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 - What is drama education?

I am responding to a question from drama educators in China: How to determine the appropriate form of teaching (for example, DIE or TIE, or the ordinary form of drama education? 

It echoes a question I had once in a conference plenary session in Beijing where a confused drama educator asked what was the difference between creative dramatics and drama in education and theatre in education and Applied Theatre and … the list continued.

It seems that there are many different names for the broad field of drama education (See the list at the end). It must be confusing for many people particularly if they are trawling through the literature of the field in translation. Despite the efforts of many writers and researchers to clarify confusion, it is clear that the claims and counterclaims for defining the field of drama education still bedevil easy resolution. 

Writing in 1984, O’Hara observed, “drama is marked by diversity of practice, with those involved in the area appearing "unable or unwilling to speak for themselves with authority and unity in both academic and practical terms" (Norman, 1971)”. In 2007 Gavin Bolton in the International Handbook of Research in Arts Education titled his contribution A History of Drama Education: A Search for Substance. In 2016 Mages wrote  an overview of a number of prominent forms of educational drama and theatre designed to introduce educators, who are not drama or theatre specialists, to the paradigms and merits of educational drama and theatre. 

Towards resolving this issue

There is a need for our field of drama education to acknowledge the issue and to find a useful yet clear definition and explanation that works for teachers. Putting the problem in context:

• Drama education is the term for the broad field.

• Within drama education there are different terms with histories, traditions and practitioner points of view.

• These different terms can be confusing (particularly in translation)

To help address this confusion I begin by establishing some principles:  

1. There is a continuum and relationships between Play / Drama / Theatre.

Play is the broad field term for activities that are pleasurable and intrinsically motivated. Neuroscience research shows the role of play in human development particularly in imagination, language, visual and symbolic expression. Drama is a specific form of play based on symbolic representation of people and situations. Drama occurs within the broad field of Play. Within Drama there is Theatre, the specific forms of Drama focused on presentation to audiences.

The relationships show how Theatre is nested within Drama and Drama is nested within Play. The boundaries between Play, Drama and Theatre are porous and often there is overlap and blending.

2. Within the many differently named approaches to drama education there is a commonality of purpose: engaging people with the embodied experience of taking on role and acting out dramatic action. In doing so they learn, understand and work with identified Elements of Drama, Principles of Story, Forms and Types of Drama and use the Skills and Processes of Drama

3. It is helpful to think about three overarching categories of drama education (which can be used to group the many different approaches.

Terms for creative drama and similar or related constructs (Mages, 2008) 

Acting-out stories Paley, 1978 Child drama Davis and Behm, 1978, 1987 

Creative drama Cooper and Collins, 1992; Davis and Behm, 1978, 1987; Kardash and Wright, 1987; McCaslin, 1996; Vitz, 1984; Wagner, 1998 

Creative dramatics Cullinan, Jaggar, and Strickland, 1974; Strickland, 1973 Drama Brown, 1992; Conlan, 1995; Cooper and Collins, 1992 

Drama in education Brown, 1992 

Dramatic play Galda, 1984; Smilansky, 1968 

Dramatics Niedermeyer and Oliver, 1972; Paley, 1978 

Dramatization Fein, Ardila-Rey, and Groth, 2000; Kirk, 1998; McNamee, 1987; McNamee, McLane, Cooper, and Kerwin, 1985; Warash and Workman, 1993 

Educational drama Wagner, 1998 

Fantasy play Saltz, Dixon, and Johnson, 1977; Smith, Dalgleish, and Herzmark, 1981; Smith and Syddall, 1978 

