Winter2005 cover_May05 cover 21/05/2013 12:59 Page 1
The Journal of National Drama Volume 13 No 1 Winter 2005 DONE FORUMrama MANY VOICES
Drama for creativity and learning The cocoa smell programme Drama and language teaching Learning through theatre texts The Short Electra Of Mice and Men Winter2005 cover_May05 cover 21/05/2013 12:59 Page 2
Cover design Neil Baird. Original photograph Steven Beaumont.
Drama Magazine is the journal of National Drama The Journal of National Drama Volume 13 No 1 Winter 2005 DONE FORUMrama MANY VOICES Drama one forum many voices
Drama enables Drama educators and practitioners nationally and internationally to share theory and practice, debate key issues, publish research, engage in critical analysis and express personal opinions
Drama is committed to the promotion, support and development of new writers
Drama for creativity and learning Drama The cocoa smell programme is an equal opportunities publication Drama and language teaching Learning through theatre texts in line with National Drama policy The Short Electra Of Mice and Men
Editor Marie Jeanne McNaughton Design and production Dokumenta 0845 458 0058 Editorial Board Ruth Barr, John Coventon, Kate Fleming, Chris Lawrence and Jan Macdonald. Editorial Marie Jeanne McNaughton University of Strathclyde Faculty of Education, Southbrae Drive, Glasgow, G13 1PP United Kingdom. Telephone: 0141 950 3743 EMail: [email protected] Advertising contact Christine Cutting, ND Administrator The Drama Magazine website contains news EMail: [email protected] items, publications, reviews and resources. You can access the pages for free, download information, make comments, and link to other related internet sites. The views expressed in Drama are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent ND policy. © all material in Drama may be photocopied for personal, www.dramamagazine.co.uk education and training purposes. Please credit Drama. Published in Spring and Autumn each year. The National Drama website is at See inside back cover for detailed information about copy dates, www.nationaldrama.co.uk writing for Drama and advertising.
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Winter 2005 Editorial
Welcome to the latest edition of Drama. Two themes run through this issue: creativity and the European InsideDrama perspective. Within education there is a real and increasing interest in creativity and how it relates to processes in learning. Independent and government backed research has recommended that the curricu- lum should enable children to be open-minded and flexible and to think creatively and critically. At the same time, we are being encouraged to look beyond our own borders and to share educa- tional ideas and principles with our European neighbours. Drama can play a crucial role in both of these areas. In November 2005 in Norwich, Patrice Baldwin, the chair of National Drama, launched a major school-based drama research project, entitled 24 Drama for Learning and Creativity (D4LC), with a one-day conference. More than sixty teachers from Norfolk County Council attended the day. 2 Interview Joe Winston’s inspirational keynote speech, which set the tone for the Helen Nicholson talks to Joe Winston conference, is reproduced in full, here. It was good to see so many teach- ers from the primary, secondary and special education sectors being so 5 Creativity and Learning in Drama keen to be involved in using drama as part of their on-going classroom Joe Winston’s keynote speech to the ‘Drama for work. A montage of conference images appears on pages 24 and 25. Learning and Creativity’ Conference In Killing Two Birds with One Stone, Dorothy Heathcote describes a one-day workshop in which she helped teachers to consider learning 13 The Cocoa Smell Programme through texts: in this case, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is always a pleasure Drama and Social Exclusion in Primary Schools and a privilege to be able to publish for Drama readers the work of Persephone Sextou someone who has provided, over many years, concrete examples of how 19 Drama in Language Teaching a creative teacher can inspire and encourage creative responses in her Alicja Galaska and Anna Musielak from the students. In A Short Electra, John Doona writes of an interesting and FUTURE language centre in Poland exciting education initiative, a key aspect of which is to allow the young people involved to work with creative professionals. These can provide 24 Drama for Learning and Creativity positive, real-life role models for the young people with whom they Workshops from the conference . . . are working. Readers might find it interesting to look at Drama from the perspec- 26 C’est la Vie tive of other Europeans. In our Summer 2004 issue, Steven Clark, Using Drama to enhance confidence in language Advisory Teacher in Drama at the Rectorat de Rouen issued an invitation learning. Alison Warren to teachers to take part in a drama-based French school exchange. Ali Warren and her year 10 students took up the offer and in C’est La Vie, she 29 Killing two birds with one stone describes their very successful trip. If the article inspires you to join them Dorothy Heathcote considers learning through on their next visit, Ali would be more than delighted to hear from you. theatre texts The article by Anna Musielak and Alicja Galask from the Education Centre FUTURE in Poland emphasises the links between drama and 36 The Short Electra language learning. They explain some of the techniques they employ in John Doona and the Tameside Arts Education their work and provide us with the recipe for the perfect language lesson Initiative project which includes ‘drama – as much as possible’. Finally, in her article The Cocoa Smell Programme, Persephone Sextou 41 Of Mice and Men from Greece, describes and analyses how drama was a powerful tool for Theatre review and workshop notes of Martin helping children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds to explore their McNaughton’s production Ruth Barr social values and attitudes in a creative way. So in the end, we come back to the beginning. 45 Book reviews Marie Jeanne McNaughton
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Helen Nicholson and Joe Winston discuss life, drama and everything
Helen: So, Joe, how did you become also had a huge interest in dance teacher at Bristol University in 1980 interested in drama education? and the performing arts in general. I was taught by David Hornbrook. In Devon we had an excellent dance David was a very good practitioner, Joe: Drama was always something I advisor from whom I learned a great and also far more eclectic as a loved as a child but I hardly ever had deal. My son is now a professional teacher than some people might a chance to do any at school. I dancer and I continue to be interest- imagine, and through his courses I couldn’t specialise in it at A Level ed in physical approaches to drama was introduced to the work of drama but at university I was very active in work and in fostering links between educationalists such as Slade, Way, drama societies. Before my initial dance, drama and music in my own Heathcote and Bolton. I think I’ve teacher training I was lucky to have practice. spent a lot of my career trying to find some experience in a progressive ways to integrate student-centred London school where improvisatory Helen: It is interesting how many and subject-centred approaches to drama had a very high profile and I changes there have been in drama drama to get over the divisions I’d was bowled over by the quality of education. I was always really inter- experienced as a child, and these work the children produced and the ested in drama when I was at school, thinkers all helped me to begin that sheer exuberance of their involve- although I think I would be pretty journey. ment. I then trained as a primary horrified now by the kind of things I teacher and soon moved to Devon, was asked to do. I enjoyed every- What do you think has changed most in where there was a very active associ- thing to do with drama – I cringe, drama education since you started ation for primary and secondary but in the sixties in my primary teaching? teachers interested in drama and a school we did music and movement very strong advisory team. This was in our vests and pants and I even Joe: Well, first and foremost, I think in the early 1980s. I was quickly liked that. There was a huge differ- that drama in schools has grown and introduced to the work of Dorothy ence between this kind of ‘free’ self- there is a wealth of excellent practice Heathcote, Gavin Bolton and Cecily expression and the rather more out there. And it is more eclectic, I O’Neill and, well, I never looked constrained ‘speech and drama’ I was feel. There might still be disagree- back! I also loved working on per- also offered later, but in those days ments about curricula, about priori- formances with children and became there was not much in between pro- ties, about the political role of drama one of the directors of Exeter Youth gressive and traditional approaches in schools but the principles of par- Theatre. I ought to mention that I to learning. When I trained as a ticipatory pedagogy, of using drama
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Interview
as a powerful means for exploring others, towards their environment – they might become. Drama in this values, something that we have and an ability to see the world from sense can be liberating. It encourages inherited from the drama in educa- perspectives other than their own. children to act and therefore think tion tradition, is flourishing within Together with this, children need to differently even if only for a small schools and in other sites of learn- develop a strong but fluid sense of period of time. This playful interro- ing. And alongside this I see the cur- identity – a sense that they as indi- gation of the values through which rent interest in creativity as very viduals belong and have value but they and others try to live their lives encouraging for those drama teach- within different social groups and in can, I believe, play a crucial role in ers who thrill when they see their different ways. This isn’t easy for helping children develop as thinking, students performing, who under- schools but the arts in general, and feeling and moral human beings. stand the importance that dramatic drama in particular, ought to be performance has in providing their recognised as having a key role to Why are you interested in research? students with a means of creating play in this construction of shared culture, of being seen and heard. and shifting cultural identities. Helen: When I started working in the university sector I wanted to Helen: I think you are right that, as reflect on the work I had been doing drama teachers, we have a responsi- We live in a pluralistic society as a teacher. I find research very cre- bility to introduce young people to a ative. In many ways the processes of range of cultural practices and to with a plurality of values and research and drama are similar; both ways of working, encourage them to that is something I am happy involve experimentation, taking risks, question situations from different to celebrate. But I believe we asking questions, listening to others, perspectives. Is this what relates sharing ideas, playing with theories drama to moral education? Your can and must find values that and concepts. Both invite us to look research in this area has had a we share in common and that at the world differently. bell hooks significant impact on both primary once commented that reading theory education and moral education. these need to be recognised is linked to ‘processes of self-recov- and celebrated as much as we ery, of collective liberation’, and I Why do you think these two aspects of recognise and celebrate our think that the creative and emotional learning complement each other so well? aspects of research are often rather differences. overlooked. Research is sometimes Joe: I think the two do complement tough – and writing is often painful one another, you’re right. All educa- – so there has to be an important tion has a moral agenda and all art In drama we tell stories – all reason to do it, or no-one would is value laden. We live in a pluralistic kinds of stories from all kinds of bother. My MA and PhD students at society with a plurality of values places and they embody all kinds of Royal Holloway have taught me a lot and that is something I am happy to values that we can explore safely and about the value of research to teach- celebrate. But I believe we can and playfully. In drama we also consider ers and applied theatre practitioners must find values that we share in how values shape action–how people who want to reflect on their experi- common and that these need to be struggle to find ways to live good ences and ask new questions. I am recognised and celebrated as much lives when their rules and habits hoping that the journal Research in as we recognise and celebrate our become confused or contradictory. Drama Education will continue to differences. Good primary schools And in drama we play with identity. encourage creative research and have always seen personal, social We take on new and different roles invite new writers to contribute to and moral issues as fundamental to and play with new and different debates in our field. their educational mission. Many ways of thinking and acting. A sense continue to understand this in terms of identity may be necessary for us to Joe: I think it’s important that teach- of disciplining their children into flourish as human beings but it can ers have the opportunity to move codes of behaviour and good habits also be tyrannical at times. If a child into the research community. I found in order to provide a firm foundation is identified as having special needs, it hugely rewarding when, after for the rockier road of adolescence. or as being a model of prim and several years submerged in the day But in open societies such as ours proper behaviour, or as being the to day practicalities of teaching, I codes and habits are not enough. class clown, whether this child decided I was ready for the challenge Schools need to foster in children a realises it or not, these identities can of a part-time M.Ed. at Exeter disposition of mindfulness – towards close down the possibilities of who University. Its focus was on teachers
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Interview
as researchers and introduced partic- rights, creativity. What bothered me Curriculum at its most literal. In rela- ipants to different paradigms, is that much of the rhetoric sur- tion to drama, this has some of the approaches and ways of thinking rounding this kind of work makes qualities of learning through drama about research that I find just as huge claims for its efficacy, using advocated in the 1970s, but there is relevant today, almost twenty years words like ‘transformation’ and much more emphasis on how the later. The course presented research ‘empowerment’. I have seen a lot artistic and aesthetic qualities of as an art as much as a science, of stunning practice that does really drama and performance might be problematising knowledge and affect people’s lives, but this lan- integrated with different areas of promoting narrative approaches to guage does tend to make it all sound knowledge. When teachers and cre- theorising practice. It left me with rather miraculous and I am not sure ative partners work together, there an idea of research as something that this way of thinking is very can be a real sharing of expertise in teachers should do themselves, to helpful either practically or political- ways which, at best, really support understand their own practice better. ly. I am particularly interested in how and inspire children. I am interested This idea relates research closely to change happens gradually, and what in how current debates in creativity the improvement of practice, not happens when we work in drama might be integrated into citizenship through measurement and standard- over a sustained period of time. I feel education and I am just about to isation but through intelligent terribly inadequate reading about begin a project where children in reflection and rigorous inquiry. practice where nothing seems to go South Africa share their dramatic Nowadays when teachers have to wrong, and everyone is changed as a responses to their reading with face dictat after dictat and respond to result. I think that we often learn children in Slough. I think there is mind-numbing initiative after mind- most from situations which are a bit an urgent need to recognise that we numbing initiative, I believe research of a struggle so I have tried to reflect live in diasporic communities, and can become a way for them to set on situations where I’ve stuffed up as that many children have emotional their own agendas and recapture a well as giving examples of good bonds with people in different places sense of themselves as autonomous practice. in the world. I have learnt a lot from and creative professionals. Certainly working with children with diverse in our MA course in Drama and Joe: So, what are your particular cultural backgrounds, and I think Theatre Education at Warwick, this research interests at the moment? that one of the important challenges is key to our vision of the purpose for the future is to find creative ways of research – as something intellec- Helen: I have been working with to acknowledge global citizenship in tually invigorating and professionally teachers and artists who are involved our work. renewing. in Creative Partnerships projects who want to develop some research of How do you hope that drama will You teach on an MA course in applied their own. I think it’s really impor- develop in the future? drama, and have a new book just pub- tant that teachers and artists working lished. What was your particular ‘take’ together are given the opportunity to Joe: As a culturally inclusive practice, on applied drama and why did you feel reflect on their practice and ask one that brings people together, the book was needed? themselves questions about their helps them build community and own teaching and their own creative celebrate their common humanity. Helen: I wanted to write the book practice. I work a lot in Slough, And be moved – sometimes to on Applied Drama as it seemed to which has a very successful Creative laughter, sometimes to tears, always me that there was a lot of really Partnerships programme and a to think. interesting drama happening in vibrant community arts scene. many different contexts and settings. Although neither John Betjeman nor Helen: Nicely put. We’re all with you Although I still work a lot in schools, Ricky Gervais have done Slough any on that. I have also worked as either a practi- favours, it is a community that really tioner or researcher with different engages with issues of inclusivity communities – with the elderly, with and diversity in education and the Helen Nicholson is Senior Lecturer in Drama refugees, the homeless and with arts. It’s interesting how many of the and Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London. With Joe Winston, she has recently taken young people with severe learning or primary schools are using the arts to over from John Somers as co-editor of Reasearch physical disabilities, for example. I re-integrate the curriculum and to in Drama Education. wanted to reflect on some of the ‘big question some of the more linear Biographical details for Joe Winston can be found concepts’ in applied drama, such as approaches to learning that have on page 11. citizenship, community, human characterised the National
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Joe Winston
Creativity and learning in Drama
On October 21st 2005 Norfolk County Council in conjunction with National Drama held a one day conference for local teachers entitled ‘Drama for Learning and Creativity’. Joe Winston’s keynote speech was deemed to be both thought-provoking and inspirational. Here we reproduce it for Drama readers.
ver the last three years I have and rewrites the lyrics of the songs someone like you in my school!’ been involved in head of a different rock giant to fit the Creativity has become one of Oteacher training in theme. The first year it was Beowulf those educational buzz words. As Warwickshire with my friend and to the tunes of the Beatles, with such it has become overused and, in colleague, Miles Tandy. It has taken favourites about Grendel and his some cases, relatively meaningless. the form of a day of drama / TIE in mother including ‘I want to gnaw For Neil – and I suspect for a few which we revisit the same fictional your hand’ and ‘She’ll eat you, yeah, non-fictional primary teachers as primary school each year and find a yeah, yeah.’ The following year we well – it has come to mean anything new problem for the head that had the Fall of Troy to the songs of that isn’t planned like the literacy or always centres around the same, Elvis Presley (so ‘Wooden Heart’ numeracy hour, anything that little difficult member of staff called Neil. became ‘Wooden Horse’ – ‘Step bit free. One thing that everyone is One year Neil is being particularly inside for a ride/ You can hide inside in agreement with, however, is that difficult with the very energetic and my tum’ etc). And who can ever for- creativity is a good thing. Few people efficient literacy co-ordinator, anoth- get the epic ‘Killer Queen’, the story would blanch at being called creative er year he is being very resistant to of Boudicca, with its classic version and, in fact, there is quite a bit of planning structured support for a of the ‘Boudicean Rhapsody’: pop neurology around these days to statemented child with a conscien- ‘Boudicea, Boudicea, won’t you let help you become more so. The influ- tious classroom assistant, and so it that Roman go …’ ential and esteemed writer, Mihaly goes on. And one of the things that What surprised me was that no- Csikszentmihaly (1996), for example, Neil constantly bemoans is that one on any of the training days ever devotes a whole chapter to enhanc- there is too much planning these challenged Neil. No-one ever asked ing personal creativity, urging his days and not enough creativity. him how these endless musicals, readers to become more creative I have had a lot of fun playing irrespective of whether the children with such fatuous pieces of advice Neil. What he will devote his time to and parents loved them or not, were as: ‘try to be surprised by something – and lots of it – is the annual school supposed to be teaching the children every day’; ‘try to surprise at least musical that is always conceived, to be creative. In fact at the end of one person every day’ and – my written and directed by himself and one training day a head approached favourite, if it can be applied to a performed by the children in Y6. me and actually offered me a job sexy bottom – ‘When something Each year he takes a historical topic with the words ‘I could just do with strikes a spark of interest, follow it!’
