Zoom Performance

To ZOOM or Not to ZOOM? That is the question.

As the pandemic burst on us, as drama teachers we went on-line. We made compromises, adaptations, learnt how to use ZOOM or TEAMS or similar. We sorted on-line content. We created on-line content. We were often in survival mode. There were so many unanswered questions. Now we are at the point of considering or drama students performing in the new world. ZOOM is a necessity but provides a changed aesthetic for performing. Just as each form or style of drama and theatre has a set of conventions to learn and understand, so too does on-line performance. It is timely to consider some of those conventions and the possibilities of this form of performing drama. 

A ZOOM performance has a unique sense of occasion. When we go to a traditional proscenium arch theatre we have the experience of the space, the seats, the lighting and atmosphere of an audience. When we are sitting on our home sofa with the laptop perched on our knees and the dog snuggled against our thighs, the experience is different. We are an audience of one without the familiar wrap of others nearby. The actors are in a different space - and separated from each other. Their use of space and time is limited to the frame offered by their camera. In short, what we see and hear and even feel are different. Going to the ZOOM theatre is a different experience.

Looking at some examples of school and university based ZOOM performances, prompted some thoughts and interesting questions.

Frame: The frame offered by ZOOM shapes the way actors perform. In examples I have seen, the actors are shown in Two Shot – we see their head and shoulders facing the camera. They can move in that frame closer or further from the camera but generally stay in neutral  space. In some examples, though, there is a more dynamic sense of placement of the actors within the frame – the actors moving closer or further away. This can, however, affect the sound captured.

Framing within the frame: Basically in a ZOOM performance there is a choice of Speaker view where we see the speaker’s image large on screen; or,  Galley view  where speakers are shown side by side. The choices presented are limited. 

Physicalising Facial Expression: This sort of framing focuses on facial expression. It relies on the animation of eyes, cheeks, brows, lips. While there is the old adage about screen acting – less is more – subtle facial expression in this sort of ZOOM performance presented challenges to an audience. The unforgiving eye of the camera is up close and personal. 

Sitting energy: it is interesting that in the examples I have seen, the actors are seated to perform to their camera. This gave a different sense of spine and body. While on stage we might be sometimes seated, actors are more often moving and on their feet. Sitting provides a different body orientation. I am not saying that the actors’ bodies were slumped but there was a seated energy rather than a balls-of-the-feet energy. I wondered what would have happened if the actors had been standing (adjusting their cameras to be at eye line)? Would the energy have been different? I suspect it would be more and differently energised.

More visual interest happened when one of the actor got up for a seated position and moved away from the camera. 

Lighting: it’s obvious when you see it on screen, but better lighting shows more detail. Flatter lighting drains the performance.

Accent: as with all mediated performances, the quality of voice and the use of accent are impacted by the technology. Overlapping voices which we expect and need in drama can sometimes be lost by the latency effect (time delays in the technology) or simply the broadband capacity of the connection. 

Relationships: Drama lives on relationships. How does a ZOOM performance change the implied relationships and accompanying tensions?

Space: Actors in different houses are by definition not in a shared space. What is the implied shared space of the ZOOM performance?

Length of performance: performed plays have been getting shorter and shorter (remember when Five Act plays were de rigeur, the current fashion). How long can a ZOOM Performance sustain our interest, particularly when the format of static shots are used?

Making drama is a succession of choices. How will I vary voice, body, use of space in response to the shifts in intention or roles, relationships and tension? How will production choices of costume, lighting, design, sound interact with audience?

Another point to note is about the emotional impact of a ZOOM performance. We are distanced by technology in ways that we aren’t in the warm dark space of a theatre. Does the technology distance us even further? Do we share the emotional experience in the same ways as seeing it live? I know that I can cry and laugh in watching a movie, can I do that in watching a ZOOM performance?

There are other questions too. Is it different when we watch a “live” ZOOM performance from when we watch one that has been recorded and we watch in our own time. In other words does synchronous and asynchronous performance matter?

A final observation. When we teach students about Brechtian verfremdungseffekt (see, for example, "Brecht for beginners," ; Unwin, 2014) – one of the techniques we use is to place actors in a dialogue side by side facing directly to the audience, rather than creating a naturalistic relationship. In a funny way, the side by side Gallery view of ZOOM gives us that sense of distancing. The two characters speaking to each other are addressing us as audience directly implying that they are talking to each other. ZOOM might be a great way of teaching Brecht techniques. 

