to re-examine our relationship with the world

Rick went on to observe that theatre is a service industry – plumbers in better suits. He explored the idea that as curators of theatre we remember that that curators are “ones responsible for the care of souls”. and he moved towards his conclusion reminding us that the measure of success for a theatre company is twofold. Is what the company does great art? And how has the company shaped the circumstances put in place to make that art great?

Of course, the focus of any theatre company is not on any one person, let alone the executive director. But I found it refreshing that any executive director could and would share and shape thoughts in this way.

Looking forward to the year after a plague year. Looking forward to restoring beauty and interest in things that have been neglected. 

You can check out the whole launch as well as what Rick and Claire had say at the live stream of the event: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=413042723397048&ref=watch_permalink

Drama Tuesday - A Fools Project

Creating Performing Opportunities in Times of Lockdown

Lately I have been thinking about ways of generating drama projects for students in lockdown situations. My students need short scenes or plays that can be performed over digital platforms, if necessary, but which can also be rehearsed independently. There are many examples of compilation performances -  Two that I particularly like are based on Shakespeare also: Appel, L. and M. Flachmann (1982). Shakespeare's Lovers: A Text for Performance and Analysis. Carbondale and Edwardsville, University of Southern Illinois. Appel, L. and M. Flachmann (1986). Shakespeare's Women: A Playscript for Performance and Analysis. Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press.

I started by thinking about all of Shakespeare’s Fools. 

I conceptualised this project as a research and performance project. Students would need to research and write about the characters considered fools and their functions in the plays that included them. They would need to look at the research about the Shakespearean Fools. Then, they would identify a scene in which the Fool and others interact, make a suitable scene cutting, rehearse and perform it. Together as a whole class we would construct a devised project. This sounds like a sufficiently challenging and yet satisfying project. 

The Shakespearean fool is a recurring character type in his plays. These characters were most often common people who had the wit and skill to make fun of upper class people. Often seen as “comic relief” to the more serious aspects of a play, it is worth considering that the Fools in Shakespeare provide an emotional depth and contrast to the serious themes. By shifting from the distanced world of the drama to more domestic and familiar scenes, the complexity of the dramatic situation is heightened. 'That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all.’ (Asimov 1978)

Jan Kott, in Shakespeare Our Contemporary ,

“The Fool does not follow any ideology. He rejects all appearances, of law, justice, moral order. He sees brute force, cruelty and lust. He has no illusions and does not seek consolation in the existence of natural or supernatural order, which provides for the punishment of evil and the reward of good. Lear, insisting on his fictitious majesty, seems ridiculous to him. All the more ridiculous because he does not see how ridiculous he is. But the Fool does not desert his ridiculous, degraded king, and accompanies him on his way to madness. The Fool knows that the only true madness is to recognise this world as rational.”

From a BBC April Fool’s Day Report:

Shakespeare loved a fool and not just on 1 April. He used them in most of his well-known plays, but who would their equivalents be today?

It was never about bright clothes, eccentric hats and slippers with bells on them. Shakespeare’s fools were the stand-ups of their day and liked to expose the vain, mock the pompous and deliver a few home truths - however uncomfortable that might be for those on the receiving end.

"Shakespearean fools, like stand-ups today, had a licence to say almost anything," says Dr Oliver Double, who teaches drama at the University of Kent and specialises in comedy. "It was an exalted position."(Winterman 1 April 2012)

In his book The Guizer Alan Garner (1975)tells us,

If we take the elements from which our emotions are built and give them separate names, such as Mother, Her, Father, King, Child, Queen, the element that I think marks us most is that or Fool, It is where our humanity lies.

The Fool is full of contradictions, as we are. He is at once creator and destroyer, bringer or help and harm. Through his mistakes we learn how to do things properly. He is the shadow that shapes the light. 

Putting on the Motley. 