Fantasy reenactment Pellegrini, 1984 

Group-dramatic play Christie, 1987 

Guided drama Davis and Behm, 1978, 1987 

Imaginative drama Paley, 1978 

Imaginative play Marbach and Yawkey, 1980; Saltz and Johnson, 1974 

Improvisation Brown, 1992; Conlan, 1995; Niedermeyer and Oliver, 1972 

Informal classroom drama Wagner, 1998 

Let’s pretend play Yawkey, 1979 

Make-believe Christie, 1983; Singer, 1973; Smilansky, 1968; Yawkey, 1979 

Play Fein, 1981; Galda, 1982; Silvern, 1980; Yawkey, 1979 

Play enactment Saltz et al., 1977 

Play tutoring Christie, 1983; Smith et al., 1981 

Pretend play Fein, 1981; Harris, 2000; Nicolopoulou, 2002 

Pretense Fein, 1981; Leslie, 1987 

Process drama Montgomerie and Ferguson, 1999 

Reenactment Nielsen, 1993 

Role enactment Fein, 1981 

Role play or role playing Brown, 1992; Cullinan et al., 1974; Fein, 1981; Strickland, 1973 

Role-taking Levy, Wolfgang, and Koorland, 1992

Shared enactment Fein et al., 2000 

Social role enactment Fein, 1981 Sociodramatic play Saltz et al., 1977; Saltz and Johnson, 1974; Smilansky, 1968; Smilansky and Shefatya, 1990; Smith et al., 1981; Smith and Syddall, 1978; Warash and Workman, 1993; Wolf, 1985 

Story dramatization Brown, 1992; Cooper and Collins, 1992; Levy et al., 1992; McNamee et al., 1985; Vitz, 1984 

Story-acting Nicolopoulou, 1996; Richner and Nicolopoulou, 2001 

Symbolic play Marbach and Yawkey, 1980; Saltz and Johnson, 1974; Silvern, Taylor, Williamson, Surbeck, and Kelley, 1986 

Thematic-fantasy play Pellegrini, 1984; Pellegrini and Galda, 1982; Saltz et al., 1977; Saltz and Johnson, 1974; Silvern et al., 1986; Williamson, 1993

To this list you might add role drama, applied theatre, theatre in education, story drama. 

The list goes on.

Is it any wonder that teachers in classrooms are confused?

Bibliography

Bolton, G. (2007). A History of Drama Education: A Search for Substance. In L. Bresler (Ed.), International Handbook of Research in Arts Education (Vol. 1, pp. 45-62). Dordrecht: Springer.

Mages, W. K. (2008). Does Creative Drama Promote Language Development in Early Childhood? A Review of the Methods and Measures Employed in the Empirical Literature. Review of Educational Research, 78, 124–152. doi:10.3102/0034654307313401

Mages, W. K. (2016). Educational Drama and Theatre Paradigms for Understanding and Engagement. R&E-SOURCE http://journal.ph-noe.ac.at Open Online Journal for Research and Education(Special Issue #5, September 2016, ISSN: 2313-1640). 

O'Hara, M. (1984). Drama in Education: A Curriculum Dilemma. Theory Into Practice, 22(4 Teaching the Arts), 314-320. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/1476387

Drama Tuesday - Reflections on international drama education

First World Congress Oporto, Portugal July 1992

In July 2013 during the 8th World Congress on Drama/Theatre and Education in Paris, France, I was elected as President of the IDEA Executive Committee and re-elected in  2017 during the celebration of 25 years of IDEA held at the University of Evora in Portugal. It was fitting that this celebration was held in Portugal because in July 1992, during the First World Drama Education Conference in Porto Portugal, IDEA was founded. I was one of the lucky ones who was in Porto at the founding of IDEA and have been to all 8 of the congresses. As well I have represented Drama Australia at IDEA meetings in Montpellier, Budapest, Bergen,  Belém. 

International Collaboration in 1992

Seven years as IDEA President has been challenging. During that time two planned congresses – Ankara, Turkey (2016/2017) and Beijing, China (2020) – have been cancelled because of civil unrest in Turkey and the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic. 

During my time in this role I have visited many places and had the opportunity to learn more about the wider world of drama education. 

A short video presentation of my report can be found at https://vimeo.com/manage/461230241/general.

My final report to the IDEA General Council can be read at

https://www.ideadrama.org/Documents-for-IDEA-2020-GCM 

I have worked with a dedicated team of volunteers who have spent long hours in ZOOM meetings (before the Pandemic and during) in pursuit of the aims of IDEA. I thank them for their ongoing commitment and voluntary work.