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Features Keynote
The first myth we need to So fundamental to any positive And here, I suggest, we meet our consider is whether creativity is stance I take towards creativity is my next myth; that the Arts should have answer to the questions: why am I no privileged position in the teach- always per se and of necessity for it, in what form and for what ing of creativity. This may at first a good thing. We may uncriti- purposes? seem reasonable enough. To suggest The business world is very clear that scientists or historians are inca- cally assume that a creative about this; creativity equals entrepre- pable of creativity as defined in All teacher is a good teacher neurship. Creative workers and Our Futures – imaginative activity but does the same thing apply creative managers can create wealth. fashioned so as to produce outcomes Such an uncritical support for capi- that are original and of value - is to an accountant? talist economic objectives underpins clearly absurd. However, the histori- official guidance on creativity cal meanings surrounding the evolu- published by, for example, the tion of the concept of creativity were These sceptical comments are Qualifications and Curriculum very specifically embedded within not intended as an attack on creativ- Authority. the arts. As Raymond Williams ity as an aim for either teachers or (1976) informs us, until the students but simply to indicate that ‘Creativity can promote economic devel- Renaissance, the verb ‘to create’ was there are a number of myths or opment through promoting an entrepre- limited to the idea of God’s creation uncritiqued assumptions associated neurial culture. Governments around itself. In the sixteenth century, how- with its current usage that I feel need the world have recognized that creativi- ever, the verb began to be applied to to be addressed. In this article I ty is essential to economic competitive- creations of the human imagination, would like to attempt such a critique ness and a high value is placed on in particular, the work of poets. The before considering some significant intellectual capital. Curricula and idea took hold that, in making reasons why drama and role play in teaching methods are being developed to human kind in his image, God had the classroom should be seen as fun- meet this goal.’ (QCA, 2003) endowed it with his own urge to damental to the development of create. The term creative itself was children’s creativity; and to look at not, in fact, coined until the eigh- some specific ways in which the cul- Whether this is the case or not, it is teenth century and was still then tural activity of making drama can be unlikely to explain the groundswell specifically related to the arts. ‘High seen to give expression to it. of interest in creativity that has risen is our calling, friend, Creative Art’ as among teachers over the last eight Wordsworth felt able to write to his Some myths surrounding the years, which Anna Craft sees as a friend, the painter, Haydon. This discourse of creativity reaction to the pressures felt from close alliance between the arts, the above, as typified by experiences of imagination and being creative per- The first myth we need to consider is Ofsted. Embracing the agenda for sisted well into the twentieth century whether creativity is always per se creativity has, she suggests, offered when the term creativity first came and of necessity a good thing. We teachers the chance to reclaim lost into usage and first began to be may uncritically assume that a parts of their professional lives. applied to fields other than the arts. creative teacher is a good teacher (Craft, 2000) It is interesting to note Indeed, much of the influential but does the same thing apply to an that, if the government’s response to writings of David Bohm (1996) on accountant? Would I prefer a politi- the NACCCE report All Our Futures creativity are concerned with re- cian to be creative with the truth or was muted, bodies such as the interpreting scientific inquiry as a more conventional with it? Even National Union of Teachers warmly process much closer to the work of some types of teaching may benefit embraced it, publishing an eight artists than was hitherto culturally from being more straightforward and page summary of its proposals for all assumed. efficient rather than creative (my of its members. A cynic might see in It is hardly surprising, then, daughter’s driving lessons, for exam- the subsequent work of the QCA an that an assumed association between ple!) In a more serious vein, we attempt to gain control of the cre- the arts and creativity should be should pause to consider Jonothan ativity agenda lest it lead to a slack- culturally persistent. Indeed, what Neelands’ words about the 9/11 ter- ening of emphasis on standards and we are faced with in a definition of rorist outrage as ‘brilliantly, if terribly, – heaven forbid – a renaissance of creativity that actively disassociates imaginative’ (Neelands, 2002) before the progressive teaching methods of itself from the arts is, in effect, a blindly equating the creative imagi- the sixties, when the arts were seen redefinition that has decontextu- nation with any sense of goodness. as central to children’s flourishing. alised certain aspects such as
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Keynote Features
innovation and imagination from the Neil, who will have children paint that define this development in ways arts in order to apply them to a cardboard boxes yellow and put that emphasise group processes and broader range of human activity. It is them over their heads for a perform- dialogical experience as well as not without reason, therefore, that ance of ‘Follow the Yellow Brick individual endeavour. What such many teachers who have a particular Road’ and call it a creative experi- an approach to creativity does is interest in the arts feel that there is ence. (I am grateful to Sir Ken re-connect us with those aspects of little to distinguish what they have Robinson for this anecdote which, linguistic and cultural activity which long understood as ‘good practice’ unfortunately, is not apocryphal.) emphasise creativity as a common, from what is currently being touted The idea that any old arts activity human, expressive need as well as a as ‘creative teaching’. The production will foster creative development is characteristic of exceptional individ- and appreciation of original works of evidently just another myth. uals who need specific environments the imagination have understandably There are two further myths that in which their imaginations can not been seen as priorities in the I would like to consider and they are flourish. maths or history classroom, whereas related one to the other: that creativ- they have always been desired out- ity is primarily located within indi- Language, creativity and comes in the drama or music class. viduals and that its development is role play As a result, conscientious teachers of principally a psychological process. the arts are used to grappling with My intention here is not to deny the Recent research into creativity and questions related to teaching significance of psychological common talk by Ronald Carter children ways of giving shape to processes in any form of learning, (2004) is of particular significance to their imaginative ideas and what it nor even to refute the current ortho- those of us who use drama and role might mean to be original within the doxy of left brain/right brain think- play as integral parts of our teaching structures of their disciplines. The ing, where the left hemisphere is as it indicates just how fundamental application of creativity to the history understood chiefly to control the- creativity is to our everyday dis- classroom, on the other hand, neces- more verbal, logical and analytical course. Carter provides a summary sitates a re-contextualisation of parts of our activity and the right of approaches into researching principles deemed ‘creative’ through hemisphere the more artistic, creativity and concludes that it ‘ a process that is of necessity more emotional and non-verbal aspects. cannot be decontextualised or stud- convoluted. Take these examples What I would strongly question is ied in a disciplinary vacuum or seen drawn from the QCA guidance on the general response to this ortho- as an exclusively mental process. teaching strategies to promote doxy which has not led to any deep- Creativity is a social, cultural and pupils’ creativity in history. er appreciation of the importance of environmental phenomenon as well • helping pupils make connections subjects such as drama and dance, as a psychological process.’ (p.48) with their personal experiences; whose very processes are likely to • changing direction to inject new engage us in both verbal and non- energy or ideas into pupils’ work; verbal reasoning, analytical and • helping pupils to find their own emotional responses. Rather has it problems or challenges by left an arid curriculum relatively What I would strongly question suggesting ‘what if ..?’ intact whilst sprinkling it with the is the general response to this • making clear to pupils that there odd drink of water and recurring is no right or wrong answer. bouts of brain gym, which suppos- orthodoxy which has not led edly help re-connect the two sides of to any deeper appreciation of Such strategies are long established the brain for two minutes, no matter in drama teaching. This is not to say how cripplingly dull the fifty-eight the importance of subjects that subjects such as history will not minute experiences are in between. such as drama and dance, benefit from them, simply to reaffirm There is a danger that, in over- whose very processes are likely that, for cultural reasons, they are emphasising the importance of psy- already part and parcel of an existing chology, those social, cultural and to engage us in both verbal tradition of good teaching in the arts. environmental factors that foster and non-verbal reasoning, So is my argument that all arts creative development become side- lessons will per se teach children to lined or ignored. And there is suffi- analytical and emotional be creative? Of course not; we can- cient research on creativity to responses. not ignore the reality of bad teaching indicate the key significance of these in the arts, of real teachers not unlike very factors for its development; and
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Features Keynote
Jokes, puns and metaphors litter the Another similar way in which we centred, is more typical of how the common parlance of ordinary people create these affective symmetries is concept is conceived of in non-liter- and much of our talk takes the form through pattern re-forming, a more ate, non-western cultures. Carter’s of games, fictions, fantasies and vari- overtly creative use of language, example here is Balinese musical ous forms of untruth. Carter points characterised by deliberate depar- improvisation, where the point of the out that our most common uses of tures from the expected, which we music is not to create a new product language are more fundamentally enjoy precisely because we recognise but to stick close to a structure and determined by these needs than by them as such and are thus included improvise closely around and within any others; and that, indeed, lan- in the joke. An example that Carter it. In this eastern sense of the word, guage probably developed in evolu- uses here is a sign outside a camping creativity refashions something that tionary terms as a response to these store which reads: ‘Now is the dis- exists rather than fashions something deep-seated, human needs rather count on our winter tents.’ Such new. In doing so, it celebrates our than for the more utilitarian purpos- uses of language create a sense of human capacity to co-operate. The es of social organization. cultural community – we only laugh musicians form for a short period an The success of the TV series The because we recognise the cultural idealized image of social interaction Office illustrates this theory quite basis of the pun. Both pattern form- – of what life feels like at its best for nicely. Rather than use language to ing and pattern re-forming processes us as social, spiritual, creative crea- organize and run an efficient busi- therefore have dialogic and social tures. This same purpose is evident in ness, David Brent spends his day functions and are used to create an our creative uses of language in fantasising that he is a much loved affective sense of togetherness in everyday discourse and reminds us comedian, telling awful jokes, playing which we recognise our shared clev- that identities are constantly being status games with his subordinates, erness and common culture. In this created and renewed through cre- and inventing all manner of fictions way, both processes can be seen ative acts. for his bosses. In all of this he reveals to help fashion a shared sense of Drama, of course, more than any himself as a deeply unpleasant indi- identity. other subject in the curriculum, is vidual yet, as we laugh at him, we To see creativity embedded in our founded upon creative language play. cannot help but empathise with him, everyday talk, as something process But what Carter’s research suggests perhaps, in recognition that his social oriented rather than product is that the most fundamental pur- needs as revealed through his use of pose of dramatic role play in the language are only a distorted version classroom should not be understood of our own. in utilitarian terms, preparing chil- If our fundamental need for lan- dren for the world of work, but as guage is essentially a playful one it is creative in the sense that it will pro- reflected in our first experiences of vide space for children’s language to language as babies. Parents are far thrive playfully and socially, pattern more likely to recite rhymes such as forming and re-forming, building Dibble dibble dumpling my son John to identity and celebrating community. their babies than the Ten This creative language play can make Commandments. And it turns out children feel good and enable them that Dibble dibble dumpling is cleverer to flourish and feel happy in school and more creative than we might because, by enabling it to happen, ever have imagined. It is, in fact, an teachers will be encouraging children example of something fundamentally to engage in the kind of talk that creative in our common talk, what they, as humans, are fundamentally Carter describes as ‘pattern forming’ programmed to enjoy and that much – a way in which we use language to of school life seems fundamentally create symmetries of feeling, affec- programmed to exclude. tive convergence, a sense of togeth- erness, a sympathy of response. We Making drama and being will often use repetition, even choric creative techniques to do this (as does Sybil Fawlty on the phone to her friend; ‘I ‘My own words take me by surprise and know … Yes I know ... Oooh I teach me what I think ‘ Merlau Ponty know!’) (Pickering 2004, p25)
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Keynote Features
The emphasis in the previous section creative than one of Keats’ sonnets has been on understanding creativity simply because it was less conven- as an everyday, discursive process. tional. It is precisely in a struggle However, as educators, we cannot with convention that an artist’s ignore the more common, western creativity is likely to gain expression. understanding of creativity as prod- In other words, children cannot be uct centred, concerned with making creative in drama or poetry or any art something. In this sense, drama is form by being asked to express more than a process and not solely themselves without being introduced about fictional role play. It is about to forms through which they can do expression, communication and so. They must have some mastery of making culture. Drama has a set of conventions before they can mean- languages other than speech – of ingfully be expected to use them space, of objects, of gesture, of image innovatively. – that need to be mastered by chil- This suggests that, as teachers, dren if they are to feel the thrill of we need to teach students how to using it as a powerful cultural form make drama in a variety of ways so that can enable them to be seen and that they can make informed choices listened to. And for this they need to vis-à-vis the form they wish to give learn what these languages or dra- to their ideas. We might always look matic conventions are, and how they out for examples of when students can be used effectively. To analyse do something new or different and how and whether our students are encourage discussion on how it is being creative when they make different and what the effect is. And drama – creative in the sense as we should encourage students to defined in All Our Futures (1999) – move away from first ideas, to I am proposing that we consider a explore different possibilities before series of tensions between mutually ing convention. She suggests two making decisions. dependent qualities that underpin implications for classroom practice to the act of artistic creation. This type foster the imagination: From play into form of analysis is, I think, important in ‘teachers stimulating and encourag- order to avoid the temptation of ing non-conventionality, whilst also Being playful is not the same as applying the definition of creativity encouraging children to understand the being creative but you cannot be cre- too broadly to our teaching. To con- nature of conventions so that when they ative without playing with possibili- flate good practice with creative are being original in their own or wider ties. In being asked to bring form to practice, a tendency prevalent in the terms, they can identify this.’ (p.5) an idea, children will often need time literature of creativity, serves rather However, the relationship to play with possibilities. This is par- to obfuscate rather than illuminate between convention and originality ticularly true when they are being what teaching for creativity actually is surely subtler than these quotes introduced to new forms of expres- consists of. suggest. Our society, driven by the sion. Hutt (in Duffy, 1998) proposes values of mass consumption, prizes that there are two forms of play - Convention and Innovation novelty very highly. Consequently, epistemic and ludic play. In epistemic being described as ‘conventional’ has play children investigate possibilities Anna Craft suggests ‘possibility negative overtones, of being boring in new materials and engage in ludic thinking’ as being at the heart of and predictable. But conventions are play when they know what the creativity and this kind of thinking a necessary part of any cultural form, material can do and practise making as driven by the imagination. All Our including drama, just as words and use of it. Futures defines imaginative activity grammar are a necessary part of lan- A useful way of enabling children as ‘the process of generating some- guage. They are enabling as they to shape their play creatively into thing original: providing an alterna- provide the structures through which form is to provide focus by limiting tive to the expected, the we can communicate meaning. It their choices. This is a principle very conventional or the routine’ and would be nonsensical to describe a evident in poetry, where different Craft, too, stresses the quality of poem that made use of a freeflow poetic conventions make different going beyond the obvious, of break- stream of consciousness as more formal demands of the poet.