The costume and props of the Fool were – according to reports of the times – standardised. A patchwork and ragged coat, sometimes with bells hung on it. Breeches of different coloured legs and a mono like hood and cloak decorated with animal body parts such as donkey’s ears and rooster heads. The prop was a stick decorated with a doll head or a fool. A pouch filled with powders, sand, peas or air filled out the outfit. 

Some useful resources

The No Sweat Shakespeare Blog: The Ultimate Guide To Shakespeare’s Fools

https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/blog/ultimate-guide-shakespeares-fools/

The British Library Shakespeare’s Fools

https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/shakespeares-fools

OUP Shakespeare’s clowns and fools [infographic]

 https://blog.oup.com/2016/09/shakespeare-clowns-fools-infographic/ 

But there are many more. 

Bibliography

Appel, L. and M. Flachmann (1982). Shakespeare's Lovers: A Text for Performance and Analysis. Carbondale and Edwardsville, Univsersity or Southern Illinois.

Appel, L. and M. Flachmann (1986). Shakespeare's Women: A Playscript for Performance and Analysis. Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press.

Asimov, I. (1978). Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare,Vols.1-2. New York, Gramercy Books.

Garner, A. (1975). The Guizer. London, Hamish Hamilton Ltd/William Collins Sons and Co Ltd.

Kott, J. (1964). Shakespeare: Our contemporary. Garden City, N.Y, Doubleday.

Winterman, D. (1 April 2012). "Shakespearean fools: Their modern equivalents."

Drama Tuesday - Back in the saddle again

Being in the theatre after a break caused by the pandemic.

I am sitting in a theatre again – for a stunning production of Chicago at John Curtin College of the Arts. The last time I was in a theatre was with Hannah and Peter in the studio Theatre in Washington DC on March 16. It’s a long theatre drought. As much as I can sit at home and watch Chicago as a filmed event on  Netflix or similar, there is nothing like the visceral presence of being in an audience of other people. As annoying as it can be when there are whoops from some audience members when a high note is struck or a dance move is nailed, there is the living shared presence of belong to an audience at an event. The warm, shared dark beyond the metaphoric footlights is a mysterious space. How is it that individual thoughts, personalities, life experiences coalesce into shared laughter or applause. 

What is an audience and why is it so important?

Can you have drama without an audience?

Why does it matter?

There is a sense of grief in many that the experience of being in a “live” audience is lost in times of pandemic. Our theatre history tells us that there have been other times when the theatres were closed. Plague, pestilence, war and politics have closed theatres in the past, just as the current Pandemic is closing them. (see discussion in https://www.thestage.co.uk/long-reads/from-pandemics-to-puritans-when-theatre-shut-down-through-history-and-how-it-recovered) There will be a time when theatres are reopened and we will flock back to seeing performances as live audiences. 

It is also important to talk about why this is important for us as individuals and as a community.

Consider the reasons why from the  perspective of those who collectively make theatre.

What Idid sense from the production of Chicago at John Curtin College of the Arts was how important it was for the students (and their teachers) to perform for a live audience. The one thing that all the discussion of performance via ZOOM and digital means – as necessary as it was – couldn’t deny was the desirability of returning to live performance. 

This was a stunning production of Chicago from the opening visual impact of the well rehearsed voices and bodies on the bare stage to the final bows. The sense of style and form was effectively realised with the Fosse choreography sitting comfortably on the young bodies. The Cell Block Tango and Razzle Dazzle was driven and pulsating There was attention to the detail in the singing performances. It is exhilarating when young performers are able to reach beyond the surface gloss of style and move an audience (as they did with the sense of pathos in the portrayal of Amos). There was a faithful evocation of the original Fosse style and pizzazz.

This production is as strong as many from WAAPA. And it is a pity that more people didn’t get to be in the audience because of the pandemic restrictions. It is wonderful for those that have been able to be in the audience.

I was briefly taken back to a production in memory – at the old Playhouse in Pier Street. I think Jill Perryman was playing Mama Morton and Maurie Ogden was Amos (with the old vaudeville trick of the boots that hooked into the screws on the stage so that he swayed deeply beyond human limits. 