In this post I make some observations about Drama Education from an international perspective.

The world of drama education is wide

There are many different approaches to drama education. Although I have a suspicion that the original proponents of an international drama education association, thought that their vision of drama education would emerge as the dominant model, the congress in Porto quickly established that there is not one way of drama education. 

The full title of IDEA is a clue. The clumsy construction in English  is drama/theatre. If you look to the titleWords and definitions can be slippery. Some words do not have ready translations. One person or country’s drama is in another worldview theatre. In fact, in some places, there is no direct or easy translation of the term drama. 

But it goes deeper than just words and definitions. In the French speaking world, there is the concept of partenariat where drama education is a partnership between classroom teacher and actor/professional/teaching artist and theatre expertise lies with the professional partner. By contrast the model adopted in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, for example, is based on a dedicated trained drama teacher. In a similar vein, there are places that assume there will be drama in the school curriculum; there are many places where that is not happening (see discussion below). Drama education is not solely found in school settings. It is in communities, associations, political action and the streets.

In some countries and cultures, local approaches are seen as the only approach. IDEA has had to negotiate a wide definition of drama and theatre education. This is noticeable in the aims of IDEA

There is another aspect of this wide church of drama education: the role of dominant language in sharing and limiting communicating about practice. Often there is exemplary practice happening beyond the world of English. As IDEA has shown there are drama educators in the Scandinavian countries that parallel what has happened in English speaking countries but with a unique identity and flavour. Similarly, the walls of language prevent outstanding practice in Turkey being shared with the wider community. English may be the dominant language of the Internet, but there many languages of drama and we need to recognise and acknowledge this multiplicity.

It is only when you are in-country that you can understand local perspectives. World-views are powerful. Don’t we say that the essence of drama is when we step into someone else’s shoes. Nowhere is that more evident than when we talk about the world of drama education. 

Drama in the Arts

Drama education is an integral part of arts education. The history of arts education, however, has seen drama accepted as part of a wider mandate for arts education. This has been a hard won battle (and continues to be so in many places where the dominant arts education narrative is written by music and visual (fine) arts. Drama education has been the giant knocking at the door (Stinson, O’Toole & Moore. (2009). Drama and Curriculum: the giant at the door. 10.1007/978-1-4020-9370-8). 

The concept of the Arts as a field of curriculum finds voice in writers such as Peter Abbs (1987) in Living Powers The Arts in Education. In the Australian context since the Hobart Declaration on Schooling  (1989) there has a commitment to with The Arts as one of the eight curriculum learning areas model. Drama has had a place at the table when it came to writing the Australian Curriculum: The Arts (ACARA, 2014). Just as the implied mandate of the Arts in schools is not realised in practice in all schools (see, for example discussion in, Ewing, 2020) the place of drama in all Australian schools s not necessarily secured.

The situation beyond Australia is similarly mixed. 

The impact of the pandemic in the united States shows contraction of arts education opportunities. In Greece the government announced that for 2021, the arts would not be offered for senior secondary students. The success stories of the arts and drama in the Welsh curriculum and in Romania are counterbalanced by what is happening in England. 

Drama educators must continue to be the giants knocking at the doors of curriculum demanding to be let in. 

There is a role for IDEA in this world wide claim.

IDEA was a founding member of the World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE  (https://www.waae.online/) and continues to support the work of the alliance drawing together ISME, the International Society for Music Education, InSEA, International Society of Education through Art, and WDA, the World Dance Alliance

IDEA and the wider world of Drama and theatre

A question to ask about drama education and theatre and drama is: why is there a need for IDEA when there are other organisations like ITI/ASSITEJ/etc working in the field with similar objectives? What is distinctive about the mandate of IDEA?

While IDEA has affiliations with ITI the mandate of this United Nations/UNESCO body is  broader than IDEA’s aims. Similarly the focus of ASSITEJ is on theatre makers and making while undoubtedly sharing an interest in young people. 

When IDEA was funded, there was a need for the specific and particular concerns of drama and theatre educators to be heard.