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Features Keynote
The challenges that boundary the Security and risk taking Children need to have a clear under- play – that each child must be on a standing of both the purposes of an different level; or that their move- Literature on creativity emphasises activity and of the teacher’s expecta- ment must include a change of pace, how risk taking is an integral part of tions if they are to respond creatively for example – are challenges that the creative process and how an to its challenges. give direction to it. As children over environment of trust is therefore time become more informed and necessary for children to feel secure The individual and the group able to manipulate these aspects of enough to ‘dare to be different’. The form, the teacher can introduce more onus here is on the teacher to create Individual creativity is affected by complex challenges. In this way the this environment, and it is especially dialogue with others. By working in responses, though clearly focussed, important if children are being asked pairs or in groups, children are con- are not at all ‘standardised’, and to perform to their peers. The form stantly negotiating how to respond encourage and leave room for of feedback we use should therefore to a particular challenge. When creativity. foster such trust. Children need to watching other groups, they can be learn both to give praise and to encouraged to learn from the things Teachers’ creativity and receive it and, certainly with younger they praise and to feel free to copy children’s creativity children, critical feedback needs to any good ideas. In more complex remain positive, encouraging them group work, it is helpful, therefore, to The current drive on creativity is as to look for and explain what they allow children to watch each other’s much directed towards teachers as like in others’ work. Once an envi- work in draft form, as work in it is towards children. As expressed ronment of trust has been estab- progress. So, for example, one group in All Our Futures ‘Teaching for lished, the teacher can begin to might enjoy the way another group creativity involves teaching creative- challenge the class, to make it clear has concentrated on movement ly.’ (p90). But my own creativity as a that she expects children to surprise whereas they have begun by devel- teacher need not always be aimed at her with their work, to dare to be oping vocal work. The two groups developing creativity in the children. different. But this does not imply are then able to learn from one I will legitimately have other aims loosening the focus of an activity. another and have the opportunity to and creativity need not always be at go on to develop these aspects of the top of my agenda. When I use their own work. teacher in role I may be being more creative with the dramatic form than Providing time and setting the children – I will certainly be deadlines maintaining more control over it – but my questioning might be leading The fact that creative ideas take time them to more creative thinking. Just to generate is emphasised in all writ- how we question our students – as ing on creativity. The fact remains, instructors or facilitators, command- however, that tight deadlines can ers or advisors, will largely determine concentrate the mind in ways that how much creative leeway we are can stimulate creative responses. In providing them with. As, indeed, all drama activities, the pace should will be the levels towards which we be brisk but they will benefit from share responsibility with them – the kind of flexible school from organizing the space for a short timetabling recommended by Ofsted whole class meeting in role to put- (2003). Such flexibility will allow for ting a whole performance together. activities to take place in a logical order and for ideas in one activity to stimulate creativity in another. A good example of this is given below, where the writing of a piece of land- scape poetry by a ten year-old girl flowed directly out of movement and vocal work. It was more vibrant and completed more quickly as a result of the creative energies that were still flowing when she wrote it. 10 Drama Magazine Winter 2005 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 11
Keynote Features
Convergent and divergent explanation a group of bigger, fifth we do. So believe in your drama thinking form boys shuffled into the class- teaching. At its most vibrant it will room and stood in a line at the back. be creative and it will be good. The left brain/right brain thinking The class were told to get on with mentioned before can be loosely their work in silence and, at a glance Bibliography related to the contrast between con- from the teacher, the fifth formers vergent thinking, or thinking directed began to speak: Bohm, D. (1998) On Creativity, towards finding possibilities that fit a London: Routledge set of needs, and divergent thinking, ‘A cold coming we had of it Carter, R. (2004) Language and concerned with alternatives, Just the worst time of the year Creativity: the Art of Common Talk, possibilities, and intuition. However, For a journey, and such a long London: Routledge Falmer Anna Craft challenges the over- journey ..’ Craft, A. (2000) Creativity Across the simplistic tendency to label divergent Primary Curriculum, London: thinking as creative and convergent They were, of course, reciting TS Routledge thinking as non-creative. It is Eliot’s Journey of the Magi in prepa- Csikszentmihaly, M. (1996) demonstrable that both types of ration for a Christmas performance Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of thinking contribute to creative and Pullman was now hearing it for Discovery and Invention, New York: outcomes. the first time, thrilling to every word Harper Collins Teacher’s questioning can in a Damascus-like experience that Duffy, B. (1998) Supporting encourage children to think diver- his teacher could not have planned Creativity and Imagination in the Early gently – to imagine, for example, for and that Pullman himself could Years, Buckingham: Open University what a particular magician might never have anticipated. Press be secretly making in his cave – In a more conscious fashion, we Neelands, J. (2002) 11/09 The Space and convergently – to follow through plan our drama lessons in ways that in our hearts, Drama Magazine, Vol. 9, the logical implications of what we hope will enthuse and engage No. 2 (pp 4-10) their suggestions imply. Another the students that we teach. But we example is where children might can also hope – and it is only a hope Williams, R. (1976) Keywords, experiment with the possibilities of – that we might occasionally stir the London: Fontana Paperbacks Windows sound recorder while, at creative energies of even one child Negus, K. & Pickering, M. (2004) the same time, noting and selecting so that the experience becomes as Creativity, Communication and those aspects which fit a prescribed significant for them as hearing the Cultural Value, London: Sage outcome, for example, the voice of Journey of the Magi was for Pullman. NACCCE (1999) Report: All Our the hideous monster approaching We can’t predetermine this; it cannot Futures: Creativity, Culture and their village. This inter-relationship be listed in our intended outcomes. Education, DfEE Publications of convergent and divergent think- But we can strive for it as an ideal Ofsted (2003) Expecting the ing, of logical and intuitive thought, and have faith in the quality of what Unexpected seems to be characteristic of the kind of purposeful play that typifies good, focussed drama work. Joe’s latest book, Joe Winston is Senior Drama and English at Lecturer in Drama and Conclusion the Heart of the Theatre Education at Primary Curriculum, is the University of intended for experi- Warwick. He co-ordi- I doubt that anyone would dispute enced teachers who nates the MA in Drama the creative talents of the author wish to make drama an and Theatre Education Philip Pullman. Once I heard him integral part of their and regularly works teaching and who are with schools and give a public talk in which he interested in how it groups of schools in described the precise moment when connects with cross research and profes- sional development. he fell in love with English literature. curricular strands such as citizenship, ICT and It was on a cold, bleak, autumn creativity. It was afternoon when he was a young boy described by the TES in secondary school. The class was as 'pulsating with exciting and challeng- English and the boys feared their ing ideas.' English teacher as abjectly as Father Ted fears Bishop Brennan. Half way through the lesson and with no Winter 2005 Drama Magazine 11 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 12
National Drama Conference EASTER 2006 Drama for the future 11th-13th April 2006 University of Winchester
www.nationaldrama.co.uk Telephone 01692 650066 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 13
The Cocoa Smell Programme Drama and Social Inclusion in Primary Schools
Persephone Sextou
This article deals with cultural diversity ‘new life’ their choice? Questions in contemporary societies (Sharp & and social inclusion in the context of a such as ‘who am I?’ and ‘where do I all: 1999, Gotovos: 2002) and drama Greek primary school. It examines belong now?’ are essential to them methodologies (Bolton: 1986, 1998; drama’s contribution towards helping because their answers relate to the O’Toole: 1992). At the same time, primary pupils to consider attitudes core of personal identity (self- I had an opportunity to write a towards racial tolerance using dramatic identification) and their relationships critique on a survey about drama’s situations informed by real incidents. with ‘significant others’, family, contribution to child school progress friends, pupils and teachers. Equally, in literacy (Fleming et al, 2004; As we walk in the new millennium, questions such as ‘what is it like to Sextou: 2005). This helped me focus words such as globalization, multi- be a foreigner?’ and ‘how does it feel the drama on helping pupils to culturalism, identity, racism, threat to be different, lonely and isolated’ understand each other and develop a and fear feature in our everyday spo- are important to native pupils deeper understanding of language in ken vocabulary. My own country because answers to these questions communication. Then, Fiona Cornes, Greece, as other European countries, relate to the attitudes they develop a drama teacher experienced in participates in the new era with an towards their schoolmates. England and Africa and I brain- increased number of economic and stormed together ideas about political foreigners; some of them are Thinking of ways to act initiating a Theatre-in-Education refugees, who have been moving in programme for primary pupils (9 to waves in from East Europe, the I felt that doing research about 12) based on pupils’ participation. Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, identity and the role of language in These discussions made the whole Palestine, Kurdistan, Somalia and communication, accommodating concept much clearer, but also left China since the early-mid 1990s. new cultural environments, feeling me with questions: Children from other countries go to safe and feeling threatened in • Would the dramatic experience state schools, gradually learn Greek, schools with high percentages of gained in drama have a long- and learn to take their own place in foreign students would help me term impact on pupils’ realities?’ the group as members of the school understand how verbal and physical • Would it be strong enough to community. For them school is often communication work in mixed change students’ (sometimes a good opportunity to escape from groups of native and foreign pupils. negative) attitudes to foreign family problems. Still, is school the I spent some time reading around children and the other way place where they want to be? Is this social diversity and minority groups round?’
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Features Primary
• And, if it would, what could I learn from the dramatic process in the classroom that could inform my work with drama students so that my students’ inhibitions about working in schools with refugee pupils could also change?
Drama college students fall into overflowing rivers
For the needs of the project I worked with volunteered students from the Drama department AUTH (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki). A small number of students participated actively, while others visited schools with us to observe the pupils’ dramatic activity and respond to the work done. I am, metaphorically speaking, a teacher who asks my college students to fall into overflow- ing rivers, meaning both the for their own actions. As part of this ing ability, interests, needs, previous experience of dealing with social treatment of my students, the input drama experiences, language com- problems in particular dramatic of the teacher is synchronized with munication difficulties). We also contexts and looking for ways to their desire to participate in the actu- aimed to learn about what the class- rescue themselves and others. This al praxis of drama and communicate room climate was like, what the makes my classes extremely ‘danger- ideas and notions of ‘real life’ in a relationships between students and ous’ and exciting for my students dramatic context, a way of living and teachers were like, if language played because it makes those involved exploring complicated and sensitive an important part in their school interested in action and responsible issues. This is for them to ‘borrow’ progress/learning achievements and experiences from life through drama any particular incidents in schools. and use them in building roles and We used such information to creating characters in their perform- structure drama workshops to help I am, metaphorically speaking, ing classes. So, most of the college foreign students feel comfortable a teacher who asks my college students were aware of drama’s with the language that they know, value in self and other understand- feel well about their mistakes and students to fall into overflow- ing. The challenge for them was to difficulties, understand that it is not a ing rivers, meaning both the understand how this happens with great problem not to speak the best experience of dealing with children in a school context and for Greek in the world because we can me to drag them in real classroom communicate in other non-verbal social problems in particular conditions. ways in drama. We also aimed to dramatic contexts and looking help students understand how Greek Learning more about our language operates in communica- for ways to rescue themselves audience-participants tion, to experience and familiarize and others. with the sound of language, find We worked with the teachers meanings and express themselves (exploratory work) in order to collect through language. information about the school envi- ronment and learn from the teachers The drama work more about the students (age, coun- tries of origin, first language, level of The drama work is part of a pilot Greek language speaking and writ- Theatre-in-Education programme
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Primary Features
named ‘Cocoa Smell’ which revolved Dilemmas and diaries – around the story of an African child ‘in the shoes of the foreign who comes to live in Greece. It child’ This session was rooted in the happens exclusively in school spaces and during school hours, with the After summarizing the information appreciation that ‘…story fullest possible cooperation of the gathered for the child, the pupils telling and role-play can be school staff. Teachers, head teachers participate in warm-ups and work used both to increase students’ and principals were invariably pre- on dilemma cards about the child’s pared to consider the specialized first day at school in groups of 4-6 understanding of themselves requirements of theatre teachers children. Dilemma cards consist of and their lives, and developing and drama college students who had drawings I sketched for the needs of a deep interest in children and the programme, a question and an aesthetic appreciation of knowledge of what theatre forms choices of answers. Children make the techniques themselves.’ seem most suitable to particular decisions on questions such as: age groups. • Your teacher puts a refugee child to sit with you. What do Compound stimulus – you do? creating the character • A foreign pupil with language Pupils agree on one answer and difficulties needs help with her compose frozen pictures (tableaux) The three-hour programme starts exercises. Do you offer help? to show to others how they would with the ‘compound stimulus’ tech- • You are having a party. Will you handle the dilemmas. They express nique. College students enter the invite foreign pupils from your in-role how they feel, what they classroom with a basket that airport class to your party? want to say to other characters in police found but no one has • Some of your friends make fun of the same tableaux and what they reclaimed. The team displays the a foreign child in front of you. want to do. A ‘director’ in role contents of the basket (clothes, What do you do? changes the picture, if necessary, to mangos, cocoa beans, a diary, present another choice, to turn the pictures of wild animals, musical negative into positive or the other instruments) and invites the pupils way round and justify the changes to create the profile of the basket’s he/she makes. The aim of this part owner. was to offer as many opportunities • Where does the basket come as possible for all pupils to experi- from? ence the dramatic situation both as • Is the owner a boy or a girl? ‘victims’ and ‘doers’ in order to help • Does the child travel alone? them gain a round view of what is • Is the child coming to Greece as dramatised. Then, pupils were a tourist? encouraged to write feelings based • Is it a journey of relocation? on the dramatic experience and use them in writing a diary. Diaries were Flexibility is required by the team to dramatised by the pupils and pre- accept all ideas and help the group sented to the group. make choices. In most cases, pupils choose the character to be a girl or a Writing poems boy from Africa but there are times when they decide the child is from The team did some story-telling India. When the pupils make their about an elephant that was different decisions, one member of the team from other elephants and thus, takes up the role of the child and is expelled from the community. First, questioned by the pupils about the pupils were encouraged to partici- character towards helping them to pate in story telling physically discover more about the child and (mime). This session was rooted in create a character for the drama that the appreciation that ‘…story telling follows. and role-play can be used both to increase students’ understanding of
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Features Primary
themselves and their lives, and developing an aesthetic appreciation of the techniques themselves.’ (Simons in Nicholson: 2000) Then, we invited pupils to think of an imaginary animal that might be dif- ferent or unusual. A zebra without stripes, a giraffe with a short neck, a crocodile without teeth, a butterfly with a broken wing, a lion with a singing voice, a dolphin with pink spots and so on. We asked each child to choose to be one animal and pack its suitcase (mime) as if it was leav- ing on a journey away from home. Children (out of role) made two lists of words, one with useful and useless things for the journey, and another one with emotions, impres- sions and feelings that the animal experienced while packing. These words formed preliminary material for writing a poem. Poems were dramatised and the programme stimulate games and invite them in develop further, especially when the ended with movement games and participatory dramatic situations. pupils took over control of the relaxation. The writing session was The groups of pupils without action. This is one of the values of based on the survey conclusion that previous drama experiences seemed being able to offer effective drama; drama effectively helps children to more hesitant to participate but to facilitate drama work by listening create a material for language (I more satisfied than the pupils who to the desires of the group, support- name it a ‘quilt of words’) to use in had had drama classes. Children ing the pupils’ initiative and having their writing. The children can then with previous drama experience were the flexibility to accommodate a transfer the words they use in more willing to participate but there planned activity to the rising needs improvisations, dialogues, mono- was always the possibility to get of the dramatic situation. logues and discussion with peers disappointed by the limits of time in within drama to written speech exploring such a ‘hot’ issue through An example of dramatising based on the dramatic experience. drama within half school day. a diary (Sextou: 2005) There were times we all felt that children, who had been offered Thanks to this extra time pupils of a The pupils’ responses many creative dramatic opportunities multicultural school (year 6) said in school, had the imagination and valuable things and showed that The comments from the pupils (300 the confidence to extend and deepen their relationship with a particular children) were positive and the team the information given in the foreign student was problematic and felt confident to continue working in programme about cultural diversity that there was a lot of work to do to schools, but they were also aware and social inclusion within the sort it out. Here is some evidence of that the programme could differ programme. They developed improv- learning in the form of dialogue from school to school and from class isations and built on dialogues easily based on hot-seating and tableaux. to class and there was no guarantee and they seemed focused and Pupils worked on a dilemma card. that all pupils will be so sympathetic devoted to drama in sincere ways. On the card, they saw a picture of a in the future. Children in their The team sensed this and wondered child who is having a fight with a majority were aware of making whether there was a frustration for another pupil. A third child is watch- drama within the programme. They those pupils, when they had to move ing. The question is ‘what would you wholly accepted the convention that on to the next stage of the pro- do if you were the child watching the the team of adults who entered their gramme. So, the team offered pupils incident?’ The group developed classroom was there to ‘play’ theatre, extra time for the improvisations to improvised dialogue.