Where will the use of ZOOM technology take us in drama and theatre?

Of course, we all can’t wait to get back into our theatre spaces – whenever that is permitted. But there will be continuing interest in using ZOOM technologies for Drama. 

Interesting to see how the industry is adapting to changed circumstances. MTI have just announced a “new online, licensing, ticketing and content creation platform designed to help schools and community theatres celebrate  live theatre”. https://www.mtishows.com/streaming-an-mti-show. Not yet available in Australia, 

How will this play out in drama education?

Bibliography

. Brecht for beginners. In M. Thoss (Ed.), Brecht for beginners. (pp. 74-84).

Unwin, S. (2014). The Complete Brecht Toolkit. London: Nick Hern Books.

Teaching Drama For Redundancy

One of the sometimes overlooked roles of the teacher is to teach so that we are redundant. We are successful as teachers when our students no longer need us. There is often glib recognition of terms such as learning for life and independent learners. What that means in practice is often more difficult. 

I remember an inspirational teacher telling me that he teaches his drama students to run their own warm ups. He even has a roster for them to be the leader of the warm ups for each lesson. This has two advantages. Firstly, if the teacher is late to class or delayed, then students don’t sit around waiting but can get started. Secondly, in their lives beyond school, if they are working in the profession or taking part in a community event, they have the skills and processes to manage their own warm-ups (particularly, when there may not be someone to lead them). This left an impression on me and I have encouraged my drama education students to include this simple strategy in their own teaching.

Teaching for redundancy is also a timely reminder that we need to watch the temptation to take on the drama teacher as hero/heroine role. We all love a little affirmation as teachers. But, sometimes, the drama teacher as cult leader kicks in. As much as we as individual teachers have needs to be recognised, we need to keep in mind that it is not about me/us but about students. The glib phrase used is student centred learning. That isn’t about pandering to students wants and preferences; there is still a curriculum and learning to focus on. The measure of our success as teachers is that students are learning and that we make the difference in their learning. But what matters is the student learning nor our personal agenda. 

Each student does learn in her or his own way and we need to be mindful of overgeneralising about how students learn but some clear markers of teaching for redundancy do exist. Part of that process is recognising when students incorporate the learning without the teacher prompting. If our class has been working to understand fundamentals of improvisation – offer/accept/progress – when we see them using that process independently and without us side coaching, then we can see them taking the principles of improv into their own practice. Of course, there is a useful role for side coaching. But teaching for less side coaching is teaching for redundancy. Side coaching is not about us the teacher but about shifting the focus to the student in action.

What other ways can you teach drama for redundancy?

(For more on sidecoaching see https://spolin.com/?p=872)

Misconceptions about Drama Teaching

Misconceptions about Drama Teaching are interesting.

The misconceptions that many people have about drama and arts education are revealing.

A misconception is a view or opinion that is incorrect because it is based on faulty thinking or understanding

For example, there are misconceptions about drama itself. Drama is just entertainment. Drama is showing off.  Drama is faking emotions. 

Drama can be entertaining but it can often serve a wider purpose through telling stories that are enacted and embodied. 

There are misconceptions about drama in schools. Drama is just putting on scripted plays/musicals/Shakespeare. Drama is not a serious school subject/just something as a break from real learning. Drama is time filling/wasting/just games/pretending to be trees. Drama is touchy feeling/too emotional/too revealing. Drama is OK for the show off kids but not for all kids/drama is only for talented kids not average kids/. Drama is messy/noisy/disruptive/kids get too excited and they are high when they go to their next class. You also hear people say there’s nothing to learn in drama/there’s no writing/there’s no content. Drama is just pretending/a form of lying or dishonesty/unleashes undesirable thoughts and feelings/encourages rebellion/challenges authority/is subversive.

Drama teaching and learning is a legitimate field of study; what students learn in drama is specific knowledge and skills about using embodied forms of expression and communication to share stories. They also learn through drama about their  personal, social and cultural identities.

What are the misconceptions about drama in schools that you have come across?

How do we deal with these misconceptions?

