Applied Drama

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Applied drama (also known as applied theatre or applied performance) is an umbrella term for the use of theatrical practices and creativity that takes participants and audience members further than mainstream theatre. It is often in response to conventional people with real life stories. [1] The work often happens in non-conventional theatre spaces and social settings (e.g. schools, prisons, streets and alternative educational provisions). There are several forms and practices considered to be under the umbrella of applied theatre.

Contents

History

Applied drama is a term that has gained popularity towards the end of the 20th century to describe drama practice in an educational, community, or therapeutic context.

Applied drama can be either scripted or unscripted. [2] Some practitioners focus primarily on improvisation, whereas others introduce a range of artistic practices such as developing scripted plays, [3] devised performances, [4] or indigenous forms of cultural performance. These are sometimes combined with new forms of digital communication. [5]

Fields associated with applied drama

Playback Theater

Playback Theater involves audience or group members telling stories from their lives and viewing them as enacted by actors improvising. It can also be used in conjunction with narrative therapy. [6]

Drama in health education

Drama in healthcare is drama created in medical contexts, often with the intention of rehabilitation. [7]

This form of applied drama focuses on using theatre to educate, engage, and stimulate healing in medical professionals, patients, and the general public. Theater and drama in healthcare are tilted towards informing the populace about health and improving their health and longevity irrespective of status or social stratification. This form of drama is often used to educate people on important health issues such as healthy eating, grief and loss, exercise, and sexual assault prevention. Examples include using actors to role-play health ailments in order to train healthcare professionals, performing plays focused on primary prevention, and facilitating drama workshops for patients.[ citation needed ]

Drama therapy

Drama therapy is the use of applied drama techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote mental health. [8]

Drama therapy is rooted in a clinical practice. Facilitated by licensed clinicians that stimulate language, cognitive development, and that builds resilience. [9]

Theater for Development

Theater for development uses applied drama techniques to facilitate development in less developed countries. [10]

Drama in education

Drama in education allows students to develop an understanding of themselves and others. [11] Kathleen Gallagher has argued that "What is clear is that there is no correct pedagogical model on offer for drama education. [...] In theatre pedagogy, we not only endow experience with meaning, but we are - as players - invited to make manifest our own subjectivities in the world evoked through character and play, a world laden with metaphor and nuance, a world where relationship to other and self-spectatorship are in dynamic and unrelenting interaction.' [12]

Theater in education

Theater in Education (TIE) originated in Britain in the mid-1960s. Monica Prendergast and Juliana Saxton cite TIE as "one of the two historic roots of applied theatre practice." [2] TIE typically includes a theatre company performing in an educational setting (i.e. a school) for youth, including interactive and performative moments. Practitioner Lynn Hoare defines TIE as a combination of "theatrical elements with interactive moments in which audience participants (in or out of role) work with actor-teachers towards an educational or social goal, using the tools of theatre in service of this goal." [13] TIE seeks to educate young people in issues that are relevant to both them and their communities, for example: bullying, dating violence, environmental preservation, and peer conflict resolution. "TIE companies have always been among the most socially conscious of theatre groups, consistently choosing to examine issues they believe to be of direct relevance to the lives of the children with whom they work." [14]

"Theater for Dialogue" (TFD) is a more recent term describing a model that was created specifically for the University of Texas at Austin campus community which pulls methods and theory from a variety of applied theatre practices such as TO and TIE. In her thesis, Spring Snyder explains that "Theatre for Dialogue performances explore the intersection between theatre and education as a way to investigate, reflect, provoke dialogue and serve as a rehearsal for reality without asking participants to share their own personal experiences. Although some of the Theatre for Dialogue's roots originate from an adapted form of Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed's forum structure, it is Theatre in Education (TIE) that more closely aligns with TFD." [15]

Prison theater

In prison theater, practitioners engage offenders in correctional facilities, jails, prisons, and detention centers in exploring drama work often with the objective of education or rehabilitation. [16]

Examples include Wabash Valley Correctional Facility's Shakespeare in Shackles where maximum security prisoners learn about and perform Shakespeare. The University of Texas' Center for Women and Gender Studies' Performing Justice Project works with incarcerated female youth to learn about gender and racial justice while devising a play based on the youth's unique experiences. [17]

Theater of the Oppressed

The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) describes theatrical forms that the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first developed in the 1960s, initially in Brazil and later in Europe. Boal's techniques aim to use theatre as means of promoting social and political change through allowing the audience to take an active role in the creation of the show. Theatre of the Oppressed can include aspects of forum theatre, invisible theatre, legislative theatre and image theatre.