I have lost sight of the times when I have seen other Chicago productions, but this JCCA production is one that will stick in memory.

 Bibliography

Dewey, J. (1938:2005). Art As Experience, Perigee Trade.

Drama Term Tuesday - A modest book proposal

Drama Learning and Teaching Theories Untangled – and how to use them

With tongue in cheek I make a serious proposal for a new book about Drama Learning and Teaching.  I am inspired to do so because I came across, a book by Bob Bates with an intriguing  title Learning theories simplified : and how to apply them to teaching (2019). In a couple of pages, he sketches succinct summaries of key theories and theorists of education. It’s a roller coaster ride through over 100 theories organised around Classical Learning Theories and Contemporary Thinking About Teaching and Learning. The reader switchbacks through Socrates, Plato (Shadows of reality), Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Dewey, Sartre, Freire and many more. Theories of Behaviourism, Cognitivism, Humanism, Neurolism and more rattle by. It’s not quite the comic book style, but it is a quick and useful reader with focused, point-by-point summaries for understanding and applying the array of approaches used in education. It explains and uses analogies to help understand concepts.It encourages critical engagement and  further reading. It’s worth a look.

My book proposal is to identify the key learning and teaching approaches for drama education.

Who are the people who have shaped drama teaching and learning?

What are the theories of drama education?

What is a theory in this context?

A theory is a systematic explanation of an approach; a set or principles; sometimes a justification.

Why are theories important?

If drama teaching is to be something more than collection of activities, tricks of the trade, games or schemes of work, it needs to be underpinned by a coherent explanation. That is not to make the case for the “theory of everything” – a single all encompassing master framework. We have come to realise that there are many ways of conceptualising and applying drama education as a field (As Hamlet reminded us: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.). When you think about it, the cross currents of approaches have shaped our contemporary practice.

It is however, important that we work in our drama workshops with an informed sense of context and history. We need to be something more than teacher technicians, following patterns set by others without thinking or understanding why we do what we do. What are the Big Ideas? Whose practice shifted conventional ways of doing things, set trends, gave us seminal concepts and even specific strategies? What are the dominant practices and their counterpoints?

Each drama teacher needs to articulate their philosophy or approach of drama teaching and how they understand their students learn drama. They need to acknowledge the influencers and forces that shape their day-to-day practice. They need to name and explain their drama teaching.

Why would this be a good idea?

There’s nothing like it that I have come across that provides a panoramic view of drama education.

But, there are some important cautions to this proposal.

• Naming theories and knowing them for their own sake doesn’t help make us great drama teachers. Nor is putting some particular theorists on a pedestal (or consigning some of them to Dante’s Inferno) isn’t helpful. What we need is reflective, critical engagement with theories.

• A theory exists in the context of practice – knowing and doing are hand-in-hand in the sort of embodied learning that we value in contemporary drama education. It makes little sense to treat theory and practice as mutually exclusive.

• Theories and theorists are not set in stone (or reducible to slogans). We need to remember that people and their drama practice change and develop over time. We need to ovoid ossifying ideas and practice. We need to let theories breathe, grow, change, adapt and emerge.

Who is on my initial list of theorists and theories?

That opens a can of worms, when you ask that question.

But to start the conversation I suggest the following knowing that there will be some important ones missed. In no particular order:

Dorothy Heathcote. Brian Way, Winifred Ward, Viola Spolin, Cecily O’Neill, Richard Courtney, David Booth, Comenius, Harriet Findlay Johnson, Henry Caldwell Cook, Brecht, Stanislavski, Gavin Bolton, Jonathon Neelands, Juliana Saxton, Carole Tarlington, John O’Toole, Keith Johnstone, Pam Bowell, Patrice Baldwin, Brian Heap? Madonna Stinson? Peter Duffy, Peter Wright?