I doubt that any one wilfully sets out to hold and pass on misconceptions. They often reflect gaps in a person’s experience or education or are the residue of a bad experience of school drama. Sometimes they reflect a lack of understanding of the purposes and scope of drama in schools. Sometimes, they reflect unspoken prejudices or cultural norms. Sometimes they are the fear of the unknown. Whatever the reason, misconceptions are learnt and as teachers our

role is to respond to that mis-learning and address it. 

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). In that light it is important to understand the factors that impact on how we learn to teach the Arts and Drama.

All of us, including teachers, bring to our lives and work, our own learning experiences in the Arts. Teachers learn about their job and craft from other teachers:

• as students themselves, they see what teachers do and how they teach; the school culture can both enable teaching in the Arts or it can powerfully de-motivate and limit it

• if a teacher’s own Arts education or the Arts teaching they observe is telling them one thing, they are likely to believe and do what they see and are familiar with. If they are told often that Drama is time wasting/time filling/just games/etc. then this  message is reinforced. Many teachers continue to teach the way they themselves were taught even when they didn’t particularly enjoy that schooling.

Tied closely to what teachers do are their underlying attitudes, values and dispositions and these have an impact on how the Arts are taught and learned. Attitudes and values are most often socially formed. It takes powerful and embodied personal experience to change entrenched points of view.

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.

Teaching the Arts often needs to be transformational learning for a teacher personally and professionally. It needs also be transformational for parents, educational leaders and policy makers and the wider community.

The antidote to misconceptions is being clear in the messages we communicate. The ways that we state purpose and scope needs to be well articulated. We need to check for understanding.  Or to put it another way, as  Stephen Covey (2004) reminds us: SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD.

Stephen R. Covey  (2004) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, New York, NY. Free Press.

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

Purposes of Arts and Drama Education

There is a moment in the film Boychoir (Dir. François Girard, 2014), playing on SBS Movie Chanel, when the character played by Dustin Hoffman in a discussion about the notoriously short singing life of a treble voice over sees, “we give them a life, not a vocation”.

While, some students who study drama in schools continue to have lives and careers in their art form, arts education in schools is not just pre-vocational, just as a successful comprehensive education is not just pre-vocational.

Drama draws from stories of all human experience. Through the lives of other presented in drama we can better understand our own lives and stories. Drama is a rich and powerful form of expression and communication found in some form in all societies and times.

Drama shows how people interact with each other. It is about people living together in society.

Drama passes the stories of our culture from one generation to another. Drama is part of the cultural DNA, the stories that shape our wider identities.

Another way of saying that is that through drama we learn about our personal, social and cultural identities. Drama in schools is much more than a “try out” for some future job. Yes, it does develop what are sometimes called life skills such as confidence and communication. It is more importantly about how we shape the ways we express ideas and communicate and share them with others. The particular skills of using our voices and bodies, stepping into the shows of others with empathy and understanding, and having a sense of place and time are valuable in their own right. They help us tell and share the stories of our lives.

This challenges the views held by many about the purpose of drama and arts education. It questions some of the prevalent misconceptions. Misconceptions are interesting because they tell us so much. This idea of misconceptions about Drama is developed in the next post. (And there is a need to also consider drama for students who are identified as gifted and talented and pre-vocational.

Support International Arts Education Week May 25-31 2020

Each year the last week of May is declared UNESCO International Arts Education Week.

It is an opportunity to advocate for arts education in all its diversity. 

The WAAE World Alliance for Arts Education (FaceBook) has again promoted International Arts Education Week with poster, events and webinars.  

Check out the following sent by UNESCO.

Watch this promotional video from UNESCO

Watch this Video Message from the UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture

Read this UNESCO Director-General's statement

Message from Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of International Arts Education Week 25 – 31 May 2020 

International Arts Education Week is an opportunity to promote learning with and through the arts to improve the quality and relevance of our education systems, nurture creative thinking and resilience. 

UNESCO – as the only United Nations agency with a core mandate encompassing culture, heritage, arts, creativity and education – is committed to joining forces with its Member States to step up cooperation, mobilizing civil society, educators and arts professionals to fully harness the potential of both culture and education.

On this day, I call upon everyone to join us in celebrating International Arts Education Week, so we can make this disaster into flowers, to offer to the  world. 