Museum theatre

Museum theatre aims to use theatrical techniques to add emotion and value to the museum experience. [18] It is typically more common in cultural institutions like heritage sites, history museums, and science and industry museums. [19] [20] As with the other forms of applied drama, it can involve a variety of theatrical techniques. [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Improvisational theatre</span> Theatrical genre featuring unscripted performance

Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of theatre</span> Overview of and topical guide to theatre

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to theatre:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Augusto Boal</span> Brazilian dramatist and political activist

Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre practitioner, drama theorist, and political activist. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical left popular education movements. Boal served one term as a Vereador in Rio de Janeiro from 1993 to 1997, where he developed legislative theatre.

Community theatre refers to any theatrical performance made in relation to particular communities—its usage includes theatre made by, with, and for a community. It may refer to a production that is made entirely by a community with no outside help, or a collaboration between community members and professional theatre artists, or a performance made entirely by professionals that is addressed to a particular community. Community theatres range in size from small groups led by single individuals that perform in borrowed spaces to large permanent companies with well-equipped facilities of their own. Many community theatres are successful, non-profit businesses with a large active membership and, often, a full-time staff. Community theatre is often devised and may draw on popular theatrical forms, such as carnival, circus, and parades, as well as performance modes from commercial theatre. This type of theatre is ever-changing and evolving due to the influences of the community; the artistic process can often be heavily affected by the community's socioeconomic circumstances.

Psychodrama is an action method, often used as a psychotherapy, in which clients use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno and his wife Zerka Toeman Moreno, psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage, or a space that serves as a stage area, where props can be used. A psychodrama therapy group, under the direction of a licensed psychodramatist, reenacts real-life, past situations, acting them out in present time. Participants then have the opportunity to evaluate their behavior, reflect on how the past incident is getting played out in the present and more deeply understand particular situations in their lives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Experimental theatre</span> Genre of theater

Experimental theatre, inspired largely by Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, began in Western theatre in the late 19th century with Alfred Jarry and his Ubu plays as a rejection of both the age in particular and, in general, the dominant ways of writing and producing plays. The term has shifted over time as the mainstream theatre world has adopted many forms that were once considered radical.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drama therapy</span> Use of theatre techniques to promote mental health

Drama therapy is the use of theatre techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote mental health. Drama therapy is used in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, mental health centers, prisons, and businesses. Drama therapy, as a modality of the creative arts therapies, exists in many forms and can apply to individuals, couples, families, and various groups.

Dramatic conventions are the specific actions and techniques the actor, writer or director has employed to create a desired dramatic effect or style.

Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot.

Theatre for development (TfD) is a type of community-based or interactive theatre practice that aims to promote civic dialogue and engagement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theatre of the Oppressed</span> Theatrical genre

The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) describes theatrical forms that the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first elaborated in the 1970s, initially in Brazil and later in Europe. Boal was influenced by the work of the educator and theorist Paulo Freire and his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Boal's techniques use theatre as means of promoting social and political change in alignment originally with radical-left politics and later with centre-left ideology. In the Theatre of the Oppressed, the audience becomes active, such that as "spect-actors" they explore, show, analyse and transform the reality in which they are living.

A theatre practitioner is someone who creates theatrical performances and/or produces a theoretical discourse that informs their practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, dramatist, actor, designer or a combination of these traditionally separate roles. Theatre practice describes the collective work that various theatre practitioners do.

Interactive theatre is a presentational or theatrical form or work that breaks the "fourth wall" that traditionally separates the performer from the audience both physically and verbally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drama</span> Artwork intended for performance, formal type of literature

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics —the earliest work of dramatic theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theatre</span> Collaborative form of performing art

Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. It is the oldest form of drama, though live theatre has now been joined by modern recorded forms. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. Places, normally buildings, where performances regularly take place are also called "theatres", as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι.

Forum theatre is a type of theatre created by Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal. It is one of the techniques under the umbrella term of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO). This relates to the engagement of spectators influencing and engaging with the performance as both spectators and actors, termed "spect-actors", with the power to stop and change the performance. As part of TO, the issues dealt with in forum theatre are often related to areas of social justice, with the aim of exploring solutions to oppression featured in the performance.