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Dialogue extract . . . no friends. This is not true. I have passively from behind the desks. friends. Some children don’t play with The strength of this approach is George: Why are you crying? me but that’s OK. I don’t like them too. that it places emphasis on content Ahmed: Go away. Katerina is very snobbish. She wants to and meaning. I tried to avoid putting George: What have you done to be the centre of the world and she is an emphasis on theatre as an art him? (to Katerina) rude to me. I hate this. form with a clear focus on perform- Katerina: Mind your own business. ing, lighting, scenery and property George: But he is crying? That was not her money. It was mine. in order to take enough account Katerina: He stole my money. I had My grandfather gave it to me for lunch of content and offer pupils strong two euros in my bag and but I am tired with blames. When moments of active participation it’s gone. something is missing from the class- in drama. George: Did you see him stealing room, they blame me. When something One of the weaknesses of focus- your money? is broken, they blame me. When some- ing on dramatic role play rather than Katerina: No, but I know it was him. one is hurt, they blame me. I tried to theatre presentation is that it does George: How can you be so sure? explain but Katerina was not listening. not concentrate on theatre as a Katerina: Because I know it. And So, I said ‘yes, I took it’ and she was cultural and communal activity in now I have no money to satisfied. schools. More emphasis on the buy a sandwich. theatre presentation could have pro- George: It is not fair. Do you have Diaries were collected and given to vided pupils with rich experiences of any witnesses? the teacher who was advised by the live theatre in school. It also does not Katerina: Why are you taking his team to use the written material, encourage college drama students to side? together with the teacher’s package test their ability to perform and show George: I am not. and the experience gained from the the work in progress to pupils and Katerina: Yes, you are. You always do improvisation to encourage a discus- teachers. Perhaps, I also missed a this. You used to be MY sion in the classroom. The aim was good opportunity to evaluate my friend and now HE gets to help pupils to express their opin- students’ performing skills and the your attention. ions and gain insights into events. dramatic impact of the script and Again, if the programme addressed performance on school pupils. My The pupils’ responses in the improvi- the issue of social inclusion overtly, I approach also has a lack of rigorous sation were sincere and honest. As doubt very much that this particular assessment of learning that is going they informed us, the group drama- teacher would have let his pupils on. It is difficult to determine tised a real incident. As can be seen attend the programme in the first progression in attitudes. from the above dialogue, drama place and thus, stories of exclusion However, I can see many benefits offered pupils opportunities to re-act would remain untold. The fiction of of my drama-focus approach of the the real incident in ‘safe’ conditions the drama allowed the teachers and issue in this programme. First, drama (in-role) and express their feelings, pupils to put a distance between hooked pupils in the dramatic situa- thoughts and attitudes about the boy themselves and potentially disturb- tion from the beginning. It did not as if the situation was real. ing real-life situations. require performing skills, time for The programme seemed to have rehearsals, line learning to build worked well with the group. Benefits for my teaching and improvisations and special classroom Dilemma cards enabled them to the participants’ learning conditions (space, lighting, sound bring oppressed thoughts, feelings etc.) With the minimum of property and emotions from school life to the I enjoyed every minute of preparing and space facilities, drama offered front of the discussion. Pupils linked and implementing the Cocoa Smell both pupils opportunities for drama to their personal realities programme as a way of acting placing themselves in other people’s effectively and used the opportunity against the lack of social education positions, broadening their under- to deal with reality through drama in schools through drama. As I standing of what it is like to be a efficiently. Pupils were encouraged to worked closely with pupils (as a foreign student or a refugee and write a diary (in groups). Here are a drama facilitator) and college stu- questioning what is ‘right’ and couple of examples: dents (as a lecturer) my experience ‘wrong’ with the pupils’ attitude and was two-fold. I realised that drama actions in particular situations in the I like this school because there are chil- with both pupils and college stu- school/department environment. dren from other countries like me and I dents can be used to be experienced, Diaries verify this because one can don’t feel alone. George said that I have rather than to be watched or studied see that pupils describe a variety of
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Features Primary
contexts they have experienced drama college students, teachers in school. who welcomed the programme as Drama also involved college well as graduates from the depart- students in the presentation of the ment who work on a refreshed programme in schools effectively. version of the programme to run it Some students were motivated to in schools this school year. read more about child psychology and immigration in contemporary Persephone Sextou holds a PhD. in Drama and societies. Some others saw the need Bibliography Theatre Education (University of London) and to enrol as volunteers in refugee teaches Theatre Games and Theatre-in-Education at the Drama Department of the Aristotle hostels to set up a drama group and Bolton, G. (1986) Drama, Education University of Thessaloniki in Greece. others responded very enthusiasti- www.theatropedia.gr cally to my invitation to establish a and Social Change: the Debate Theatre-in-Education team at the Continues 2, New Theatre Quarterly, department and work on ethnic no.8, 1986, pp. 369-371. integrity. I was also pleased to see Bolton, G. (1998) Acting in Classroom that my students were freed from Drama, London: Trentham Books expectations and the stress to prove Fleming, M., Merrell, C.and to me and to others their ability to Tymms, P. (2004) The impact of perform. This worked well with their drama on pupils’ language, mathemat- psychology and helped them feel ics, and attitude in two primary relaxed with the pupils in the role of schools, Research in Drama drama facilitator in small groups. Education Vol. 9.2, pp. 177-197. Drama can make you brave too Gotovos, A. (2002) Education and Differentiation, Athens: Metaixmio The personal benefit of making O’Toole, J. (1992) The Process of ‘Cocoa Smell’ was that I gained an Drama, London: Routledge objective critical view of my work as Sextou, P. (2005) Drama’s contribu- a programme co-ordinator, drama tion in assessing children’s creative facilitator and teacher. My students’ writing in educational research, viewpoints and the teachers’ com- 5th Organisation Mondiale pour ments brought valuable information l’Education Prescolaire (OMEP) and experience to the drama lessons Congress proceedings, Athens: in the department. They helped me Metaixmio think that the challenge for us all, Sextou, P. (2005) A Response to artists and teachers, is to dare to Educational Research through Drama: express our own oppressed feelings, presenting data and beyond (Fleming, admit our fear of ‘the foreign’, learn Merrell and Tymms, RIDE, 9.2) more about ‘others’ and build our Research in Drama Education Vol. 10, relationships with students (native, pp. 74-80. foreign, refugees) on a new basis. Honest answers to questions about Sextou, P. (2005) Theatre in society through drama might not Education programmes in Schools. make the world safer, but it can Athens: Metaixmio (contains make them brave. It can give pupils summary in English). a voice and the empowerment they Sharp K. et al (1999) Young Citizens: need to respond to times of crisis Children’s development of national and remake the beautiful quilt identity in David, T. (ed) Young of multiculturalism for the next Children Learning, London: generation. Chapman, pp.184-203. My special thanks to the 9-12 Simons, J. (2000) Walking in Other year old children, Fiona Cornes, People’s Shoes in Nicholson, H. (ed) Eleni and Roula, Aggeliki, AUTH Teaching Drama 11-18, London:
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Drama in foreign language teaching Alicja Galaska and Anna Musielak
The Education Centre FUTURE, based in Tarnowskie Góry in Poland, is a modern, progressive language school. It uses creative methods to help its students to learn in a stress-free environment. In this article, Anna Misielak and Alicja Galaska describe some of their successful drama-based techniques.
or me, drama in its genius gestures, mime as well as the proper helps them to communicate in its simply means life: it is being. intonation and emotional involve- broadest sense since communication FIt is as normal as our daily ment learners are transported into means silence, misunderstanding, existence. Drama is something we the foreign language environment involves body language and even engage in all the time, when we feel and leave their weaknesses behind. distractions. The emotional buttons down in the dumps and have to Thanks to drama students practice are switched on and thus it is smile at work, when we pay a spoken communication skills and impossible to turn a student off. compliment to our bosom friend acquire grammatical structures The language teachers of the 21st who is wearing a hideous pink hat. naturally, as is by accident, without century have to face the challenge Drama is a device that in the hands the analytical approach. Revisions and make the language learning of a creative and imaginative teacher are more fun with drama, teaching process fun, fast and satisfactory. can change the classroom into a literature and making aware of the A teacher should not only be the magical world of learning. It stimu- cultural differences becomes easier lecturer but a guide who, using the lates our learning, develops our and the language is reinforced emotions, involvement, will lead the imagination and creative freedom. powerfully. The learners are active, learners and motivate and stimulate It helps us to be spontaneous when not passive and are, so to speak their actions. A teacher should help expressing emotions, it involves thrown intto the deep end of the to gain knowledge and broaden the body language and therefore treats linguistic world. The immersion horizons in a relaxed and safe way. people as entities allowing us to act. There is a colourful world of various In our Educational Center we teaching devices – music, dance, TV, cannot imagine a language lesson Under the mask of a different advertising, sport, art, science. It is in that does not involve drama using its personality students open up, the power of the language teacher to blessing and abundance. Under the forget about the linguistic find the appropriate medium so as to mask of a different personality satisfy the needs of the learners and students open up, forget about the barriers and restrictions and come up to their expectations. What linguistic barriers and restrictions use their whole selves to other than Drama helps us achieve and use their whole selves to express express their needs, desires this goal? A question arises here – their needs, desires and arguments. what then should a perfect language By bringing the bodily element of and arguments. teacher look like?
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Features International
Do we always remember about the simultaneously and harmoniously. ingredients? Don’t we forget from The drama techniques and games in Recipe for a time to time about drama and which our learners engage are not perfect language music? Many language teachers fear merely fun and pleasant but they drama, as they associate it with the- also have a communicative pay-off. teacher atre classes in which the perform- When we structure and organize our ance is the objective. They are afraid language lessons well we avoid Ingredients to fail in structuring such a class. boredom and chaos, and therefore But Drama in essence is dramatic the learning process becomes mem- • Topics close to our learners’ activities and the experience of the orable and meaningful and is more interests learners/participants is its goal. efficient than drilling and repetition. • Exercises stimulating all the Dramatization involving participat- senses ing in the acting out of chants, • Some invigorating moves stories and songs may prove easier Stages of a lesson • A sprinkle of tunes and less intimidating. It serves as an • 2 tablespoons of drawing enjoyable way to stimulate the 1. Visualisation activities expression (both oral and physical) • a litre of creativity and it does still respect the different Creative visualization is magic in the • lots of fun and games rhythms of learning. After acquiring truest and highest meaning of the word. • at least one ton of patience confidence more complicated drama It involves understanding and aligning and understanding activities may be applied. yourself with the natural principles that • Drama – as much a possible Balance and harmony among the govern the workings of your universe • And to top it off – a sense of necessary ingredients will definitely and learning to use these principles in humour make our lessons passionate, fiery the most conscious and creative way. and memorable. The rhythm and Shakti Gawain (1978) Preparation pace of the lesson will be changed frequently and that will provide See your aims before you realise All the ingredients should be many ‘beginnings’ and ‘ends’ (and them. Visualise what you want. In mixed well and used according to those two parts are usually remem- this way you will believe in yourself the needs of learners and teachers. bered). Our learners will open up to and in your abilities to reach the Decorate with a sense of humour, the culture of the foreign language objectives that you set for yourself. sprinkle with praises and smiles. and, what is more, they will open up Focus on positive results, imagine to success and learn with joy and your achievements, add emotions new experience (not only linguistic you feel when reaching the goal, see but real life). Lessons that involve all the images and programme yourself the before mentioned elements will to get there. be creative, fun and will affect the students’ imagination, providing 2. Relaxation them with a stress free and stimulat- The key to effective learning lies in ing learning environment. simultaneous state of being ready as We may observe here that well as being free from any tension. Drama, thanks to simple tricks, puts Colin Rose (1997), the British fore- students at ease. They can hide runner of accelerated learning said under a mask of a role they have to that there is a special brain wave that act out and by impersonating some- is characteristic to meditation and body else they forget about their relaxation. It corresponds to the state weak points and engage in conflicts of our mind when we engage in day- trying to solve the given problem. dreaming. It helps us learn facts By bringing drama to foreign faster and remember better. It is the language teaching we bring balance Alpha wave that lets us reach the to our classroom. We learn effective- subconscious. So in our sessions we ly as both hemispheres – the help our learners achieve this state analytical and logical left one and by simple breathing techniques, the emotional right one, are used done to accompanying music.
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International Features
3. Activisation using kinesiology, cooling down kinesiology with its drama, mind mapping and non-verbal exercises comes up. The positive reinforcement. exercises pave the way for more An example of a Briefly, kinesiology is learning complicated drama tasks and serve simple relaxation through movement. Its motto says as a perfect pre-drama activity, being that movement is the door to the a good introductory exercise. activity world of learning. It can be used Kinesiology helps to establish a during a language lesson to stimu- sense of goodwill as well as to get Sit comfortably, in an upright late our hemispheres and to bring rid of nervous energy and tension position with your feet on the balance to our body. There are (that later could become problematic floor, arms along your body. silencing exercises for a full-of-beans while dealing with more complicated group and energizing exercises to exercises). People of all ages engage Close your eyes. Take three boost the energy of some quiet in kinesiology with great pleasure deep breaths and each time you students. It is a very good idea to use and very often tend to forget them- breathe out imagine all the the four introductory exercises from selves in it. Such pre drama activity tension running out of your educational kinesiology. lays the ground for more sustained body. activities that are yet to come. • The first is drinking still water as Relax your body by tensing it speeds up the thinking process and then releasing the muscles and increases the level of oxygen. Drama, drama and more drama starting from your head moving • The next step is to massage the to your toes. ‘mental points’ which are places Drama is the key element in teach- just above the neck arteries ing the foreign language and all the Imagine that you are under a providing fresh oxygen blood to other activities, exercises and tasks nice waterfall or shower that the brain, with simultaneous go around drama to make the lesson warms your body. You feel the holding of the other hand on the an entity. Students have a possibility water down your spine, your stomach, which helps to regain to develop their imagination, to feel muscles relax, there is no tension balance and harmony. safe and to relate to other people. in your body. All the negative • The third exercise involves move- Confidence of the students rises and emotions are washed away, they ment that is not lateral but cross- they feel secure in such stress free dilute in the clear and warm, es the middle line, eg. touching environment where there is no pres- healing water and you feel like a the knee with the opposite arm sure to perform. Not the product but new born, fresh, with a positive and the other way round, or rather the process is important and energy in your body, cleared stretching the left leg and the that is why students are not forced to from all the things you wanted right arm at the same time, this work faster or more efficiently. They to get rid of. Feel all the positive activates and coordinates the work in their own pace, using their emotions, feel part of the sur- work of the two hemispheres. abilities and powers, they are provid- roundings, smell all the scents, • The last activity is called ed with freedom and as much time see the colours, listen to the Dennison’s position, that is as needed. There are no wrong sounds. Feel one with this place. comfortable sitting with eyes answers, as animals can talk, objects closed, hands entangled near the can have feelings and the grass can Now slowly get back to here chest, legs crossed in ankles and be pink. and now. Recall this place, the its second part, both feet on the Everything is possible: the spell objects and people present here. floor, not crossed, hands in a form let’s pretend becomes the norm in Say to yourself I feel good with of a triangle, with only fingers drama class. The teacher becomes myself, I believe in myself, I touching, as if holding a ball the participant, the students can lead know that I am able to realize all between, eyes closed; this posi- the activity and solve the problems my goals and dreams. tion allows us to concentrate and themselves. Therefore students moti- focus the energy on ourselves. vation is promoted and their own Open your eyes. creativity and self – expression are In our method kinesiology works encouraged as students feel their perfectly well together with drama certain psychological needs being and all its physical aspects. Every fulfilled. They are secure, stable and time students need warming up or safe in the learning environment that
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Features International
they encounter as they feel accepted 2. Activities and appreciated not only by their teachers but also their peers. Warm up activities: Students believe in themselves and Four introductory exercises used in in their ability to communicate in a educational kinesiology, to allow the foreign language. The gain of higher students liven up after the passive self-esteem enhances the learning listening session. process providing high performance. All those factors make students’ Revision of material performed attitudes towards the learning expe- by means of various games: rience more positive and confident and the learning task – successful The Ball and effective. Throwing the ball to each student, Mind mapping is encouraged requiring any form of response, eg. instead of linear notes. It will help How are you? What’s your name? learners revise and recall the neces- How old are you? sary structures and vocabulary when needed. Our brain uses associations Circulating tin and mind mapping helps us create a Vocabulary box with new words in picture using symbols, colours, the mother tongue circulates as long images and associations. A mind as music is playing. When it stops map reminds me of a tree, full of the student who has it gives the branches that group similar pieces equivalent of the word in English. of information. It organizes the information around the main topic. Jumbled dialogues For each word there might be a Future Learning System The teacher divides the class in pairs symbol or a picture and each branch Model Lesson: Elementary or in three small groups and gives groups the information around a Level each group a cut up dialogue which ‘sub-topic’. they have to reconstruct, after the Positive reinforcement means reconstruction the students read the Topic: Hello and how are you? getting feedback from the students, dialogues aloud, changing it from an Objectives: To learn and comprehend helping them with learning tech- the basic greetings and introducing angry mood to a peaceful one etc. niques, appreciating their efforts and oneself. achievements and showing them Time: This session should last a little Family photo how to use their newly acquired over 2 hours. The students are given various knowledge in everyday situations. photos presenting groups of people We can help our students feel 1. Listening session in various moods and with different more confident while using a for- background, the students role is to eign language by presenting eg. The listening session comes first. use the picture as a model for their similar words in our mother tongue. Students listen to a recorded tape of own ‘family/group photo’, later they They will be amazed how many dialogues and vocabulary that is the are asked to say a greeting and intro- words are universal (e-mail, same as in their booklets. The dia- duce themselves in the way the Internet, bank) and will believe in logues are recorded twice – spoken people in the picture would do. their own abilities. By repeating the slowly and naturally, the vocabulary words learned show how they can parts are repeated twice as well. Timeless Couples use them in different situations. The students are relaxed, they listen The students are divided in pairs, Make them feel good about them- with their eyes closed, breathing each pair has to say hello and ask selves by awarding them with a slowly. This is the so called ‘passive how they are as famous couples praise, funny sticker or even a small learning’. At the beginning of the would do (eg. Jane and Tarzan, piece of candy. Let your students listening session students listen to a Romeo and Juliet, Fiona and Shrek, feel like children again as for kids relaxation excerpt that helps them Adam and Eve). The students pre- learning means fun. reach a tension-free state. pare a short performance for the rest.
