Search

Malthouse Theatre's The Suitcase Series celebrated ten years in 2020. As a participatory theatre making program for young people in Years 9 and 10 of secondary education, it holds a unique position in the Victorian and, arguably, the Australian theatre education landscape. Since 2010 Malthouse Theatre has commissioned an original script by a new playwright every two years, then challenging young people to give voice to their thoughts and feelings to the issue through the interrelated roles of creator-performer-audience-critical peer. This paper offers critical insight into the origin, intentions, process, and social and artistic impacts of the program across ten years. It positions the Malthouse as a key contributor to the field of participatory theatre programs in Australia, and considers how theatre can create 'something very forceful, something that we believe, then offer to students in a way that doesn't crush them' (Lynch, 2010). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dramatic arts utilise emotion, introspection, artistry and interpretation from multiple perspectives to promote dialogue and reflection. Drama research can access these kinds of engagements by using artistic mediums to present phenomena, experiences and findings. This paper resulted from a research project investigating drama performance assessment in Australian schools. Data was collected in Year 11 and 12 Drama classes at six school sites, using ethnographical observation of performances, narrative and semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. Findings of the research indicate that there are several influences on students’ performative responses for assessment, including the local curriculum and assessment practices, school and class cultures and the approach of the teacher. These influences are illustrated using mediums that complement the field of drama, specifically scripts and stories. This paper presents three of these artefacts; one collection of storied descriptions and two scripts, discussing the methodology used to create them and exploring future directions for the presentation of findings, using other mediums that complement the field of drama. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper summarises an arts partnership between a Victorian-based children’s theatre company, Polyglot Theatre, and three Victorian primary schools. The importance of arts partnerships between professional artists and the education sector cannot be overemphasised, especially in light of the implementation of the national (Australian) curriculum. Emerging from an evaluation of the partnership, this paper contextualises the findings in a framework of the key attributes of an arts partnership in schools, and the importance in documenting such processes. The paper maps the divergences and successes of this arts partnership in the broader context of the sustainability of such programs for the benefit of all participants, and considers how generalist primary school teachers might effectively engage arts partnerships as one strategy in meeting the Australian Arts Curriculum’s proposed access for every student to the five art disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s and 1980s John Carroll published three papers concerned with analysing talk in drama classrooms. It was Carroll's belief that "Drama, by its very nature as a creative force, demands a different sort of discourse from both teacher and pupils in the classroom" (Carroll, 1988). According to Carroll, the act of role-taking in the classroom is central to this. Carroll used socio-linguistic analysis to discuss the particular way in which role-taking affects classroom dynamics and the effect drama has on student learning. Since this early work from Carroll, the detailed analysis of talk in drama has received little attention. In this paper I aim to draw on both this early work by Carroll, and my own recent work using conversation analysis (Freebody, 2009, 2010) to continue the discussion around the significance of drama, role and talk in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of Drama as a subject in the Australian Curriculum is largely a result of the unwavering advocacy of national associations (like Drama Australia) and alliances, in particular the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE). This article briefly outlines stages in national curriculum development in Australia and delineates key organisations and individuals who have contributed to the inclusion of drama within Australia’s national curriculum. The paper draws from previously published material, interviews with representatives from each state professional association, and extended interviews with members of the NAAE. The authors propose that the most significant contributing factor to the inclusion of drama in the educational entitlement for all young people in the Australian national curriculum has been collaborative advocacy, carefully managed by a national advocacy collective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on analysis of interviews with over 500 young people who attended theatre performances as part of the Australian TheatreSpace project. The paper focuses on one small but critical aspect of the larger project. Asked what they valued in a theatre experience, a significant number of young people spoke about liveness. The paper addresses the question: what are the key points/ideas about liveness that we can learn from listening to the young people? Our discussion includes a consideration of: the comfort or discomfort of presentness; performer vulnerability, risk and uncertainty; proximity to the live action; perceptions of realness; a sense of relationship with the actors; and intensity of engagement. A brief consideration of the implications for teachers and theatre providers concludes the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a survey of Australian drama education documents. The purpose of this selective tracing of the genealogy of Australian drama education is to set the scene for the current context while also acknowledging the strength and foresight of Australian drama education pioneers and predecessors. This article had its genesis in a discussion paper, originally titled Sharing the Blank Page: if there's going to be a National Drama Curriculum, what might it look like? It was prepared for a round table forum on drama curriculum at gener8, the 2008 National Drama Education Conference, Adelaide, May 10, 2008. That round table was well attended and generated considerable discussion, prompting not only this article but this special curriculum edition of NJ. This paper has been reworked significantly since then. I acknowledge all the contributors to the round table forum and the input of critical readers to the reshaping of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper problematises embedded notions of masculine and feminine embodiment within the contexts of contemporary Australian mainstream popular culture. Drawing on Bourdieu's (1990:56) theory of `habitus' as non-consciously performed practices'… internalised as second nature and so forgotten'; personal reflections as artist, choreographer and teacher; and a brief analysis of the male body in the television program, So You Think You Can Dance Australia (TEN Network, 2008), the author questions and considers