Open-space Learning, or OSL, is a pedagogic methodology. OSL is a transdisciplinary pedagogy that is dependent on the use of physically open spaces - in the sense that tables and chairs are absent - and an open approach to intellectual content and the role of the tutor. Participants in OSL, typically but not exclusively, learn in an 'embodied' way.

Theatre pedagogy is an independent discipline combining both theatre and pedagogy. As a field that arose during the 20th century, theatre pedagogy has developed separately from drama education, the distinction being that the drama teacher typically teaches method, theory and/or practice of performance alone, while theatre pedagogy integrates both art and education to develop language and strengthen social awareness. Theatre pedagogy is rooted in drama and stagecraft, yet works to educate people outside the realm of theatre itself.

There are many methods for teaching drama. Each strategy involves varying levels of student participation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Newham</span> British psychotherapist (born 1962)

Paul Newham is a retired British psychotherapist known for developing techniques used in psychology and psychotherapy that make extensive use of the arts to facilitate and examine two forms of human communication: the interpersonal communication through which people speak aloud and listen to others, and the intrapersonal communication that enables individuals to converse silently with themselves. His methods emphasise the examination of traumatic experiences through literary and vocal mediums of expression, including creative writing, storytelling, and song. He is cited by peers as a pioneer in recognition of his original contribution to the expressive therapies.

References

  1. Prentki, Tim (2013-10-31). Prentki, Tim; Preston, Sheila (eds.). The Applied Theatre Reader. doi:10.4324/9780203891315. ISBN   978-0-203-89131-5.
  2. 1 2 Monica Prendergast; Juliana Saxton, eds. (2009). Applied Theatre, International Case Studies and Challenges for Practice. Briston, UK: Intellect Publishers. p. 7.
  3. Clean Break http://www.cleanbreak.org.uk . Retrieved 30 November 2011.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)[ title missing ]
  4. http://www.oilycart.org.uk.retrieved%5B%5D 30 November 2011
  5. See, for example www.charles-royal.com, www.africanperformers.com, www.storyworkshop.org. retrieved 30 November 2011
  6. Barak, Adi (2013). "Playback theatre and narrative therapy: introducing a new model". Dramatherapy. 35 (2): 108–119. doi:10.1080/02630672.2013.821865. S2CID   67801691. Article elaborates how such integration (Playback theatre with Narrative Therapy) can be achieved and how it can contribute to the process of narrative re-authoring.
  7. Warren, Bernie. Using the Creative Arts in Therapy and Healthcare: A Practical Introduction. Routledge. p. 115.
  8. Loretta Gallo-Lopez, Lawrence C. C. Rubin -Play-Based Interventions for Children and Adolescents on the ... 2012- Page 100 "An overview of drama therapy is provided next, along with support for the use of drama therapy with children with ASd."
  9. Weber, Anna Marie; Haen, Craig (2005). Clinical Applications of Drama Therapy in Child and Adolescent Treatment. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
  10. Kabaso, Sydney (2013). Theater for Development in Zambia. Zambia: Kabsy Digital Media. p. 20.
  11. "The Arts, The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8" (PDF). Ontario Ministry of Education and Training. p. 5. Retrieved 20 May 2013. Education in the arts is essential to students' intellectual, social, physical, and emotional growth.
  12. See 'Emergent Conceptions in Theatre Pedagogy and Production' in How Theatre Education: Convergences and Counterpoints 3-13, pp. 12-13.
  13. Hoare, Lynn. Considering the Form: Fundamental Factors in Devising for Theatre-In-Education. Thesis. University of Texas at Austin. n.p. Print.
  14. Jackson, Anthony, and Chris Vine. Learning through Theatre: The Changing Face of Theatre in Education. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print.
  15. Snyder, Spring. A Transformative Classroom Experience: Exploring Campus Mental Health through Theatre For Dialogue. Thesis. University of Texas at Austin. 2015. Print.
  16. Shailor, Jonathan (2010). Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. In the prison setting, as elsewhere, the needs that theatre addresses are those of self-expression and identity, freedom (of the imagination), creativity, and community.
  17. Thompson, James (1999). Drama Workshops for Anger Management and Offending Behaviour. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
  18. 1 2 "IMTAL | IMTAL". imtal-europe.net. Retrieved 2015-06-14.
  19. Catherine Hughes. Museum theatre: Communicating with visitors through drama. Heinemann Drama, 1998.
  20. Genshaft, Lindsay Michelle. "Bridging theatre and visual art: the role of an applied theatre practitioner in a fine art museum." (2011).

Further reading