And what of the types of practice we should include:

Improvisation, Process Drama, Story Drama, Script Interpretation. Verbatim Theatre, Chamber Theatre…? What about Children’s Dramatic Play? Teacher-in-role? Mantle of the Expert?

But, where are the European voices? The Scandinavian leaders? The voices from North and South America? USA? Canada, Australia, New Zealand? Where are the voices from history? 

Is it even possible to assemble a starting list? 

We won’t know until we start.

There’s a heap of work to go on developing this proposal. But it would be an interesting challenge. 

Who would you nominate as seminal theorist/practitioners for drama education?

What theories, theorists and practices are important?

How much do we need to know about each?

Join me in this new adventure.

Bibliography

Bates, B. (2019). Learning theories simplified : ....and how to apply them to teaching (2nd Edition). London: Sage.

Drama Tuesday - Looking beyond the Flood

In the last week I have presented a keynote for the newly established Drama and Theatre Education Alliance  (https://dtealliance.wixsite.com/dtea) in the United Kingdom.

On July 15 the Alliance staged the Big Drama and Theatre Education Debate: Getting our act together. I have re-recorded my keynote and share it.

Looking beyond the Flood

Big Drama and Theatre Education Debate: Getting our act together

July 15 2020

Robin Pascoe,

President IDEA International Drama/Theatre and Education Association, Honorary Fellow, Murdoch University.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today and warmest wishes from the wider IDEA community to all in Drama, Theatre and Education. 

I have lost track of the times we are told that we live in “an age of innovative disruption” (see, for example, Bower & Christensen, 1995). The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic amplifies disruption in politics, technology, society, education in schools and universities. Our current moment of disruption presents both threats and opportunities. It also highlights fissures and divisions of the past. It calls for healing and looking beyond the flood.

You may have seen my recent post about the situation in Greece where the Ministry of Education announced the weekly program for upper secondary education for the new school year 2020-2021 and has eliminated the arts completely (http://www.stagepage.com.au/blog). There are threats in the ways that people are responding to the current Pandemic.

Each of us sees our realities through our autobiographies. In the world of drama and theatre education there are good news stories and sad news stories. In some places of the world, like Iceland and Taiwan, drama is embedded in the primary school. In Finland, despite a concerted long-term campaign by FIDEA, the Finnish association, drama has yet to be included in the curriculum. In my role in IDEA I see encouraging signs of remarkable growth in drama education happening in China and Turkey alongside contraction and denial elsewhere in the world. The promise of the Seoul Agenda on Arts Education (UNESCO, 2010), that was endorsed by all UNESCO members, has yet to be realised as an entitlement. The situation addressed in your Manifesto ("Drama, Theatre and Young People's Manifesto," 2020) highlights a local perspective with global implications.

It’s worth mentioning a little about the situation in Australia. 

Australia does have the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (ACARA, 2014). Drama Australia (https://dramaaustralia.org.au/0 ) has provided a unified voice for drama education. The National Advocates for Arts Education NAAE (https://naae.org.au) thrives as a network of peak national professional arts and arts education associations who represent arts educators across Australia. 

But … there’s always a but, isn’t there!

Implementation of the Australian Curriculum is, constitutionally, vested in the States and Territories. In my own state of Western Australia the decision has been made to “adopt and adapt” the national document. Similarly, other states have made local interpretations of the mandate. The scope of the promised entitlement is narrowed or changed. 

There is also the underlying question of implementation. Writing an Arts and Drama curriculum is one thing (Don’t forget this is not the first go we have had at doing this in Australia (2007; 1994)), successfully implementing that curriculum for every Australian student is a challenge.  As the evidence of two national reviews of arts education undertaken a relatively long time ago now (2008; 2005), what happens in schools may not reflect the written curriculum. Having the Australian Curriculum: The Arts published is only valuable when we can confidently say that all Australian students have a delivered arts curriculum that includes drama.