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International Features
3. Introduction of the new more secure knowing that even they are afraid of making a mistake material a single word can be uttered therefore such exercises can help differently and therefore mean them loosen up). The teacher together with students something else. read the new dialogues, pausing Handshakes and explaining the dialogues using 4. Ending/positive reinforcement Students circulate freely around gestures, visual prompts and intona- the class, shaking hands with one tion, not analyzing the expressions Tribal Chant another, as well as with the teacher, or sentences grammatically. The Each student thinks of a particular thanking them for the time spent teacher can give synonyms to the word/phrase that he or she has together. sentences/phrases/words used in the learnt during the lesson. At a sign booklets. Later on the students can from the teacher they begin chanting Bibliography read the dialogues, changing their these different expressions. The roles, reading with various accents, teacher could fire instructions Gawain, S. (1978) Creative as if they were children, rebellious (eg. chant happily, slowly, tenderly, Visualisation: use the power of your teenager or bored adults. The intona- angrily). The louder students get the imagination to create what you want in tion and stress games can bring a more at ease they feel as they shout your life, California: Nataraj lot of fun to the classroom and out foreign expressions with a bunch Publishing show how important emphasis and of other learners (generally students Rose, C. (1997) Accelerated Learning pronunciation are. It can also help do not listen to themselves when for the 21st Century, New York: the elementary students in feeling speaking a foreign language because Dell Publishing
The Educational Centre FUTURE was founded in 1993 in the small city of Tarnowskie Góry, Poland. At first it was a language school with only a few groups of students but it soon expanded and grew.
It is now a very progressive and modern school with three branches in other cities and with its own teaching method ‘Future Learning System’ students learn foreign languages in a creative, stress-free way which makes them feel secure and helps with Anna Musielak MA, is Director of Methodology Alicja Galaska, PhD, is the director and owner of learning the language faster. and an English teacher at the Educational Centre the Educational Centre FUTURE. For the last 16 FUTURE. For the past 7 years she has actively used years she has worked as a Lecturer of Psychology FUTURE is also responsible for organizing language drama in her lessons, helping students learn the and Methodology (FLT) at the Silesian University. courses and teacher workshops. The Centre actively language through real life experience. She is Her work in the field of drama includes various cooperates with schools all around the country currently working on her doctoral thesis on articles and publications. She is a member of IDEA as well as with foreign organisations, effectively carnivalesque at the Silesian University. (International Drama and Education Association). using the experience gained.
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Workshops from the Drama for Learnin
Three Ways In Blodin the Beast Kate Fleming Joe Winston In an exciting and engaging workshop, Joe’s workshop was based on a project Kate introduced the participants to three devised for 9-10 year olds using Blodin the techniques for stimulating creative dramatic Beast by Michael Morpurgo and illustrated responses. A series of linked sound effects by Christina Balit. This was an exciting and inspired the creation of a wide range of appropriate workshop for Drama for characters and their stories. The picture Learning and Creativity’s launch conference. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter by Through the use of a wide range of drama Vermeer was the start of an intriguing strategies, the workshop unpicked the fine puzzle waiting to be solved. Finally, a texture of the story, reflected on modern picture book allowed the participants to be day political analogies, and put his excellent co-authors of the story. keynote into practice. Photographer: Steven Beaumont
Where’s the blame? Jude Ackroyd Working from a drama script Where’s the blame? taken from Calcutt’s The Terrible Fate of Humpty Dumpty, Jude invited the delegates to focus on the minds of ‘the gang’, the bullied Terry and most signifi- cantly the responsibility of those who were silent observers. This workshop addressed an important social issue and demonstrated the potency of drama in learning and creativity.
24 Drama Magazine Winter 2005 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 25 ning and Creativity Conference (D4LC)
Now Nelson David Farmer David’s history-based workshop involved the participants in a re-imagining of Trafalgar. They developed nightmare dream sequences of being press-ganged, created soundscapes of the sea and devised extend- ed scenarios of life on board ship. The workshop provided many opportunities for personal creative involvement paired with the extension of professional skills.
Are There Graves in the Mountains? Pamela Bowell Using the principles of Process Drama, Pam led the participants into a land where a giant had to be provided with a pair of shoes by the people of a village. The balance of theory and practice ensured that the teachers were learning about helping to inspire their pupils’ creativity while being involved first hand in their own creative challenge.
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C’EST LA VIE! Using Drama to enhance confidence in Language Learning
Alison Warren
In Drama Summer 2004, in an open t’s funny the way things work out. language exchange did not generally letter to National Drama members, At the Canterbury conference in result in much language being Steven Clarke issued an invitation to IApril 2004, one of the events I exchanged between the students. I take part in a drama-based French attended was a short meeting with contacted Steven via email. He put school exchange. Here, Ali Warren Steven Clark, Conseiller Theatre, me in touch with Sally Ploteau, an describes what happened when she and DAAC. Rectorat de Rouen, who was English teacher of English (yes, you her Year 10 students took up that offer. talking about links between French did read that right) at Lycee Gustave schools and English schools for the Flaubert in Rouen. She agreed that purposes of creating Drama projects. the project was a good one and I thought this was quite an exciting Chris and I went across to Rouen in idea, but wasn’t quite sure how this January to meet her students and to could fit into my work at school. thrash out any details. Ali Warren Flash forward to the first week back, When I got back to England, I talked when in the throes of rehearsals to a friend, Mark Bishop of Big State I hear that we have been given Theatre Company about the project language collage status. I talk to a and he agreed to come on board as colleague in the French department, additional Drama support and to Chris Asbury, and propose a joint record the project through video. project. The idea was to see that if The project was set up to run students are engaged in a Drama over a period of 10 days partly work- activity would they lose their self ing in England and partly working in conscientiousness about speaking France. Two groups of students – in another language and just get on 13 French students and 10 English with the task in hand. The project students worked together to produce started as a result of personal obser- a piece which came to be called vation that the standard form of C’est La Vie!
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French exchange Features
Students were self selecting in The first afternoon was spent Drama, French or English? terms of how they became involved asking the students a series of ques- and were principally drawn from Year tions about communication which Many of the English students admit- 10. One outcome of this was that we formed the basis of the work we pro- ted that they had signed up to do have many more girls than boys in duced over the next two days which the project more because of liking the group, which was interesting became the background for the pro- Drama than any desire to improve since they – the girls - were the most duction. These questions were: their French, but interviews after- reluctant to use French in a class- • What are the situations in which wards told us that learning more room situation (this was seen in you have to communicate? French had been the main outcome classroom observations). • Tell us a story about failed com- for them. (Interestingly, the French What was interesting for us to munication. students had precisely the opposite note was that the gender difference • Name places where it would be response). From the observations, we in terms of the reluctance to learn impossible to communicate (the learned that teachers and students other languages is the reverse in students found it was impossible have a very different notion as to a France. The boys in Rouen – even to think of one!) student’s willingness and therefore during the preliminary visit in • What makes communication easy? developing ability as a second January – were uneasy about trying • How do you communicate with- language user. In the feedback their English with us and in fact no out language? following lesson observations, only boys signed up for the project. 1.65% of students agreed with their However, after the performance and From their ideas we created a series teacher’s assessment of their willing- in our plans for a repeat project, of improvised scenes based on these ness to use French in the classroom. Sally tells me that the boys in her situations, which in turn led to a This would suggest that anything class have changed their minds. It piece of theatre about the cycle of that builds the students’ willingness will be interesting to see if the nature life and the role that communication to practice their language skills is to of the project changes attitudes here. might play in it. be valued and the work in creating C’est La Vie! was remarkable in this Selecting a Theme – respect. Sally, the teacher based in Communication the French school was quick to pick up on this aspect. The process used was very simple and to most Drama practitioners ‘When you’re learning a language it’s very straightforward. We selected a always rather embarrassing when you theme to work with – communica- first speak because it’s not your own tion – and then set about creating a language and you’re afraid of making piece of theatre which used the mistakes. So it’s a good idea to play a theme as its inspiration. role so you’re not really yourself, you’re The first morning was spent in somebody else. Also that they (the getting the students involved in French students) would be doing this activities with each other. A variety with English pupils which meant it was of Drama games was used. From the a joint effort. It wasn’t us and first moment, French and English them…I’ve noticed that some of the students were mixed up with each pupils who were really quite shy… other and all activities were mixed have come out of themselves incredibly. groups. Two or three of them who scarcely ever One thing we tried was to give spoke in the lesson, they now speak to instructions alternately; for the everybody!’ first activity in English, for the next in French and so on. This fell apart There was clear evidence from the quite quickly as none of the fluent responses and the social interactions French speakers were Drama of the combined group that the practitioners and it was too students’ involvement in the complicated and time consuming performance was a huge factor in to explain what was required to their learning. As Mark (one of the someone to translate. English students) said, ‘Everybody
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Features French exchange
acting together… it’s really great fun. watch the work in progress. They We are already planning to do We’re all joined together to one found it hard to believe that the another project like this next year group of people and not all opposite students had only known each other and we have been contacted by and the French and the English for a short time and, in France; the another school in Evreux, near separate and we’ve all become good teachers thought all the students Rouen, to ask if there is another friends together.’ involved were French learning school who would be willing to Our students found the experi- English. Certainly, these teachers collaborate on a similar project with ence of being in France an important have now approached me for guid- them. If there is anybody out there part of the project. That they were ance as to how to implement some who would like to explore this idea joining the rest of the ‘company’ of the methods used into their own with a school in France, please get made a much less threatening expe- teaching. in touch. I know Steven has other rience but they were also more open From the responses of all those schools who like to try this type to the cultural experience and excit- involved in the project, there is a of work. ingly, eager to try to communicate huge need to be filled by projects with their hosts. One girl, Teya, such as this one. The students gained described to Chris in French a con- in confidence as they worked versation she’d had with her part- together and the process of putting ner’s mother about La Redoute, the together the performance led to clothing company. more language learning than we had thought possible. It would be useful Reflection to be able to do some follow up research on which particular aspects Reflecting on what the work of the process made the most Alison Warren is head of Drama at Clarendon achieved was a revealing process to difference and whether that could School, Trowbridge. She is currently working for all concerned. Those of us who work be transferred to other language her MA in Drama in Education. She lives in Wiltshire with her husband, two cats and far too in the field of Drama were convinced learning contexts. many books! that there would be an effect of the group working together but we did- Summary of the main findings n’t think it would produce such out- standing results. The language • Even the most confident students teachers involved were much more find the practice of speaking sceptical. They had difficulty conceiv- another language a challenge. ing how the project would work, but • Drama activity allows students they trusted us and eventually got the opportunity to get to know ‘sucked in’ to the whole thing. Chris each other better and therefore and Sally were most concerned by have a stronger urge to commu- the apparent ‘free wheeling’ nature of nicate. There is meaningful drama projects and needed a lot of purpose in their communication. reassurance that it would work out. • Taking the focus away from the Chris told me ‘I don’t think I could language meant that the fears work like this if I didn’t trust you. You about using another language must never know what’s going to were removed and language happen in your lessons – it’s all development was more natural. down to the kids.’ But he found it • Vocabulary was learned and stimulating as the students started to developed as part of the creative use language for their own purposes process, rather than being taught rather than for an exam course. ‘I’ve in a formal way. This was particu- been asked for explanations of larly true of idioms. things Clarendon students would • The Drama games approach to never think of’ he said. young people getting to know The most revealing response has each other is a remarkable tool been from colleagues on both sides for breaking down barriers in an of the Channel who came in to exchange situation.
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Dorothy Heathcote Killing two birds with one stone Considering learning through theatre texts
ince moving to the Midlands All the styles of teaching I’ve experi- order to organise social existence: I’ve been able to revisit my mented with are based in providing the time of clocks, machinery, mak- Sinterest in studying theatre contexts to drive the work and ing and delivering goods, getting texts. Steve Ball, the Education motivate students. Drama involves and storing information. This time is Director at the Birmingham considering people who are socially of necessity dictated, wherever possi- Repertory Theatre, provides in- engaged in precisely defined situa- ble, to the completion of tasks, service training courses for teachers tions, trying to extricate themselves bringing about closure and moving based on Birmingham Rep produc- from the webs of tension that preci- forward. tions. I was recently asked to spend sion of context provides. Polychronic time, which Hall a day with a group of teachers exam- terms ‘sacred’ or ‘in-ceremony’ time ining Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Steve’s Working in Time provides a culture of dealing with invitation allowed me to revisit many things at once. In our lives we previous thinking about classroom A major factor in learning to teach is occupy and function in both these practice and relate texts to the to understand time in relation to time phases simultaneously. We whole web of dramatic approaches experience. Edward T. Hall’s (1984) engage with our peers, family, friends to learning which are available to work on cultures and the way time and acquaintances, our locality, teachers. experience effects behaviour is par- environments and leisure interests I have always maintained that ticularly illuminating in this area. in polychronic time but move in working through drama provides He identifies nine dimensions of monochromic time when dealing a ‘universal joint’ for the curriculum time experiences, of which two, with tasks involving others. However which schools are expected to monochromic and polychronic, are of human processes such as drama, citi- provide. However, lack of time particular importance to drama and zenship, world faiths, literature and influences the drive to stress content. context work. Monochronic (or ‘pro- all the arts require polychronic time. Dramatic work is based upon social fane’) time is that which we recog- Hall’s work has serious implica- behaviour which arises from context. nise as being arbitrarily imposed in tions for teacher education. People
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Features KS 3/4
can (and frequently do) operate in communication, written by the hand It followed precisely Stoker’s form. the two time cultures so long as they of the different individuals involved But where he uses the forms of com- recognise what the differences in operat- in the events, reveals the dramatist’s munication available in his lifetime – ing demand. When is the learning viewpoint. He moves seamlessly diaries, journals in shorthand, best orientated to content and when between descriptions of happenings phonographic records, letters – the to context? Drama and the arts are and the dialogue of persons involved new text for theatre performances supremely adapted to work between together in each situation. The uses contemporary means; the inter- the two. Strong contexts always description and dialogues create in net, FAX, e-mailing, memos, com- demand urgent content to be the reader not only the sense of puters are the immediate theatre searched out and mastered. Mantle place, but of being there almost as a forms, still seamlessly blending with of the Expert, Rolling Role, participant. It was while considering live encounters between actors Commissions and ‘Man in a Mess’ this that a new theatre script by bringing Stoker’s dialogue to imme- modes of drama all generate need Bryony Lavery fell through my letter diate theatre time. for content out of the necessary box. This version reduced the book embedded contexts. length (though not the panoramic Using Productive Tension The work I planned for the scope) to 116 pages. teachers around the Dracula course In planning the day I chose produc- was intended to introduce them to tive tension as the central theme of tools so that Hall’s polychronic time all the work. I find this much more would be context driven yet yield up useful for helping students avoid content via interrogation on the stereotyping responses than conflict material and ideas. I was not asked which often engages them at argu- to act out Dracula scenes but to help ment levels of interaction. There is teachers interest their students in no conflict of personalities in Stoker’s book. So for me the centre Dracula. Stoker’s book reveals how had to be planning so that Stoker’s each protagonist faithfully fulfils writing became the lure and focus their destiny. This lies at the heart throughout the day. There is never of all tragedy. By considering the any need for a text to be introduced tension of their natures and as ‘difficult’ to students. That places destinies, their lives and unfolding them immediately in the position of terrors become worth study and not knowing as much as the teacher. contemplation. So what is productive tension? How is it recognised when it is oper- Bram Stoker’s Dracula ating in drama form? And what are its features? A simple working Bram Stoker has a deep understand- description would be the creating of ing of how theatre art works. He has Bram Stoker has a deep a situation that embodies context for created a tragic, highly moral tale understanding of how theatre action while leaving some aspect to which makes no concessions in the chance which cannot be in the con- telling of grim events. These are laid art works. He has created a trol of the participants. This chance before the reader in such a way that tragic, highly moral tale which element must suit the two mind they are revealed all in an order positions of the ‘actors’. We agree to which he has obviously planned makes no concessions in the build the fiction and sustain it, while most cleverly. The Penguin/Cave telling of grim events. These at the same time the uncontrollable introduction (1994) describes are laid before the reader in factor is at a level through which we Stoker’s work. ‘Told through journals can enjoy the anticipation of dealing and fragments of letters, Dracula such a way that they are with it. These two mind positions remains one of the most powerful revealed all in an order which can be contracted between leader creations of terror ever conceived’. he has obviously planned and group and this permits the level Stoker’s choice of style in revealing and content of the tension to be events through first person accounts, most cleverly. accurately negotiated and agreed on. shows his understanding and grasp The process goes through stages of the dramatic imagination. Each which form a pattern for success.