IDEA the International Drama/Theatre and Education Association is celebrating International Arts Education Week in collaboration with WAAE. You can find out more information on the IDEA web page (FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/IDEA.DRAMA and https://www.facebook.com/robin.pascoe.391) 

Ring the Bell for Arts Education

Sanja Krsmanovic Tasic from CEDEUM in Serbia amplified an idea from Tintti Karppinen from FIDEA in Finland challenged us all to ring the bell for arts education - to create a flash mob event of bell ringers. 

IDEA Webinar 1 May 30 – Reviving the Soul of the Seoul Agenda on Arts Education

 The other initiative of IDEA is to organise its first Webinar - as part of a larger strategy responding to the current Pandemic and the cancellation of the IDEA2020 Congress. 

You can still register for this webinar at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hMZdJH1AR_qDioGjpjkxoQ  

 IDEA is looking forward to further webinars to bring together the worldwide membership of drama educators. And there’s more

For example, The Canadian Network for Arts & Learning made A Call to Action on Arts Education

“The Canadian Network for Arts & Learning calls on governments, artists, educators, professional organizations, researchers, universities, communities, and all advocates of arts and learning to endorse the following principles to ensure that the arts are positioned to make an increased and sustainable contribution to learning both at school and throughout our communities.

To kick off International Arts Education Week, they are  officially launching an endorsement campaign for our Call to Action on Arts Education. COVID-19 has devastated the arts and learning sector, threatening to push the arts completely out of post-pandemic school programming while limiting the impact of the sector on broader community revival. Your endorsement will help our advocacy efforts as we seek to sustain and grow arts and learning in an emerging new normal. By adding your name, you will make a bold statement that arts and creativity are integral to the learning process, both at school and throughout life, and are fundamental to the development of the fully realized individual.”

The challenge for all of us as arts educators

In Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls (2019), there is a powerful reminder of the way that arts education is seen in popular culture (in the UK but shared by many similar Western societies like Australia). Charlie is somewhat reluctantly seduced into participating in a summer production of Romeo and Juliet being staged in his dull suburban community. Used to hanging out on the fringes of his blokey school crowd, Charlie is not a fan of the arts and like his boy mates, is quick to sardonically dismiss and deride drama (though he is secretly reading Dostoyevsky). Here is Charlie’s view about the arts in education.

If there was such a thing as a theatre bug, then I was immune. The problem wasn’t acting. I was happy to watch people pretending to be other people in films and TV that I sucked up indiscriminately. But all the elements that were supposed to make theatre unique and special – the proximity, the high emotion, the potential for disaster – made it seem mortifying to me. It was too much, too bare and artificial.

 Then there was the whiff of pretension, superiority and self-satisfaction that clung to all forms of ‘the arts’. To perform in a play or a band, to put your picture on display in the corridor, to publish your story or, God forbid, your poem in the school magazine, was to proclaim your uniqueness and self-belief and so to make yourself a target. Anything placed on a pedestal was likely to be knocked off, and it was simply common sense to stay quiet and keep any creative ambitions private.

Especially for a boy. The only acceptable talent was in sport, in which case it was fine to strut and boast, but my talents lay elsewhere, very possibly nowhere. The only thing that I was good at, drawing – doodling actually – was acceptable as long as it remained technical and free of self-expression. There was nothing of me in the still life of a peeled orange, the close-up of an eye with a window reflected in it, the planet-sized spaceship; no beauty, emotion or self-revelation, just draughtmanship. All other forms of expression – singing, dancing, writing, even reading or speaking a foreign language – were considered not just gay but also posh, and few things carried more stigma at Merton Grange than this combination. (p. 150-151)

It is useful to reflect on the explicit and underlying issues captured here. Peer pressure; deeply inculcated values of what is important; personal preference all play a part. But Charlie is no orphan in sharing these perceptions. 

Having spent a life time in drama and arts teacher education, I have often speculated about what holds back successful implementation of arts curriculum in schools.

Apart from the general levelling effect of the Tall Poppy Syndrome and the self-deprecating avoidance of ‘showing off’, we see in schools combinations of fear of failing, quests for perfectionism and misunderstandings about the purpose and nature of arts curriculum. Most telling are the misconceptions about arts education (only for talented and ’special’ people; ‘I don’t have a creative bone in my body’; not core curriculum; time filling; something for Friday afternoons after the real learning). I am reminded of our friend who asks again and again but what is there to learn about acting and singing? 