There is in Australia also evidence of contraction in drama teacher education across Australian universities that are reeling as they re-invent themselves in the current pandemic (though the writing has been on the wall of the rise of managerialist leadership and political interference (Hellyer & Jennings, May 28 2020). The decisions made in my own university to de-couple Arts and Drama and Education by locating them in different colleges is a sign of the times. The decision to double the cost of Arts degrees, made recently by the Australian Government (19 June 2020), further erodes the position of drama education.

Returning to an international perspective, it is useful to consider some of the possible reasons why as a drama education community we have reached this point. 

Why is drama education sometimes still considered extracurricular? 

Why is drama in schools sometimes considered suspect? 

Why isn’t our vision for drama and arts education widely shared?

Perhaps we need to look back at or collective histories and speculate. 

In the minds of many, drama education is aligned with “progressive education” (see, for example, Dewey, 1938 and many others).  The tenor of the times when drama education began to flourish it was alongside embodied commitment to greater informality in classrooms and relationships between teachers and students; broader curriculum; practical activities; flexibility of teaching procedures; diversity; focus on individual child and a balance of academic and social and emotional learning. There was also strong commitment to critical and socially-engaged teaching and learning. These notions challenge a politicised educational climate

The opposition to including drama in the school curriculum entitlement is often based on assumptions and prejudices and even misconceptions.  It is always useful to identify some of the misconceptions about our field and to question the fear and loathing that drives some political curriculum choices. 

Eggen and Kauchak (2013) observe, “misconceptions are constructed; they’re constructed because they make sense to the people who construct them; and they are often consistent with people’s prior knowledge or experiences” (p. 195).  Pointing out a misconception, simply labelling it as “wrong” or “flawed thinking”, is of limited use. People who change their thinking and practice need: 

• viable, alternative experiences that disrupt their mis-conceptualised understandings

• to see how that changed understanding is useful in the real world

• to see how applying their revised thinking to new situation actually produces desired results

• to have their revised world view valued and endorsed by peers and the school community

• to see that students are learning differently, with higher levels of approval and satisfaction and with better outcomes or results

• to see that parents and the community support what is different.

How are we, as a community of practice, challenging misconceptions?

I remind us all that our greatest asset is our art form as a change agent. With that in mind I invite you to imagine an unfolding process drama from a new pre-text Littlelight by Kelly Canby (2020). 

In the grey old town of Littlelight, a “big beautiful wall” surrounded the town. The wall was thick and all encompassing and the Mayor was strong .But one day a brick was missing in the wall. And no one noticed at first, but little by little, brick by brick, gaps appeared in the wall. And there were streaks of neon light fingering their way into the town. Who could be stealthily breaching the wall? 

What happens when the walls that are built are breached?

You can continue the metaphors of this process drama in your imaginations. 

Imagine how powerful our process drama could be in bringing about change.

What we need is to navigate our way through these disruptive times keeping our drama compass tracking true.

I began by invoking an image of the Flood. and return to it conclude.

Jackson Browne sang in Before the Deluge (1995) of a world of dreamers and fools “in the troubled years that came before the deluge”. But he also sang of a time beyond the flood:

Let the music keep our spirits high

Let the buildings keep our children dry

Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by

When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

We need to keep our eyes beyond the horizon, beyond the flood.

Thank you. 

Bibliography

ACARA. (2014). The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/the-arts/introduction

Bower, J. L., & Christensen, C. M. (1995). Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave. Harvard Business Review, 73(1 (January–February)), 43–53. 

Browne, J. (1995). Before the Deluge (Lyrics). Retrieved from https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/2846364/Jackson+Browne

Canby, K. (2020). Littlelight. Fremantle, Western Australia: Fremantle Press.

Cultural Ministers Council (CMC), & Ministerial Council on Education Employment and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA). (2007). National Statement on Education and the Arts. Retrieved from http://www.cmc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/7366/National_Education_and_the_Arts_Statement_-_September_2007.pdf

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & Education. New York, NY: Kappa Delta Pi.