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The context and circumstances Level 4 operas and biography all feed us must attract the group sufficiently to The tasks are Herculean – compared with examples. No matter which want to try themselves in action. with our strengths or weapons or level of tension is invoked it must be knowledge. clearly foreshadowed and contracted The context must contain binding plus the power to resolve it be possi- circumstances which all agree to Level 5 ble but not easy. It has to be fought sustain, like a narrow gate providing The danger lies in guile – there may for during the process of the action. the only means of resolution. be betrayal. To sum up productive tension works well when; Establish parameters. There are Level 6 • Containments are defined and various ways of doing this! Bruner’s We are made vulnerable by stupidity contracted. three kinds of holding ideas together or lack of thought or preparation. • Motives and purposes are pre- are iconic (the image) symbolic (the cisely established. words) and expressive (the dramatic Level 7 • What has to be left to chance is action of people behaving in now Pressures of time militate against us. understood and time) are very useful tools here. • It cannot be resolved except Some groups can share an idea or Level 8 through the group powers har- concept best through an image rep- Sickness holds us back – causes nessed and won in the process of resentation. Words are more open to choices and possible friction among the action. fragmentation, and expressive mode the companions. used too early makes individuals feel A common flaw in these ‘man in a embarrassed and unprotected into Level 9 mess’ situations (which will arise ‘having to act’. Break downs in communication whether the system of learning is leave us vulnerable. that of Mantle of the Expert, Rolling Immediate tasks in expressive Role or the Commissions Model) is mode must be unthreatening and Level 10 that the outcome is withheld or not require very little pressure to declare Misreading cause/s of danger decided upon at the start. It is falsely commitment at first. weakens us. believed that if the students can’t predict how things will work out, Steps in Productive Tension Level 11 that the situation will be more tense Breakdown in relationships – duties and interesting. Nothing is further From now on the productive tension and goals. from the truth. Agreeing on the final will develop in a series of steps from outcome stops participants from the simplest elements through to the Level 12 rushing through the situation. When most dense and complex. Loss of faith in purpose. they know what but not how success will be achieved they enter much Level 1 Level 13 more readily into Hall’s in-ceremony We know what the danger is, but we Betrayals of honour codes – high time and experience more deep cannot have control over it. We must purposed in conflict. ‘now’ dramatic pace. submit and try to deal with it. Each of these creates a trap. The Tools for selection tension Level 2 lower numbers can be ascribed to levels We know exactly what the danger is forces outside the companions. The and can consider ways and means to higher the numbers the more indi- What tools are available to help be prepared to deal with it. But we viduals have to consider their per- teachers select the procedures which cannot know how or when the dan- sonal commitments, skills, attributes enable the tension levels to match ger will manifest itself. and loyalties to the course. The social the social health and academic abili- health of a group will determine ties of students? It is a remarkable Level 3 whether the danger from without is assembly. Because drama/theatre is a We have a duty to succeed at all more suitable than the dangers aris- social art explored at seeming life costs, but there is more than one dis- ing from human motivation. This is rate we have to use sociology theo- traction so the problem becomes not rocket science, anyone can trace ries. Chart A may assist, because more complex. these levels using their own experi- relationships between choices are ences. Stories, plays, films, soap fundamental and teachers have to
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pick and mix to suit the interests, attractions and maturation of student Pick and mix opportunities available to groups. teachers in the moments of negotiation
Drama conventions Provides the human focus precisely (for example see list in Heathcote, cultural levels of 1984, p.160). How close are partici- conciousness predict social controls pants to the presence or evidence or an ‘other’? choice of contexts Custom conventions create provides level of interest This is based on Hall’s chart of how human elements cultures operate at formal, informal and technical levels of socialisation. productive At the formal level people operate tension in the on unquestionable and frequently moment unconscious levels. Custom regulates public behaviours: eg. the English expect to ‘wait in line’ when needing service. The final formality is that all living things will reach their time of penalty and no penalty point of view creates ending or change. zones – balance of distance and shifts Informal procedures arise when degrees of control language and thinking a rule is recognised and experts among participants emerge to guide us. The lawyers, the doctors, the religious leaders Chart A interpret suitable behaviours to us. Technical levels of social interac- Cultural respectable’ flower. The mother tion permit and expect individuals Cultural contexts for public behav- though ignorant of the enemy’s to select their own behaviours in iour give choices of kinds of events. power, the daughter, who has social situations. This level puts Circumstances arise from social accepted the informal level of power enormous pressure on each person forces: war, work, worship, law, – the doctor’s expertise, is asleep to preserve or challenge the society learning, shelter, food, family, health, and cannot prevent the removal of they live in. memory/stories, child rearing, travel, the protection. Strong stuff this for For example, at custom operates clothing, territory, climate, celebra- productive tension, provided the at an informal level where expert tion and embellishment provide a operating structure for motive is set help is necessary in ‘Dracula’: the rich choice of social events. You can in. It isn’t story lines it’s contexts. situations with the garlic and the place Dracula and the defenders of Professor’s taking of blood to revive Lucy and Mina in the context and Point of View Lucy apply. The young suitors do not mind set of war, or of myth and Point of View places the groups’ have his knowledge or skills so he memory, or indeed of medicine ability to operate on where they dictates their behaviour, and they or family! stand in their capacity to understand accept it. You can readily see that a Which context you choose shifts the event. Were they there? Can they class with poor social health and place and action and motive for pro- bear detailed witness? The first incapacity to collaborate on work cedures. When Mrs Westeura requires the dramatic enactment. The should never be placed in an episode removes the garlic, thus permitting second demands the circumstances where technical levels will operate. Dracula to enter the chamber of her where memory can be invoked. You The effort falls apart. Formal level daughter it can’t be in the spirit of can see the very structure of the can create the tension because it war because both are innocent of the encounter and the circumstances can’t be challenged by individuals. essential knowledge to protect each must be radically different. Each The great storm in ‘Dracula’ is such other. (tension level 6). It may be a of the following positions from an example – tension level 1. Garlic tragedy of embellishment because which to operate provides different operates on this level also! both reject garlic as a ‘socially dramatic events and therefore
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comprehension and talk. Presenting the book or play lift out the portion which attracts. Participants (‘it is happening to texts in digestible form. To find that, you have to scan the us’) witnesses who choose to tell of text a bit! But you feel power to it, authorities who can demand to So in considering Dracula I had an select and reject. The responsibility of know, recorders who are responsible amazing palette of choices to assist your choice will dawn later, hopeful- for the truth of documentation, me in generating ideas. There is one ly when your attention starts to interpreters who must clarify events, self imposed discipline – whatever require attention and deeper interest. judges who impose the law in respect ideas I generate MUST keep the of the circumstances, reporters who Stoker Book or theatre text at the Bibliography broadcast the event and finally the centre. Here are the strategies I artists who can transform and rein- decided on based on my choices Hall, E.T. (1984) The Dance of Life terpret the significance of the events. from the previous range. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday I cut the book up, so short Heathcote, D. (1984) Collected Penalty and No Penalty Zones sequences could be easily examined Writings on Education and Drama Every social event is rule bound and without sorting through a weighty (Eds.) Johnson, L. and O’Neill, C. people are expected to understand 500 pages. It’s a psychological bur- London: Hutchinson their limitations in functioning dur- den caused by the way books are Hall, Edward T. (1959)The Silent ing the event! This may be thought organised page after page glued at Language, New York: Anchor Books of as a ‘penalty’ and ‘no penalty’ slid- the left hand side, except for some ing scale of freedoms to operate in languages. Perhaps technology can public events. The degrees of penalty help here – selected portions on Reference
can protect by defining the degrees screen? However I like the way a Dracula, Bram Stoker of freedom people have to believe in long length of book permits the eye Penguin Popular Classics 1994, Penguin/Godfrey the event. to scan the journey, but home in and Cave Edition. ISBN 0 14 062063 X
Degree of penalty for individuals in behaviour
Theatre (We recognise it is fiction) We go along with it & usually comply with expected behaviour High Rituals (global/national) We can observe and join in permitted ‘Real’ & organised behaviour responses Domestic Rituals We behave suitably according to our Weddings, funerals, parties etc traditions in such circumstances Demonstrations We can agree / disagree & ‘spoil’ or support Dorothy Heathcote needs no introduction. She A message to be revealed ‘... is the most public drama teaching figure in the world. She has taught classes of children in five Games Rules apply on both sides. Both have penalty continents. The numbers must run into millions. In & no penalty addition, innumerable teachers have watched her teach in person or on video and television.’ From: Briefings Always have life results, a high degree of penalty – Dorothy Heathcote's Story (2003) Trentham Books. one may be briefed on a mission of danger in war or work or relationship Lectures High penalty because people can reject or disagree with person or content or delivery & sabotage or challenge it A full version of this article and teaching notes can be found on the Drama Optional Both share equal responsibilty – ‘tell me a story’ etc. Magazine website, under ‘resources’ We live out our stories with firends, children, families beguilements at www.dramamagazine.co.uk and on and this helps form the glue of our cultural values the National Drama Website at www.nationaldrama.co.uk Chart B
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Extract 1 Extract 2
The staff of The Golden Krone Hotel The journey from the Inn to Dracula’s and the shifts in atmosphere (pp12-15) castle (pp16-20)
Representing the individual roles Context: creating a wax museum of and duties. Set as portraits with the sights and people encountered information attached. The mood is on the coach journey, so as to inform serene as Jonathan is welcomed by visitors about the opening of the the proprietors and he passes down book. So they would be framed as the ‘portrait’ gallery. The arrival of the artists transforming text to groupings count’s letter changes the mood. with explanatory notes lifted from the text. Context is threat from a person of Extracts power. The frame distance would be that of artists and interpreters. from the Tension level at 2 or 4. The tension lies in illuminating the Dracula The penalty zone would operate at various encounters Jonathan experi- rituals in domestic circumstances. ences between receiving the crucifix Workshop The portraits would change from the chatelaine of The Golden demeanour, as would the statements Krone hotel to leaving the caleche in notes pinned on to them as the three situ- the castle courtyard. The groups ations arise. would demonstrate workers at the 1. Serene, organised, predictable. roadside, prayers at shrines, the 2. The letter arouses tension, fear, peasants carts, the coach and pas- These notes give examples of the apprehension, threat. sengers including Jonathan, the activities I devised for the teachers 3. The coach and the moment of arrival of the caleche and the on their course at the Birmingham parting plus crucifix and the signifi- exchange of luggage concluding the Rep. They were designed to throw cance of the date. exhibition with Jonathan alone one stone at two targets: to learn among the great stones of the castle. to conceive productively tense The framing element would operate situations which would involve at interpreter level, as the portraits Selecting the information to make careful scrutiny and identification change their statements and the exhibition clear, and set mood is with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. demeanour. The culture selection the main driving tension. will be in the areas of work and You may like to have a copy of the shelter. The culture level of operation The cultural contents invoked would text by you as you read what follows. would be informal. Running a hotel is be in the areas of travel, territory and The page numbers refer to my rule bound and carries the unwritten climate with some elements of wor- Penguin popular classics edition. laws of hospitality so will also oper- ship. Social demand would be at tech- ate at formal level. Things must be nical level so social health would done thus and this without question, need to be considered. so formal perceptions will apply as to hotel service of clients, and their relationships, making portraits, fulfils the formal operating of that.
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Extract 3 Extract 5
The arrival of the storm driven Demeter Stoker’s descriptions of places and into harbour at Whitby (pp99-101) event (for example Dracula’s ability to crawl down perpendicular walls – p48)
Point of view selected: that of A report in The Times Context: a publisher wishes to recorder. A strange murder has occurred. publish a new edition of Dracula and A trader has been found with his proves short descriptions to be read Context: giving evidence to a throat torn out. A team of detectives aloud by ‘actors’ so that short prelim- coroner’s office: the text reveals the has been sent to Transylvania to try inary sketches to illustrate moments evidence – coastguard, surgeon, men to discover the murderers’. can be submitted (pp 38, 62, 63, 35, ‘with lights and lanterns’, the law Police Notice 48, 49, and 24 are examples student, the undertaker and the It is known that Mr Skinsky had mortuary assistants. Stoker has recently received in charge a large Tension lies between hearing words provided all these witnesses to box which had been transported read and trying to capture first the event. from a London portside – Doolittle’s images. So it will operate at level 7 – Yard. Any persons with information pressures of time and complication Dramatic tension: informal level should come forward’ between word and image. The infor- the law demands and the procedures mal mode of social behaviours regulate behaviour and order of Detectives scrutinise the text in applies because the text provides the proceedings. order to analyse exactly what each expertise and authority guidance. of the ‘witnesses’ could possibly know. This is in preparation for Role being the character or questioning when they reach objects from the text passages. Transylvania. The culture aspects The role distance would be that of Extract 4 related with Law and Travel. If the interpreters and artists. reading of the text is biased towards The finding of the body of Skinsky police and taking of evidence, it will with his throat torn out (pp 412-415) be read quite differently than if the detectives are first investigating it to find their travel route.
Context: group of detectives The drama leader must not mix the question the sea captain, crew, two frames up, because the tension Immanual Idesheum, using close is different in each case. Checking attention to each witness evidence the route which has many dangerous in separate groups. They mark on a possibilities demands accurate note- map the journey, timing and weather taking. Planning to interrogate is a conditions. matter of considering the discourse that will invite witnesses to co- Frame: This would be initiated and operate, recall and be truthful. The framed by two documents: second places the readers in a power position, but they don’t know how things will work out. The first places them in the penalty zone which all briefings incur.
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John Doona The Short Electra
he Tameside Arts Education them a college of Further Education. The Rehearsal Initiative is a project created Here I shall be exploring the Tsix years ago by a group of work of our first residential event, Edward Bond has spent much of his Drama teachers from Tameside, just made possible by a major grant from time recently working with actors east of Manchester. We set out to the Arts Council of England. Part of and student actors, mainly, I think work collaboratively in areas of the grant was for the commissioning on the continent, where he is recog- Photographer: Sarah McAdam Drama in which the daily experience of a new piece for our young people nised as a leading intellectual and of the classroom makes difficult. We by playwright Edward Bond. The artist. He has been absorbed with set out to explore the deep uses of result was The Short Electra the question as to just what acting is Drama in allowing young people to and what the actor can do. To be an confront their world. Funded The text actor in one of his own plays is a through the community budget of specially challenging job and neces- the specialist performing arts school, The Short Electra is inspired by the sitates some back-to-basics analysis Egerton Park Arts College, a key Euripides’ version of the Electra myth of the acting process. aspect of our exploration was work in which as revenge for the murder In the script Orestes is standing with creative professionals. We have of their father Electra and Orestes with a gun pointed towards a hut. employed a host of actors and multi- plot to kill their own mother, His sister, Electra, is pressuring him media artists. Our most important Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra has been to enter the hut and kill their moth- collaboration has been with Edward responsible for killing her husband er. We are told that it must happen Bond, who has written a series of to gain power for her new partner because the army has ordered it. In original pieces for us. Aegisthus. Bond’s play we are not given the The pattern of our performances The theatre of Edward Bond, biographical detail that their mother each year has been; a major stimula- from it’s earliest incarnations in has murdered their father and tion, created by staff in tandem with naturalistic pieces such as Saved, has robbed them of their dignity and artists, offered to students in work- always sought to push characters inheritance. We don’t need to know shop; each group of students, with and, through them, audiences, to the this because Bond’s focus is the their staff, work for eight weeks to edges of human living. It is at the order, and how the individual create their dramatic response to the edges, he believes, that human responds to it. Orestes cannot use stimulus; finally, the groups’ creative beings are forced to confront their the gun. His sister gives him a sword output is shared in a full day work- situations and to create meanings. In with the suggestion that this will shop and then performed to an his more recent work for young peo- make the killing noble. He is still invited and public audience. There ple he makes no compromise to unable to carry it out. It takes a farci- have been nine different institutions their age. For them, he believes, the cal number of attempts and finally, involved over the project, one of questions are more urgent. the covering of his head and the
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Uppermost in my mind as we heart of his work is a tender and In thinking through the work- directed the scene were two generous affection for the human shop I had anticipated that students individual; he may sometimes might at this point postulate new apparently contradictory aims; despair at his fellow man but he is motivations for the coming matri- to allow the drama to do its also the most human of humanists. cide. Much of the drama around us is The comedy of the scene holds and built upon pseudo-psychological difficult aesthetic work and caresses your cheek whilst your head structures of motivation. The same to allow our young people to is held in the direction of the horror structures that have given us the enjoy the play Bond had of the enacting of the order. poverty of the naturalistic. Students The first performance of the play may have imagined a family crime, a written for them. was at the Conway Centre, Anglesey family secret, a family ambition. But during our student residential. they didn’t. Their concerns were much deeper. The question of ‘Why The Residential I must kill my mother’ was much less forcing of his hand before the death is accomplished. Orestes’ response to The residential took place over a the whole situation is to withdraw weekend in January. The venue was into distraction. He looks into him- the Conway Centre, Anglesey. We self in order to try and explain the took around 100 students for a two order and his own action to himself. night exploration of Drama, taking The scene is highly comic. The The Short Electra as the starting text. comedy comes from the sister. It is The aim was to involve young her repeatedly thwarted attempts people in a conversation between to force her brother’s hand that the playwright, the actors, Drama creates the effect. She shows her teaching staff and the young people Photographer: Sarah McAdam own revulsion at the action and her themselves. The ambition was to exasperation at the failure of her explore the making of meaning attempts to control her weakened through engagement at the cross- brother. Furthermore, Bond gives roads of our imaginations. her action of her own. When she Here I would like to explore three thinks that her mother is dead she moments of dramatic action which, I immediately absorbs herself fully in think, capture the experience most meticulous sweeping. In an act of fully; Friday night, Saturday after- sheer reckless distraction she runs to noon and Sunday morning. the simplicities of domesticity. The banality of her sweeping in the face Friday Night of matricide and her brothers enveloping madness is like an We began with opening up the emblem of the modern age. It is also whole play by placing the young a very funny spectacle. people directly within the imagina- Uppermost in my mind as we tive world of Electra and Orestes. important than, to put it awkwardly, directed the scene were two appar- Students were immediately ‘Who am I that I must obey?’ Very ently contradictory aims; to allow the confronted with the first ten lines. quickly had arisen the same ques- drama to do its difficult aesthetic In these lines the key problem of tions of identity to which our work work and to allow our young people the play is set up; Orestes must kill tends to always drive. to enjoy the play Bond had written his mother. He is under the direct I think it is a particular strength for them. In rehearsal we discussed instruction of his sister and the indi- of Bond’s writing that he is able to the loving nature of Bond’s output. rect instruction of the army. In his create moments of highly-focussed Yes, he is an angry and hostile writer hand is a gun. charge which manage to be existen- but he also understands the respon- The short scene was performed tial and socially particular. The image sibilities of the artist and the need to and students were asked, in cross- and the action read at an imaginative coax the audience towards revela- school groupings, to create the level and the meaning towards tion. He has described himself as resulting moments of the set-up which the image directs us is, some- ‘hopelessly optimistic’ and at the situation. times even to our surprise, central to
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Features Theatre
our experience of the world. identifying each group’s location dents’ live to be there in full and to To extrapolate from the answers with lettered pebbles, instructions create as much space as possible given by students in their Dramas were given. for this to flourish unhindered by Orestes problem is read as, I am At the end of the first scene of suggestion or expectation. Staff given rules to follow, they are not my Bond’s play, a scene he calls ‘Order’, would accompany the groups to rules, I do not understand the rules Orestes and Electra have been ensure safety and our three actors but I understand that the world of stopped dead in their tracks by their would also move through the rules (authority’s world) is unjust. own actions, carried out under the grounds at distances from students, What is the just thing to do? Am I a vague direction of authority. Electra but both groups of adults would be person who must follow this rule? has retreated into domesticity, asked to not interact creatively. This Orestes into and abstraction striving felt like a radical act of faith; to Saturday for meaning. In the second part of those of us accustomed to our Friday night left questions hanging; the play, entitled ‘Madness’, the authority roles within the school as it should. Saturday took us characters wander through a desert classroom if felt dangerous. outside. wilderness. From this second part of The groups, through the text, The Conway Centre is on the the play we extracted a set of striking were being set problems; difficult, banks of the Menai Straits in the moments; images, ideas, stories. We spikey, oblique, tricky, creative prob- grounds of Plas Neuedd, a stately choose to not make the direct narra- lems. But we weren’t finished. On home still inhabited in part by the tive connection between Bond’s Friday night we had talked about Marquis of Anglesey. characters and the student activity. the creation of meaning. The scene Across the site we had identified A central goal of the weekend was to performed had offered problems. ten locations. It was late January – place the young people at the centre Students had responded with their but the sun was shining and the sky of the creative exploration. Even own drama and through them empty and blue. Groups that cut Bond’s characters could have been brought new problems to the group. across institutions were formed and too suggestive in themselves. We We had discussed and captured on after a suitably ‘organic’ exercise in wanted the reverberations into stu- paper titles, slogans, meanings.