the development of habitual ways of perceiving particular forms of male embodiment as aesthetic and attractive, and other forms as un-aesthetic. Further, the impact of the author's own experiences as actor! dancer and choreographer are considered in relation to his work as a director and choreographer of `the bodies of male and female students' in school productions. Through this paper, the author conjectures about the potential for the drama classroom to be a site in which embodied gender inequities may be challenged and deconstructed. Jack Migdalek [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Surviving but not thriving.' That is the message about small to medium-sized companies that Ian McRae, Chair of the Theatre Board of the Australia Council, has been delivering since 2003. In the Theatre Board Assessment Meeting Report of 2007, McRae strongly urged renewed financial support for this most important sector given the significant decrease over the last 10 years and the consequent decrease in new Australian works being produced. Without such support his prediction is that 'considerable damage could be done to the creative infrastructure across Australia resulting in a loss of artistic vibrancy down the track that could be very difficult to recover' (McRae, 2007:3). This paper investigates one theatre company's response to this unsettling scenario. How has the triennially-funded La Boite Theatre Company responded to this crisis? On the surviving to thriving continuum where does it see itself? What are key artistic and organisational strategies that have been developed to keep the company viable? Having completed a doctoral study in 2006 of the Company's transformational journey from 1925 to 2003, I shall in this paper re-contextualise La Boite's distinctive survival skills within the current reality of fast disappearing federally-funded support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to provide primary teachers with effective ways of engaging in drama processes to affirm diversity and to promote inclusive education in regard to cultural and linguistic diversity. It is informed by, and a response to, the ‘cultural and linguistic’ section within the recently revised version of theDrama Australia Equity and Diversity Guidelinesto which both authors contributed. It examines some ways in which recommendations and advice provided within the document can be enacted in primary schools through the use of drama education methods, in particular dramatic storytelling and process drama. Through their work the authors have found that drama techniques and processes can be highly effective in developing understandings of cultural and linguistic diversity within primary schools. By way of illustration this paper also focuses on the findings of a recent PhD project conducted by one of the authors, which focused on the education of pre-service primary teachers in the use of drama techniques to explore cultural identities and linguistic diversity. Specifically, it examined the roles culturally specific oral arts forms, including participatory storytelling (in this instance stories from South African cultures) can play in supporting drama pedagogy and intercultural understanding of pre-service primary teacher candidates and how they can transfer this knowledge to their teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on the personal experience of the author who had been employed as a Youth Arts Manager in a small, desert town in the Northern Territory. In her research honours study during the project for which she was engaged, she aimed to understand the tensions she experienced managing this partnership. Now, five years later, she reconsidered the experience and, placing the concept of culture shock at the forefront of her perspective, came to see the experience in a new light. Kate proposes that understanding protocols is a process embodiment that may be affected by the experience of culture shock, and secondly, that creative processes can be reduced neither to process nor product. Rather, with a clear understanding of aims and objectives as they relate to context, from community development can fruitful artistic partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the intersection between the senior secondary drama classroom, creativity and neoliberalism. Informed by a research project involving fifteen West Australian drama teachers and thirteen students, it considers the drama classroom as one site where tensions between the performative needs of neoliberal education and the more humanistic desires that drama teachers embody are enacted. This paper suggests that drama education can be a powerfully transformative vehicle for creative and innovative thinking because of its spatially unique classroom environment and embodied nature. However, collisions between rhetoric and reality, social good and economic return, can mean that young people are denied opportunities for choice and the capability development that drama education brings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper outlines findings from a study exploring how participation in process drama may assist pre-service teachers to develop an enhanced sense of moral character, agency and virtue ethics. The study explores the intersection between initial teacher education, process drama, drama teaching and professional ethics education. Findings indicate that process drama offers an immersive, applied, visceral experience that enables pre-service teachers to rehearse difficult conversations, explore ethical dilemmas, model and explore how they want to be. Process drama offers a form of moral pedagogy that supports the development of a holistic professional ethic, addresses all aspects of moral literacy and provides a safe space for pre-service teacher to explore what it means to “be” ethical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses aspects of a focused case study that was undertaken to discover what the children in one school knew and understood about drama learning, and about the value and purpose of learning in this way. With the belief that, for conversations about education to remain relevant they must be opened up to include the perspectives of children, this study privileged children’s voices above all others, placing the research focus on the critical connections between students and their teachers, as they participate together in the learning process. The children’s perceptions about a wide range of drama learning experiences, both inside and outside the classroom over a number of years were collected during a series of focus group interviews, with younger children being encouraged to draw as they chatted, an approach aimed at further enriching the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia's state and territory systems of education inevitably lead to varying interpretations of drama education and assessment. This paper examines the various models of senior secondary Drama performance assessment across Australian states and territories. Curriculum documents and literature are used to explore the role of performance assessment in the Drama learning experience. The challenges of assessing in the aesthetic field of Drama are discussed, as is the complex role of the assessor within the performance context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]