Diana Davis, & Australia Council for the Arts. (2008). First We See: The National Review of Visual Education. Retrieved from http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/research/education_and_the_arts/reports_and_publications/first_we_see_the_national_review_of_visual_education

Drama, Theatre and Young People's Manifesto. (2020). Retrieved from https://dtealliance.wixsite.com/dtea/manifesto

Eggen, P., & Kauchak, D. (2013). Educational Psychology: Windows on Classrooms, Ninth Edition. Boston: Pearson.

Emery, L., & Hammond, G. (1994). A Statement on the arts for Australian Schools. Melbourne: Curriculum Corporation (Australia)/Australian Education Council.

Hellyer, M., & Jennings, P. (May 28 2020). Our universities must rethink their broken business model or risk failure. Canberra Times. Retrieved from https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6771137/our-universities-must-rethink-their-broken-business-model-or-risk-failure/

Karp, P. (19 June 2020). Australian university fees to double for some arts courses, but fall for Stem subjects. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/19/australian-university-fees-arts-stem-science-maths-nursing-teaching-humanities

Pascoe, R., Leong, S., MacCallum, J., MacKinley, E., Marsh, K., Smith, B., . . . Winterton, A. (2005). Augmenting the Diminished: National Review of School Music Education. Retrieved from Canberra: 

UNESCO. (2010). Seoul Agenda: Goals for the Development of Arts Education. Retrieved from http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41117&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Drama Tuesday - What will I teach today?

It’s the question we face as teachers every day of our working lives?

What will I teach today?

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a convenient text book to open and say to students,  Look at page 53 and do what it says there.

Unlike many other school subjects, drama does not seem to have a simple answer or a single set of textbooks or set syllabus.

Many Curriculum frameworks and syllabuses are written in open-ended ways. We need to join the dots or fill in the missing gaps.

• What are the choices and decisions that drama teachers need to make in their day to day planning?

• How do know what to teach in drama? When to teach specific concepts and skills and processes?

• How do I teach so students learn in ways that match or suit their age and stage of development?

To answer these questions we need to build a map in our head about how students learn drama at different ages and stages.

Teaching drama can’t just be a jigsaw of randomly chosen activities or a haphazard collection of things that work. They have to lead students somewhere. The word educate comes from the Latin deuce I lead forward.

We must have a curriculum compass that guides us forward in the learning of our drama students. One of the principles must be that we teach drama in ways that acknowledge and understand the ways youngsters learn at different ages. We need to teach with a sense of an underlying progression in learning. 

The term learning progression refers to the purposeful sequencing of teaching and learning expectations across multiple developmental stages, ages, or grade levels. They provide concise, clearly articulated descriptions of what students should know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education.

Consider the simple yet complex notion of improvising which is the backbone of many drama teaching programs. what is or expectation  of improvisation in children who are three and four? How do we shape learning experiences as they are five or ten or fourteen. We don’t expect 5 year olds to master the concepts of Algebra that they can learn in Year 12. But they do have things to learn in Year 1 so that they can learn in Year 12. There is a chain of connection across the learning years.

This is William, our grandson, in free play. This shows the seeds of improvisation that we develop through drama programs.

Where do we go next? How do we build learning upon learning?

What are aged and developmentally appropriate drama activities towards a growing learning about improvisation?

It is useful to visit again some of the learning progressions that have been developed as curriculum. 

 It might seem obvious, but nonetheless important, to observe that as children grow, their capacity to understand and apply concepts develop and our planning should reflect the patterns of child development.

The following example of a progression is based on some of my earlier research.

The Holy Grail of Drama Curriculum writers is to write workable progressions for development of drama across school years. It is notoriously difficult to write these progressions with ironclad certainty. They are at best useful approximations to guide. They are based on observation of young people learning drama and teacher experiences. But they are better than random guesses. 

A final thought:

I have had a conversation once with a teacher who said – for efficiency – that she teaches the same lesson to all the different years across the school. One size fits all. 

Can you spot the flaw in that approach?

What is the map that guides your choices as a drama teacher?