IDEA has long sought to strengthen its ties with UNESCO. Despite the troubled current situation of UNESCO, underfunded since the withdrawal of the USA, there is value in reaching out to the members of UNESCO to further the aims of IDEA. 

Drama Swings and roundabouts

In some places there are good news stories about drama education particularly in schools. There are sad news stories. In Iceland, Drama is included in the primary curriculum – a victory to be celebrated. In Finland, despite a long campaign from FIDEA, the Finish member of IDEA, drama in school has yet to be realised. 

It cannot be said that there is a universal entitlement for all for drama education. The struggle continues.

Some concluding thoughts

Seven years working voluntarily for an international organisation across languages, cultures and locations has been challenging. 

It has been rewarding and sometimes frustrating. There is work is still waiting to be done. There have been some small gains and victories; many disappointments. 

The richness of our professional lives is a reflection of our capacity to belong. Through IDEA (and similar) I have been a member of a guild of drama educators, learning from each other, enriching each other.  

I particularly thank my family for supporting my time in IDEA. Members of my family have accompanied me on the IDEA journey. My son Phillip was with me in Budapest for a General Council Meeting in 1997; my second son, Ben was with me in Kissumu Kenya in 1998 and in Belém, Brazil in 2010; my daughter Hannah was with me in Ottawa, Canada in 2004 and in Hong Kong in 2007. Finally, my wife, Liz, was with me in Frankfurt November 2019 (taking time from her busy career). More importantly, they have supported the travel i have undertaken (I stress, mostly taken at our own expense as funds within IDEA are limited and funding for travel in universities and institutions have long since dried up). As I move to the role of Immediate Past President, I leave with a sense of knowing that I could not have offered or done more. Even though there is always more to do, I pass the mantle to those who follow in the hope that I have contributed to our successes and survival into the future, stronger and more resilient. IDEA 

Bibliography

Abbs, P. (Ed.) (1987). Living Powers: The Arts in Education. London: Falmer Press.

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

Ewing, R. (2020). The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. A critical opportunity. Curriculum Perspectives, 40, 75-81. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-019-00098-w

MCEETYA Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs. (1989). The Hobart Declaration on Schooling. Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs Retrieved from http://www.educationcouncil.edu.au/EC-Publications/EC-Publications-archive/EC-The-Hobart-Declaration-on-Schooling-1989.aspx

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 - 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.

Drama Tuesday - Responding to existential threats to arts education

What is happening to the world of Arts Education internationally?

In my role as Chair of the World Alliance for Arts Education, I received the following message in an email from Greece:

Two days ago the Ministry of Education announced the weekly program for upper secondary education for the new school year 2020-2021 and they have eliminated the arts completely !!!

The arts, namely music, theater and visual arts, were among the elective subjects for pupils in their last three years of high school. In addition pupils had the opportunity to participate in interdisciplinary projects that usually included an art form and gave the opportunity to arts' specialists to collaborate with other specialists. Now everything has disappeared! There are no elective subjects. There are no arts in any form or in any way taught in upper secondary education. There are no projects any more. All of those hours have been re-allocated to other more highly valued subjects. (17 June 2020)

If this was happening in just one country we might be alarmed but just shrug our shoulders. But similar situations are being experienced in other parts of the world. In Australian Universities, the Federal Minister for Education, Dan Tehan announced changes that will favour maths, teaching and nursing units over humanities, commerce and law (Karp, 19 June 2020). 

How do we as an arts community respond to these threats to our work?

I share the Open Letter from the WAAE 

International Drama/Theatre and Education Association (IDEA)

International Society for Education through Art (InSEA)

International Society for Music Education (ISME)

World Dance Alliance (WDA)

Advocating for arts education worldwide – https://www.waae.online 

June 25 2020

An Open Letter from the World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE representing International Arts Education Professional Associations to:

Niki Kerameus, Minister of Education and Religious Affairs, info@nikikerameus.gr 

Sofia Zaharaki, Vice-Minister, Primary and Secondary Education, szacharaki@minedu.gov.gr 

Anastasia Gika, General Secretary for Primary and Secondary Education, sgika@minedu.gov.gr

I write to add the voice of the World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE to the many students and teachers of the Arts (Music, Dance, Theatre and Visual Arts) requesting the reversal of the decision by the Ministry of Education that announced the elimination of the Arts in the weekly program for upper secondary education for the new school year 2020-2021. The WAAE supports those who protest about the removal of elective programs in the Arts for pupils in their last three years of high school. This retrograde decision impacts on the lives of many and on the future of Arts Education in Greece.