How do we change deeply-held perceptions and prejudices?

What are the misconceptions about The Arts in schools that you see?

The lack of understanding (ignorance even) from gaps in teachers’ own arts education, compound reluctance and reinforce resistance to implementing arts curriculum. What are the game changers that we need for arts education to be successfully taught and learnt by all young Australians? 

Nicholls, D. (2019). Sweet Sorrow. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

Teaching Drama teachers through stories

One of the powerful ways we have of learning about teaching drama is through the stories that are told about our field. From the first drama teacher education reader I compiled I included examples from young adult fiction that included descriptions of what happens in a drama workshop or class. Thanks to long-time friend John Foreman, a chapter from King of Shadows (Cooper, 1999) provides a useful description of a drama workshop in a time slip story that links the contemporary Shakespeare Globe Southbank with Shakespeare’s time and theatre. Earlier this year we gave John a copy of Sweet Sorrow (Nicholls, 2019) which features the reluctant participation of Charlie in a summer production of Romeo and Juliet as he pursues a romantic interest in a girl. What’s interesting is the tongue in cheek and jaded adolescent view of drama workshop activities that somehow seduce Charlie into participating in drama when he has scoffed at it. As insiders in the drama education bubble, it is useful to be reminded of the ways that our world is viewed by outsider/insiders. In the chapter called The Name Game Charlie recounts:

We played Catchy-Come-Catch and the Parrot Game. We played Follow My Nose and Scuttlefish and Fruit Bowl. We played Anyone Who? And Orange Orang-utan and Zip, Zap, Zop and Keeper of the Keys, then Chase the Chain and Panic Attack, That’s Not My Hat and Hello Little Doggy and while the others laughed and jerked and threw themselves around, I strived for an air of world-weary detachment, like the older brother at a children’s party.…

But it’s hard to remain cool through a game of Yes, No, Banana and all too soon we were shaking it out again, shake, shake, shake, and then getting into pairs and pretending to be mirrors. (p. 77)

Academic descriptions of drama workshops are mostly procedural. Stories, on the other hand, allow us to imagine possible versions of ourselves and are powerful role modelling. 

We are always looking for more examples of shared stories of drama teaching and learning.

What are your favourite stories about drama workshop experiences?

We would love to hear them when you share them.

Cooper, S. (1999). King of Shadows. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books.

Nicholls, D. (2019). Sweet Sorrow. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

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Drama Tuesday - The words that we use to teach drama are important.

The drama teacher says to her students, lets play a drama game!

The simple term drama game carries with it meaning.

On the one hand, a word like game implies a sense of fun and possibility. Games are playful and entertaining. Games also have rules and structures that help us extend learning beyond this particular minute into the future, because once you’ve played the game you can play it again and extend and explore possibilities.

But you can also, depending on your context and culture, see games as frivolous, time filling and time wasting. Some see games as the opposite of learning - we go out from the classroom to play time while in class we study and focus on what’s important. Also, games can be seen as competitive, pitting player against player in order to win, to come out on top.

The people who advocate for the term drama games often do so because it encourages a sense of engagement, focus and commitment. 

Are there useful alternatives? 

I prefer to use terms like drama activities or drama exercise.  Or if needing to use the term drama game to explain and qualify how I use it. 

What this short thought reminds us is that the language we use matters. Language defines thinking and concepts. Rather than simply adopting accepted usage, we need to think purposefully about what we say and do as drama teachers.

Drama Tuesday - Williams’s drama gift

Gifting the emotions 

Our grandson, William, shared with us his idea for a drama activity. 

He brings his hands together to cradle an imagined gift. 

I am giving you an emotion he says solemnly as he hands the imagined gift to us. It is an emotion.You must guess the emotion I am giving you and then show it to me in your face and body.

After his gift he asks us to return the gift to him with our own emotion gift.

From his earliest days his parents had played the game look happy… look sad… look cross…  

William was familiar with how we shaped facial expression, bodies, sounds and even words to show emotions. He now is extending that activity which is a simple start to showing and sharing role and situation through our bodies. What is important is that he is asking us to create an imagined but not nominated emotion.

And so the game continues. Sometimes endlessly. (We sometimes overlook how important repetition is to young learners.)

The opportunity to model and then to encourage exploration and innovation is important in drama teaching and learning.

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Drama Tuesday - COVID19