A flavour of the extracts used...
Extract one Extract two Extract three If I could have one day when no-one .... If I start I must go on – I could never – Orestes: How shall I go on living? The sand. Who’s watching me? Someone’s looking at never stop. Don’t tell me, don’t ask it. (runs sand through his fingers). Sand. me. Who’s there? Who is it? (stops, stares) (Calm) You must. What else can you do if (looks at the sand on the palm of his hand). It’s.... A grain of sand is looking at me. you’re to have any peace? (She takes her Look (pushes it with a finger). Lying in the Don’t stare. So sharp.... A grain of sand is broom. Resolved) I must sweep the desert lines on my hand. Fortune-tellers lines following me! into the sea. under the sand, buried. (drops the sand) In all this sand. If there was one grain that would tell me. Perhaps that’s why I’m in the desert. To find the grain of sand to lead me out of it. Tell me where to go.
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Each meaning was a striving to explanation. The groups were itching Other actors join in aggressively express a truth about the nature of to find their sites and begin work. ordering the audience to turn. It is a the world, our place within it and The Bond text, combined with blatant act of intimidation. The audi- ourselves. When the problem is the sites was an incredibly potent ence turn. They are very uneasy with weighty enough the human mind mix. To say it again, the quality and the experience. The human action knows it must create meaning. When depth of the problem posed was the carries on within the circle. It it is allowed to create meaning engine which drove the young peo- became more fractious. Any audience creatively, ie. through acts of imagi- ple’s creativity. As always it is impos- member attempting to sneak a peek nation, it seems to find its most sible to fully capture the resulting at the action is ordered to avert their meaningful voice…. Or, at least, this drama. We were lucky enough to eyes. One by one the actors resolved was the hypothesis being put to the have funded two film students to their tensions and began to sing a test here. capture the whole project. I am single note which found a harmony So to develop the problem and happy to distribute their excellent as other actors joined. The vocal perhaps push our luck… students film. I will describe one incident builds and builds and then ends on a were invited to take the full environ- from the performances which has full silence. A stunned, full silence ment as a stage; a stage is a place stuck most strikingly with me. filled with the sounds of our natural where we assign meaning to every- environment. thing; all marks, all movements, all For me the strongest impact of actions, all silences, all words. An The Bond text, combined the afternoon’s drama was a new audience reads the marks on the with the sites was an understanding which had arisen stage and strives to understand. from the Bond play and from our Students were instructed, ‘We are incredibly potent mix. To say approach to creation; it was felt that about to go outside into the natural it again, the quality and depth the purpose of the Drama was not world. We know it is a world created of the problem posed was the the telling of a story (though this largely by ‘accident’…. The shape of occurred to a greater or lesser extent) clouds, the spread of trees, the engine which drove the young or the presentation of character movement of the grass in the air, people’s creativity. (though again this occurred); no, the etc., Of course, there will also be the purpose of Drama was now the cre- marks of human intervention… ation and the exposition of meaning. roads, paths, tyre pot-holes. You should adopt an attitude of mind The stone circle Sunday morning which seeks to find significance in everything; everything out there The audience are lined up aggres- On Sunday morning we moved back means something. It is as if every- sively at a distance of around 100 to school groups. Groups were asked thing is struggling to speak to you. metres from the stone circle. When to move their ideas forward into a It is your job and the job of your the line is satisfactory we are led in summative drama to be shared with group to speak for it. You are being silence across the expanse of grass everybody. The groups dispersed sent to a very specific site. On the towards the stones. The stones are around the building and grounds. site you are to take the text, look large. In the centre of the circle is a A few hours later we assembled. closely at the site and create a drama collapsed set of stones which have The dramas had become actions. that expresses the meaning you created an outcrop and a hidden There was no need for narrative at give to it.’ space underneath. this point. We had all bought into The sites were a large stone The audience are led around the the idea of meaning-creation as the circle, a three-way intersection of stones and left in a concentric circle. root of performance. In the way that paths, a secluded bird hide and a set An actor begins questioning the Edward Bond states that a drama of battlements over-looking the air. Two other actors follow each should not be a picture, it should be Menai Straits, a deserted quayside, a other around the inside of the circle a ring on the bell, the dramas had large sculpted tree trunk, a patch of arguing heatedly. A further actor sits become incessant, unavoidable rings. forest waste on a muddy track, an on a stone and rocks in distraction. Again, they had become actions in adventure playground, the auspi- The audience are left to create sense which our young people had felt the cious outer door of the centre and of this fractious human activity. power of releasing focussed, imagi- an ancient tree. A further actor speaks to the native energy into the lives of their The talking and planning had audience. We are to turn around. audience. And what was to come begun before I had even finished the Facing out towards the empty grass. brought us to the rainbow.
Winter 2005 Drama Magazine 39 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 40
Features Theatre
I was over-whelmed with the feeling of arrogant, self-satisfaction; of being able to do no more with Drama. I could not top this. The human need and propensity for the creation of meaning as a species and as individuals is the tireless root of my interest in education, drama and theatre. These young people were the proof of the humanist goal of individual ‘becoming’. And then I turned around. The rain was stopping. The sun had eased its way through the solid cloud. A hundred metres away stood the door of the Conway Centre…. Between the ancient tree and the open door stood a rainbow. Not even in the sky above us… but before us as we turned. A rainbow arch that The Rainbow we would have to pass under to return home. The Sunday morning performance hundred and thirteen people splash I had never laughed as I now from my own students, a perform- out into the sodden grounds. We are laughed. A cosmic joke. I fell to my ance that was their own work, following the actors. We are running knees. followed something of the structural through puddles and over a bank of pattern of the weekend. We had soil and onto drenched green grass. Can the universe conspire to celebrate begun in ritual; a powerful activity We are running towards the ancient human meaning-making? for promoting seriousness and tree. We are laughing. commitment. The Drama began with The actors greet us in silence. The a ritual entrance. The girl who had audience circle the vast tree. Its wide probably found the weekend most canopy reaching to shelter us all. A challenging brought up the rear of girl is pressing herself against the the procession. She was giggling, as tree. Her experience, she tells us, is she had through many of our experi- an experience of rejection. Not in the ences. But now she was ACTING the weekend, in her life. She feels a giggle. The actors spoke; a struggle sense of betrayal and alienation…. between taking seriously and taking But there is always something…. the mick. Others spoke in hostility. Here it is the tree. But that’s not The group expressed their feeling of enough. An actor begins, ‘Hold being isolated from and in conflict hands, hold hands…’ We hold hands. other large elements of the whole No, the strength that will save us is group. Then a silence. A chant the shared sense of experience; in John Doona has taught in and around Manchester for 16 years. He is a professional writer whose the- begins; ‘Stand up, come with us, the knowledge of our own alienation atre work has been produced on BBC Radio 4 and stand up, come with us….’ The audi- we must build a Community. We had the Royal Court Young People’s Theatre. He has recently begun a new role as Drama Advisor to ence stand. The audience place done so. Cheshire County Council. Further accounts of his themselves fully in the hands of the The drama was an action. As work with the Tameside Arts Education Initiative performers. A roar. The actors launch we stood in the rain and held hands are included in a recent publication by Trentham Books, Edward Bond and the Dramatic Child. themselves through the chapel the drama of the ‘difficult’ girls Meaning Drama is John’s own new work on Drama doors. We are breaking out. It is rain- had driven us into Community. and features introductions by Dorothy Heathcote ing. Torrential. We haven’t been given A silence. Someone began clapping. and Edward Bond. Meaning Drama seeks to re- present Drama as the most vital of human and time to prepare and put on coats; if We clapped. We laughed. We turned education activities. It is available from the author we’re going we’re going now! One around. at [email protected]
40 Drama Magazine Winter 2005 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 41
Theatre Reviews Of Mice and Men
Phurious Productions Theatre Company
Reviewed by Ruth Barr
hurious Productions has been forming seamlessly to the bunk husband alerted the audience to the touring recently in the Greater house and stables. Effortless scene deadly collision of unrelated events. PGlasgow area with a perform- changes allowed the story to flow The actors playing Candy and Crooks ance Of Mice and Men. As the novel and develop at a pace in tune with very effectively brought to life the is prescribed reading for the Scottish the unravelling of events leading to pathos of two men responding with Higher Qualification the perform- the tragic final scene. It was unfortu- dignity and insight in a world that ances were well attended by school nate that there was the occasional barely tolerates their presence. groups, while evening attendances delay with some sound effects but On the whole the ensemble cast of the play suggested the novel this did not detract from the overall were a strong unit who worked well remains very popular with adult presentation of the play. together. In general they sustained audiences. Workshops were offered Both leading characters George their American accents and presented to school groups to further develop and Lenny were well portrayed. The clear characterisation to the audience. understanding of the John Steinbeck innocence and childish longing that The personality and motives of each novel. marked Lenny’s character was per- character were well communicated The production was generally fectly countered by George’s sense of to the audience and this would prove well executed with a simple set, duty and ambitious dreams. Curly’s helpful to young people studying the complemented by suitable lighting, wife, as a pivotal character, could novel. The play was well produced perfectly representing the require- have presented a more seductive and unambiguous in its telling of a ments of every scene. The wooden element to the performance, but the classic and tragic tale. pallets used in the set ably conveyed obvious jealousy and anger barely See the Workshop Rehearsal Process an outdoor camp scene while trans- contained by the character of her on the next page.
Winter 2005 Drama Magazine 41 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 42
Of Mice and Men The Workshop Rehearsal Process
Along with the matinee performances of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Phurious Productions were also offering an hour long workshop for schools based on ‘The Rehearsal Process’. Since the book is used as a prescribed ‘English Language’ core text, many of the students attending the workshops would not be drama specialists. With this in mind, the workshop was structured to allow a glimpse into the rehearsal process of the actors while still allowing the students to obtain a better knowledge of the workings of the text. To begin with, the director, with the two actors playing George and Lenny, took the whole group as a rehearsal warm-up which comprised of physical exercises and vocal exercises. From this we moved onto an improvisation by the two actors. Realising that the students were aware of the main text, the two actors improvised a scene which is referred to in the play by both characters but is not actually part of the text. When they were younger, as a joke, George told Lenny to jump in a river not realising that Lenny could not swim. George then had to save him and through this his attitude towards Lenny changed. After the improvisation, the workshop was split into five groups where a ‘roles on the walls’ technique was used. Each group was to consider the internal feelings and external reactions of the two characters. The director and the two actors worked with the groups to help and encourage the development of their ideas. After a period, the groups were asked, in turn, for their findings. This allowed the students to investigate the background of the characters’ feelings and this is indeed what the actors do during the rehearsal process. To end the session, the director and the two actors were ‘hot seated’. This allowed a further insight into what is required in rehearsal while giving the students additional views on the textual analysis from an actor’s point of view.
