In this blogpost I would like to share with you two examples of applied theatre practices that help children through drama. The post includes two videos that illustrate the practice.

Speech Bubbles by London Bubble

The first example is the Speech Bubbles programme of London Bubble Theatre Company. As part of my placement at London Bubble I got the opportunity to participate in a couple of Speech Bubbles sessions at primary schools in Southwark, South London.

Research (Bercow report 2008:13) shows that 50% of the children from ‘some socio- economically disadvantaged populations have speech and language skills that are significantly lower than those of other children of the same ageʼ. Intervention in the early years in children’s development of their communication skills can prevent behavioural issues, social and psychological difficulties and drop-out from the education system (Bercow report 2008:14).

This video shows (more…)

In my previous blogpost I have introduced the thought from Giddens that we are ‘reflexive human beings’ engaged in ‘life politics’. With this I mean that we are reflecting on a daily basis on our lives and planning the future based on that reflection.

An illustration you might know is the daily planning all of us are involved in constantly; about our money, our savings, our retirement, our future career, our health, etc. All the planning we are preoccupied with today is planning in the now for the future.

One can question whether we experience the here and now at all, and thus as Harari (2009:174) says: ‘the ‘here and now’ is probably the most challenging quest of (theatrical) performance’.

In my personal experience – as a facilitator and as a participant –there is a point in almost every drama workshop where the here and now is the only thing (more…)

As part of my part of my MA in “Applied Theatre (Drama in the Community and Drama Education)” at the Central School of Speech and Drama I’ve conducted a research project with four classmates into the meaning of risk within education. In this blogpost I would like to share some of our theoretical findings about risk in education. In future posts, I will share about us researcher as risk-assesors, and the use of clowning in this research.

Growing up in our education system

What are the messages young people get exposed to about risk? Young people growing up in our education system today get different messages about risk, because there are different paradigms on risk in the socio – political context surrounding them. According to the NESTA REPORT of 2010 “learning to take risk, learning to succeed” there are two conflicting (more…)

As you can read in my previous post about term three, I am following the course “writing with communities” as part of my MA in “Applied Theatre (Drama in the Community and Drama Education)” at the Central School of Speech and Drama. My tutor for this course is Sara Clifford. She works as a play writer and drama practitioner in different community settings, such as educational, health and criminal justice settings. At the moment she is working on a site specific community theatre play for Newhaven Ferry, supported by the Arts Council

I enjoy following this course a lot.

Writing with communities is all about the different community settings (more…)

If we include people in a community, do we automatically exclude others? And, is this bad? In this post I would like to share some thoughts about the community and some dilemma’s I’ve encountered as an applied theatre practitioner working within them.

Defining the community

To gather a diverse group of people in a community, around a common interest or locality (idea comes from Kershaw 1992) and to let them share their thoughts and feelings leading in some cases towards a performance is never a neutral process. There is no such thing as “performance neutrality” as Schechner (2002:2) calls it. By defining who is included in the community, we immediately define who is excluded from it.

I encounterd this in my own practice: do you say “NO” to a participant showing up at your workshop because he or she does not fully represent your target group profile? This participant has not experienced (more…)

In my previous blogpost I have described the way we learn and how we can realise participatory and engaged learning by using drama or creativity in education.

In this blogpost I would like to share with you my  own experiences from two primary schools in London, where creativity in education was used in literacy and numeracy classes. Before that, I will try to explain to you why creative learning is of utmost importance.

The importance of creative learning in theory

In his famous TED-talks, the  international educationalist Sir Ken Robinson questions our education system. As we learn according to how we are taught, he says, is the school system prepared to educate the workforce of the future? Are we preparing our children to deal with the (more…)

As promised in my first post about drama and education, I have given the way we learn some more thought. I also expressed the hope that I soon could use drama as a practice for participatory and engaged learning. So I did, and I can conclude from my own experience now that using drama and creativity is an immense resource for learning.

The most important thing is that drama or creativity connects our minds with our bodies, and then connects us with the world we live in. Learning takes place because we have physical experiences, because we identify and explore the subject to be learned by actually doing it or acting it out (see if you want to learn more about this for instance “Out of our minds, learning to be creative” by Ken Robinson (2001)).

My personal experience is founded on research too. Cross-national European research (DICE 2010) shows that (more…)

Before you start reading this post, think back a moment about your time in school: what course or subject did you like the most? Why? Which teacher comes to mind as a special one? Why was he or she so special? And what do you remember as a bad experience or teaching style, class or teacher?

Now I’d like you to keep this picture of your learning experiences (both the positive as the negative) in mind while reading the remainder of this post. Perhaps you can help me answering this question I’ve been puzzled by over the last few weeks: how does learning take place? How do we learn?

Participation and engagement in the classroom

As mentioned in my last post about the pedagogy unit I am following this term, an important influencer of the pedagogies of learning and teaching is Paolo Freire (1921-1997). He is famous for his dislike of treating students as ‘empty vessels’, “waiting to be filled by the knowledge of the teacher.” (Babbage 2004: 19). Freire calls this the “banking form of education”. Instead he advocates the process of ‘conscientização’ (consciousness-raising) “a process that emphasises the ownership of knowledge”, instead of “receiving, filling and storing the deposits” (ibidem).

What does this mean? It simply means that you don’t fall asleep in the classroom, (more…)

From September 2010, I am studying “Applied Theatre (Drama in the Community and Drama Education)” at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. In my first blog post I explained more about this Masters and I mentioned that the UK is the place to be for participatory theatre.

However, I must mention here an extremely professional Dutch organization I met last May in the Netherlands, called “Formaat, Workplace for Participatory Drama”. They made a huge impression on me. Let me tell you something about my experiences with working with them.

My first encounter with Formaat was on a course day of the Joker Training in their physical Workplace, a nice working space with a view on the Port of Rotterdam. As a born and raised “Amsterdammer” I always feel a bit lost when I arrive at Rotterdam Central Station, with its large skyscrapers and immense (more…)

In September 2010 I will start studying “Applied Theatre (Drama in the Community and Drama Education)” at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. On this blog I will share my experiences and the lessons I will most certainly learn. My goal is to provide a lively document about the width and depth of applied drama.

In this first post I will explain more about the contents of my studies and my motivation to move to London for them.

What is applied drama?

Applied Drama (or Applied Theatre) is the unconventional use of theatre, outside of the official theatres, close to communities. The word ‘Applied’ in ‘Applied Theatre/Drama’ implies that the use of drama is aimed at something or someone. This means there’s a common belief that the practice of theatre must and will benefit individuals, communities and societies.

(more…)