The World Alliance for Arts Education WAAE is honoured to add our voices to the Departments of Theatre, Dance, Music and Visual Arts and professional organisations that represent specialist teachers from Greece, that are writing letters and petitions of protest. The Alliance highlights the negative impacts of this directive on students, teachers and ultimately the whole country.

Robust international research on the purpose, value and importance of arts education is rich and deep. The WAAE urges you to read and heed the research. Learning in, through and with the Arts shapes personal, social and cultural identity and is an entitlement for all students (see The UNESCO Seoul Agenda For Arts Education (2010) and the Frankfurt Declaration for Arts Education https://www.insea.org/docs/waae/WAAE-Frankfurt-declaration.pdf). 

The Arts contribute to the development of values, personal and interpersonal development. Learning in the Arts fosters creativity, innovation and persistence. In these times of crisis, the Arts play a significant role in mental and emotional health and wellbeing, as the current Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic is showing us all. The losses to individual students and teachers are devastating. They amplify the loss to the Greek education system as a whole from this decision. 

Please reconsider and rescind this directive.

The letter was signed by the members of the WAAE Executive Committee.

What is happening with Arts and Drama Education in your parts of the world?

What actions can you take at a local level when you see or hear of threats to arts education?

Why is a healthy arts education in schools and community valuable and necessary?

Why should we take action when we see an issue with arts education?

You will remember the famous quotation from Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Bibliography

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

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). Retrieved from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists

Devising Performance through Process Drama

After a workshop in Zhuji at IDEA IDEC Regional Drama Education Conference, introducing participants to using process drama strategies to teach drama, I received an email from one of them: I understand how you might use process drama strategies as one-off activities or lessons. but how does that help me meet the expectations of my school and parents for a performance as a result of the drama classes?

What is Process Drama?

Process Drama is a method of teaching and learning drama where both the students and teacher are working in and out of role (definition from the Australian Curriculum: The Arts, https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/the-arts/Glossary/?term=process+drama.

Process Drama is a term coined by John O’Toole, Cecily O’Neill and others to describe contemporary dramatic explorations – most often in an educational setting – based on extended connected improvisations and structured through a sense of theatre and drama structures and traditions.

Initiated through a powerful pre-text process drama, like improvisation, creates a “dramatic elsewhere”, a fictional world but one that is inhabited for insights, interpretations and understanding of participants rather than audiences.”

Excerpt From: Robin and Hannah Pascoe. “Drama and Theatre Key Terms and Concepts.” iBooks.

Why is it a powerful way of learning drama?

Process Drama is a way of helping students know and learn drama by participating in drama processes themselves – by embodying drama through engaging their thinking, emotions and physical selves. It is one powerful way of students learning in practical ways the Elements of Drama, the Principles of Story, the skills and processes of drama performance and production.

In Process Drama teachers and students use a range of drama learning and teaching strategies such as Role on the Wall, Hot seating, etc. They are tools, fundamental building blocks that help students understand how we can create, first of all, moments of drama. They then learn how to craft those moments into dramatic sentences and paragraphs and shape them into a devised performance involving scripting, rehearsing and sharing for an audience. You can find more about Drama Learning and Teaching Strategies in Learning Drama Teaching Drama (Pascoe and Pascoe 2014).

Devising using process drama is a more complex drama strategy. It is sometimes called Play Building.

In overview, a teacher can develop a term or semester long program involving:

You can find more about devising and play building in Building Plays Simple playbuilding techniques at work (Tarlington and Michaels 1995)

Bibliography

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

Tarlington, C. and W. Michaels (1995). Building Plays Simple playbuilding techniques at work. Markham, Ontario, Canada, Pembroke Publishers/Heinemann.