Martin McNaughton Director
Phurious Productions Theatre Company phuriousproductions.com
42 Drama Magazine Winter 2005 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 43
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Winter 2005 Drama Magazine 43 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 44 BOOK REVIEWS criticise the assessment levels not therefore add to potential drawn together by the Arts confusion about approaches Council with practising drama taken. It’s not clear what contri- specialists throughout the coun- bution other group members can try claiming that theirs is the make to the creative process if only workable assessment sys- the group is larger than 3. In my tem for the subject. (Well, it classes, most groups are larger doesn’t look anything like mine than 3 for most of the time, and that has been running for mainly because they have to be. years, been used as an exemplar I don’t feel that young people for other schools and follows would feel the same ownership directly onto the criteria required of their work if they were given by the GCSE boards, but there specific roles only some of the you go). The proud claim by one time. of the authors that he is now an There are also issues about The Complete Guide to assistant head teacher and thus accessibility. The book is clearly Successful Drama understands the need for tight Success in GCSE Drama intended to be used as a class- assessment criteria shows where room text but its presentation Phil Parker & Craig Boardman they are coming from. does not allow students who are Phil Parker & Craig Boardman Its loose leaf style may tempt weaker academically to follow I am always weary of books that some heads of drama to what they are being asked to do. Mmm… a new book about title themselves ‘The Complete purchase one for use by cover For instance, GCSE Drama. Does the world Guide…’ and my suspicions have teachers or inexperienced drama ‘Acting Coach: You need to need another one? Is this one been proved correct again here. folk. Don’t. It is not that coach your actors to convey their going to be what all Drama The Complete Guide to approachable and any user has emotions and emphasise their teachers have been looking for? Successful Drama is a loose leaf to wade through a whole system motive by using physical skills. That’s a tall order for some- file of 172 pages offering six before understanding where to Your characters need to one to fill. Whether Phil Parker units of ten sessions, the authors start. It is certainly not a quick fix reflect the theme – their motives and Craig Boardman have done claiming it as a whole Key Stage publication. Indeed, if it must will do this. But the physical 3 scheme of work. The thrust of it, we shall see. keep part of its title The Complete skills will draw attention to the their argument may be seen Success in GCSE Drama is Guide to Deadly Drama would be dialogue that explains their nicely presented with a colourful from their six chosen topics – more appropriate. And at £35, it motives’ – Unit 2 P87. layout and pictures of ‘yer actual’ The haunted House, the is certainly not worth a look, Finally, I think the title is Drama students in its pages. It Orphanage, Missing, even out of curiosity. misleading. The book contains covers a range of four interesting Superheroes!, Identity and The four Units – enough for a year’s themes ranging from reworking Stein Clinic. While there are a John Coventon worth of drama perhaps. But fairy tales to a science fiction few contextual cross references there is no discussion of how morality tale. All of them end to middle of the road white this style of work can then be The Complete Guide to with a full script for performance twentieth century literature, and applied to any of the syllabi cur- Successful Drama relating the theme. the standard use of Shakespeare, rently available to students who Phil Parker and Craig Boardman What is unique about this there is only one picture (the wish to take an examination at Folens book is the approach it takes to outside of a private hospital) and GCSE in Drama. It is almost ISBN 1-84303-789-0 the material and to the process no reference to music or the certainly very clear to the authors Price: £34.99 of students studying GCSE other arts as a starting point for of Success in GCSE Drama but Drama. Different roles are the drama. In one unit I even clearly not to the rest of us. allocated to the participants in spotted a case of racial stereo- I think this is an interesting terms of their responsibility to typing that had been left. text – well presented and looks the drama. They are either a The authors have introduced at a range of issues that are ‘Storyteller’, an ‘Acting coach’ or a complex system of assessment very appropriate for the age a ‘Director’ who are each allocat- involving some phrases used by range suggested. The scripts are ed a task for each stage of the drama teachers, others which excellent. But I don’t think it Unit. It is intended that students will be fresh to them. However, it offers the solutions that Drama should change roles from unit to is in their compilation of a tight teachers are looking for. unit so they get the full range of structure for assessment that So the search continues… they have taken away any possi- potential experiences, although ble opportunity for the students this is only referred to once in Alison Warren to enjoy and experience the the introduction. magic or the right to experiment I have some reservations with form and interpretation that about this book. It would work Success in GCSE Drama is at the heart of good drama best for teachers and students Phil Parker & Craig Boardman and the reason why so many who have already used the sys- Folens students are taking it up at tem of specific allocation of roles ISBN 1-84303-788-2 GCSE level. at Key Stage 3, for which there is Price: £13.99 Parker and Boardman a companion volume. This would
44 Drama Magazine Winter 2005 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 45 S Books Reviews the dilemma: we must choose Primary, Secondary, Initial and most readable drama book of the between arts education for the Continuing Teacher Education year, giving both an overview of talent of artists and arts education all derive from the western the journey of drama and theatre for the development of people in canon. There is an anomaly here: for young people from the 1950s the context of their right to grow perhaps this Latin American and exploring the range of work as human beings, between arts generation needs to create its this century through the voices for selected minorities and arts own theories and, philosophies of current active practitioners. provided evenly throughout a and to generate its own prac- In early 2005, Stuart Bennett, society, educating towards free- tices? On the other hand, while (himself a pioneer at the dom and equality’ (p.58). such phrases as ‘lifelong learn- Belgrade Theatre, Coventry; at As elsewhere in the world, ing’, ‘integrating the primary cur- Rose Bruford College; the ILEA the drivers of change innovation riculum’ and ‘nurturing creativity, Cockpit Theatre and latterly in in Latin American education inclusion, diversity’ universally secondary schools and FE col- have been the economy, rapid enter the world of educational leges) was asked by Paul social and political change, reform for the 21st century, Harman of ASSITEJ, the interna- increasing development of infor- might this be a case of one size – tional organisation for theatre for mation and communications multi-national strategy with young audiences, to survey cur- Issues in Arts Education in technology, globalization, minor localized variants – fits all rent practice in the UK. How did Latin America accountability and competitive whether of Latin America, the the theatre for children and markets – to which readers from West or the Southern young people movement start? edited by Rachel Mason and Larry all sectors of European, Continents? How did it develop? Where is it O’Farrell Australasian and N. American In any case, this book is now? Bennett addresses four education will relate as these relevant to many more readers areas, leaving individual compa- According to the editors, ‘Issues chime readily with western than its title might suggest. nies to choose their own in Arts Education in Latin imperatives. Additionally, inter- emphases: America’ offers ‘a unique insight national readers will recognize Jan Macdonald • early history; into issues related to arts educa- many of the issues addressed: • the educational and social tion in a region of the world that difficulties of translating policy context; is insufficiently represented in into practice; realizing ideals of Issues in Arts Education in Latin • changing funding patterns; the international literature’, (p3). diversity and equality of oppor- America • current practice, ideas and Their claim is justified. The idea tunity; engaging in the humaniz- edited by Rachel Mason and issues. for the book was conceived at an ing power of the arts in Larry O’Farrell The resulting publication is UNESCO conference held in environments that allow for Queen’s University, Canada, 2004 vibrant and positive, oozing Uberaba, Brazil, in October 2001. authenticity; the question of ‘arts commitment, enjoyment and The papers in this selection are for all’ as well as arts for special- expertise on every page. Over engaging, well written and beg a ists, and the need for changes in thirty contributors write as prac- wide readership. They address a teacher education to address the titioners first and foremost, perceived gap in many readers’ above issues. theory is only used to illustrate knowledge of arts education in It would have been interest- practical decisions made in pro- Latin America. ing to discover more about the gressing the programmes. There Contributors come from various political situations that is no place for the old political Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, had existed prior to the more bickering of earlier decades. Cuba and Peru, where reforms open, inclusive changes taking Bennett has been very are at various stages of develop- place in Latin America. Also, the thorough in his selections. Paul ment. Nevertheless, although frequent references by several Harman puts the international political regimes and their con- contributors to the rich seam of context in place; there are contri- comitant policies may vary from local, traditional, multi-cultural butions from companies from country to country, some com- arts are tantalizing. Perhaps it is every region in the UK. Building monalities in educational reform beyond the scope and focus of based companies (including Tony emerge: changes began in the this publication to provide some Graham’s hopes for the new 1990s; the trends were towards of these cultural markers and Theatre for Children and Unicorn Theatre); school touring social inclusion, towards a more flavours: they would have been Young People companies; contrasting writers reflective critical approach and helpful in contextualizing more 50 years of professional like David Holman and David towards arts curricula grounded clearly the curriculum changes. theatre in the UK Wood each have a chapter. David in traditional Latin American, Contributors are Latin Pammenter, for decades a lead- multicultural arts practices and Americans who, at high levels, edited by Stuart Bennett ing figure in UK TIE, describes a forms rather than imported artis- were educated in Europe and project with Street Children in tic models. To western eyes the North America or have worked Let me state my prejudices from Zambia; Vicki Ireland, formerly curricular aims often appear ide- there at high levels. Apart from a the start: I have always promot- Artistic Director at the Polka alistic, placing high value on reference to Friere’s Liberation ed the links between drama in Theatre, writes about working humanity, self- knowledge and Theology, the theories, philoso- schools and the work of theatre with writers in adapting books autonomy. Liliana Galvan phies and practices they bring to companies specialising in work for the stage. Projects with and (IDEA’s current Vice President) bear on the justification for for young people; Theatre for for young people are described, writes from Peru, ‘We must face changes in Latin American Children and Young People is the mainstream, special, primary,
Winter 2005 Drama Magazine 45 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 46
Reviews Books
early years, community, minority period of enlightenment. It is a whatsoever. It is the bus driver, languages – all are represented. book for the theatre connoisseur, the house wife, the miner and With such a wide range historians, drama and theatre the Teddy Boy to whom I should given in its 240 plus pages (with students, indeed anyone who, like to address myself.’ (Let Battle black and white photographs), like me, enjoys a trip down Commence p96) When Wesker chapters are necessarily short, Memory Lane. It’s my era, as a set up Centre 42, a pre-runner making it an easy book to dip in drama student, and then an for The Round House he wanted and out of. Such is the range of inspiring young actress in those to ‘…destroy the mystique and style and content of the work days, the developing fringe was snobbery associated with the described that I am now using our inspiration. Everything was arts’. Marowitz’s dream was to Theatre for Children and Young different, we demanded change facilitate the exploration of People as a source book for my from the bleakness of the post- ‘…new techniques in writing, own teaching. war reconstruction and the arts acting and direction, taking the There are not many books and popular culture delivered sort of risks that only an adven- on drama or education that can the goods. They were indeed ‘…a turous non-commercial company be bought for £10 in the 21st barb in the side of the establish- can take’. century or prove half as useful or ment’. Off-Centre Stages is a won- half as good fun to read. Get Off-Centre Stages is a detailed derful read, not only for theatre yours now before the print run journey through the disappoint- goers now in their sixties, but for sells out! ments and triumphs generated everyone with an affinity for the by radical change initiated by the arts. This is part of our culture, John Coventon courage and inventiveness of our history, what makes the larger than life theatrical charac- theatre ’05 what it is today. ters. Charles Marowitz, Arnold The Brighton Arts Festival Fringe Theatre for Children and Young Wesker, Thelma Holt, and many Programme has just been People others who made such an impact published for this year. Thank edited by Stuart Bennett on the theatre and laid the you Charles Marowitz, Arnold Aurorametro foundations for the future. The Wesker, Thelma Holt and Jinnie ISBN 09546912-8-8 book, Jinnie Schiele’s doctorial Schiele. Price: £9.99 research addresses important questions as relevant now as in Kate Fleming the explosive sixties. ‘Bums on seats’, commercialism versus Off-Centre Stages idealism and artistic integrity. Jinnie Schiele The didactic concept of theatre, University of Hertfordshire Press challenging audience’s pre- ISBN 190280642 conceived views about the Price £18.99 nature of theatre moving away from the audience as passive recipients to actual participants. It was an exciting time which in many ways makes contemporary theatre appear quite bland, albeit Edinburgh flourishes as do Arts Festival Fringes around the country. ‘Off Centre Stages’ is divided Off-Centre Stages into two parts, The history of the Open Space Theatre and the Jinnie Schiele. history of the Round House. These important theatrical histo- Off-Centre Stages is a clever and ries are meticulously traced, appropriate title for Jinnie detailed accounts of productions, Schiele’s history of fringe theatre policies and critical response in the 1960’s and 1970’s when so which reflect the changing arts much was off-centre stage. climate, the abolition of censor- Carnaby Street, the Beatles, Mary ship in 1968 and the visionary Quant all broke with tradition, fervour of the few. The intention strove for something new, a dif- of Arnold Wesker however was ferent way in which to express slightly different from Charles what we felt while we marched Marowitz. His aim in writing to Aldermaston. The British plays was intended ‘…for those Theatre, arguably the best in the for whom the phrase ‘form of world, was at the forefront of this expression’ may mean nothing
46 Drama Magazine Winter 2005 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 47
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Winter 2005 Drama Magazine 47 Drama_Jan06_layout1 21/05/2013 13:01 Page 48
INDEX OF ARTICLES
DRAMA 8.2 (May 01) Parallel Worlds Michael Judge Teaching Literacy through Drama: Theatre and Lifelong Learning Profile: Teresa Matkowski Using Drama to Inspire Writing Baldwin and Fleming Steve Ball The Complete Stage Planning Kit: Davies Texts Images and Digital Carol Olivier The Making of George Louise Owen Manipulation Ain’t no Cotchin’ in the Jo Teachers and Playwrights Miles Tandy Andy Kempe with Noelle McCaffrey and DRAMA 11.1 (Nov 03) Richard Conlon The Kicking Out Project Encouraging Victoria Worsfold Interview: Jean Newlove Theatre Review ethnic minority children to tread the Drama is Hard Work Lauren Ward Healthy Eating Hope Springs Michael Supple boards Zeena Rasheed Book Reviews: Marie Jeanne McNaughton Book Reviews Time 2001 Placing teachers’ voices at Drama Lessons for 5-11 year olds: Theatre of Three to Fives Trisha Lee The State of Our Art: the centre of intercultural debate Ackroyd and Boulton Festival of Love Sharon Muiruri Hatton and Anderson Sita Brahmachari and Kristine Landon- Cracking Drama: NATE Longman School Shakespeare: The A Vision Possible Dorothy Heathcote Smith GCSE Drama for Edexcel: Tempest/Much Ado About Nothing Dorothy Heathcote’s Story Spirit International Youth Theatre Taylor and Leeder O’Connor John Coventon Festival AQA GCSE Drama: Private Views: Artists Working Today Polly Gifford Morton, Price and Thompson Dramaturgy and the Drama Teacher Palmer Alison Warren UKLA minibooks 17 and 18: Tell me Not Now, Technology? Exploring David another Harrett, Drama: Reading Writing DRAMA 10.1 (Nov 02) Truth and Fiction Adam Annand McKee’s ‘Not Now, Bernard’ David and Speaking Our Way Forward Simpson Profile: Jonothan Neelands Theatre Reviews Grainger and Pickard Desenterrando o Futuro 3 Getting Wet Kate Fleming and Duck – Out of Joint Richard Jevons The North Face of Shakespeare: Activities Dan Baron Cohen and David Simpson The Straits – Painews Plough for Teaching the Plays Richard Jevons Marcia Pompeo Noguiera Drama in the Nursery Nigel Toye and Stredder Book Reviews: Veronica Broyd Book Reviews: Speaking, Listening and Drama How Theatre Educates: Kempe and Holroyd No Royal Road to Geometry Pennington Self and Other Jocelyn Dimm & Faux Gallagher and Booth (Editors) The Story of Harriet Tubman Drama and Diversity Grady Progression in Secondary Drama Kempe DRAMA 12.2 (May 05) & Ashwell Debra McLauchlan Stratford Boys Mark Drama Narrative and Moral Education Brain Right Drama part 2 John Norman Interview: Helen Nicholson Winston Theatre Reviews: DRAMA 11.2 (May 04) Shadow Puppets Drama and Theatre Studies (new revised Kevin Sullivan Born African – Over the Edge Theatre Interview: Debra McLauchlan and expanded edition) Company, Zimbabwe Chris Lawrence The development of role-play to Mackey & Cooper Our Space Journey Monica Doherty Throat – Company Fiz Richard Jevons promote speaking and listening Drama and Theatre Studies at A/AS level Theatre History in Drama Education Georgette Turrell Neelands & Dobson To Kill a Mocking Bird – Clwyd Theatre Mark Howell-Meri Cymru Richard Jevons A Celtic Experience Jan MacDonald Emotional Involvement or Critical Theatre and young audiences DRAMA 9.1 (Nov 01) After the Ball was Over – Wordsmiths Detachment Roger Wooster Theatre Richard Jevons Stuart Bennett Tales From Canterbury Profile: Michael Fleming The playwright’s perspective Book Reviews: This year’s National Drama Screenplaying Julie Roberts Andy Kempe An Andy Kempe Trilogy: Drama GCSE ’Thinking Drama’ Conference Opinion: True Fiction David Best Coursebook; Starting with Scripts: in Canterbury When the play ends, what begins? The Script Sampler Michael Judge Failing? Not Likely – experiences of an Active Thinking NQT year; Caroline Stamp-Dod Teaching Drama in Primary and Janine Barlow Theatre Review Secondary Schools: Fleming This Secret Life Alison Warren What It Means to be Human Spirits of the Age Daniel Shindler and Simon Veness Teaching Drama 11-18: Nicholson (Ed) Dave Simpson Book Reviews Shakespeare: The Animated Tales The Children by Edward Bond Power Relationships in Applied Drama Levels Exemplified and Drama Claudette Bryanston DRAMA 10.2 (May 03) Theatre Techniques Exemplified egproducts Michèle Young Desenterrando o Futuro 4 Afraid of Loud Noises Masks in Action Davies Dan Baron Cohen and Jackie Mørch Wrigley Theatre Review A students’ Guide to A2 Drama and Marcia Pompeo Noguiera Drama and Theatre Studies at A level The Green Children Kate Fleming Theatre Studies Harvey and Williams Whilst the Horses Still Go Round – the Stuart Bennett Book Reviews Improvisation for Actors and Writers 13th World Congress Drama in Education Different but the Same Gaynor Peach Playing a Part: Drama and Citizenship Lyon Rachel Dickinson Braverman Festival of Love Sharon Muiruri Book Reviews: With Drama in Mind: real learning in Planning Process Drama: High Performance Tales imagined worlds Baldwin Bowell and Heap Sally Pomme Clayton Resourcing Classroom Drama 5-8 Musings on Applied Theatre DRAMA 12.1 (Nov 04) Resourcing Classroom Drama 8-14 Philip Taylor Interview: Sally Mackay Grainger and Cremin Response Mark Howell Meri Woven Lives: MUNDI Science in the Drama Classroom Theatre Reviews Nigel Townsend ORDERING Sunbeam Terrace – Blah Blah Blah DRAMA 9.2 (May 02) BACK ISSUES Theatre Richard Jevons Drama in the Science Classroom Profile: James Brining 7 Assilon Place – Talia Theatre Pam Ferguson Contact: Chris Lawrence 11/09 The Space in Our Hearts Richard Jevons With Drama in Mind Patrice Baldwin London Drama, Diorama Arts Jonothan Neelands Book Reviews: The idea of IDEA is a people’s theatre 3-7 Euston Centre, Regent's Place, Drama in Strange Places The Drama Book: Jonothan Neelands’ address to this year’s London NW1 3JG. Tel/Fax: 0207 388 6555 Geoff Davies English and Media Centre IDEA conference Email:[email protected]
48 Drama Magazine Winter 2005 Winter 2005 Drama Magazine 48 Winter2005 cover_May05 cover 21/05/2013 12:59 Page 3
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Drama The Journal of National Drama Winter2005 cover_May05 cover 21/05/2013 13:00 Page 4 Volume 13 No 1 Winter 2005 Photograph by Steven Beaumont
On October 21st 2005 Norfolk County Council in conjunction with National Drama held a one day conference for local teachers entitled ‘Drama for Learning and Creativity’. This issue features Joe Winston’s keynote speech from the conference (see page 5), plus an illustrated description of the conference workshops (see page 24).
Drama The Journal of National Drama