Theatre in Education- Introduction

Theatre in Education

Theatre in Education started first in the Belgrade Theatre in 1965. At that time, the world was going under very many revolutions and changes. Theatre in Education was a project undertaken by the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. Gordon Vallins played a key role in finding the principles of TiE. He was appointed as Assistant to the Director in 1964. He was disappointed with how schools behaved and looked at visits to the Belgrade Theatre for a production of Hamlet. This had motivated Vallins to run a program called the Young Stagers, where young people could work to receive discounts on theatre tickets. These young people would develop and perform their own production. The theatre's director had agreed that the theatre should be the centre of the city's life, and thought that this should begin in the education systems. Later, a Theatre in Education company was made and it not only trained actors as performers but also as teachers. They visit schools that expose children to creativity and affect children's thinking through drama performances. Later, TiE became a famous approach for education through theatre, and many companies have been made after that that serves the same purpose.
The principles of the TiE:
- Creates productions for the purpose of education.
- The productions should end with delivering a message to the audience that inspires discussions, thinking, creativity within them.
- An interactive production with activities that will make it possible to interact with the audience during the performance.
- The performers should not only be trained as actors but also as teachers.
- Produce productions that raises the awareness of topics or issues that surround the students (bullying, etc.) among the audience.
- The productions should be fun and interesting for the audience.
- Appropriate and enhances learning and thinking among the audience.

This is the first TiE company I have researched on. This is a theatre in education company from Hong Kong. This company work with schools around Hong Kong, Macau and Southern China. I have chose this company to explain in more details, because compared to the other companies I have chosen, this one is based in HK, which is easier to relate to than the other companies. This company provides English-language performances in many different schools. Also, it stages a performance that would include a variety of drama workshops. Another service that this company provides, is that it could produce a school drama starring students. 

This company has performed shows such as:

- Aladdin and the Magic Lamp

- Beauty and the Beast

- The Spring Onion Band- live music concert for teens

- etc. 

This company also provides an issues-based theatre. This could contain issues such as bullying that could educate students on these issue topics. 

This is the second TiE company. This company is located in the UK. This company uses performance, discussion workshops and lesson plans, to meet the needs of a range of learning styles and abilities. According to the company's website, they are "members of Anti Bullying Alliance, PSHE Association, Sex Education Forum and NWG." This could help a lot with the education topics that the company covers.

This is the third TiE company. This company was founded in 1982 and is located in the UK. According to the TiE company website, "over 5000 children and young people benefit form the company's work each year." This company has a strong theoretical basis, it "focuses artistically on the power of theatre images and dramatic action to create resonances and challenge us to new ways of thinking; whilst being educationally grounded in active learning and problem solving." This company has earned multiple awards and is recognised as a leading centre in arts education. 

Theatre Games

This lesson, we played a few theatre games.
We started with a game where we all stood in a circle and we were to choose random letters and speak it loudly and clearly. For example, L: Lalalalalalalalaaaa. We basically did this many times until we were confident and until we spoke loud and clear enough. I think this game's main idea was to let us understand that on stage our voices have to be loud and clear so everyone in the audience would be able to hear and understand what you are saying.
Next, we were asked to recite the tongue twister: "Peter Piper picked a peck of picked peppers". We all took turns saying this tongue twister, and all of us had stumbled through this tongue twister. After this activity, Mr. Evans told us that this activity was for making all of us being more comfortable around each other. I thought that this was a good activity, since we all saw the different sides of each other, which made us know each other better.
The next game we played was where someone stands at one end of the stage and we all lined up after a line. The person standing at the end of the stage turns his/her back to the rest of the people. The person chooses when to look back, and when that happens the rest of the people have to freeze immediately. The aim of this game is for the people walking towards the person at the end to touch the person before they turn back to see you move instead of freezing.

This game led all of us to have fun with each other. I think that this game was to make all of us feel more comfortable around each other.
The last game we played was the "trust fall". We all paired up and took turns taking the trust fall. I was with Nancy and it was fun playing this game. This game involved contact which would happen a lot in theatre. Therefore, playing this game was a good way to get used to each other, since drama can contain contact sometimes.
All of these theatre games were aimed to make us feel more comfortable around each other. After this lesson, I had learned more about being comfortable around my classmates, and I knew more about them through the discussions we've had.

Production Elements of Drama

This lesson, we went to the drama studio and we learned about the production elements of Drama. They are the lighting, the sound, the position of standing, and the background of the settings.
The Lighting
First, we were shown the lighting desk that controls all the lighting lamp in the drama studio. Mr. Evans showed how the each switch every individual lamp. After I was shown the lighting controller, I thought of how the lighting crew in theatres might work through the performances. Also, it shows how important the lighting desk is; without it the performance would not be able to continue.

After we looked at the lighting desk, we looked at the bulb inside the lamp. 

Later we looked at the lighting filters that could be put on the lamps of the studio to change the colour of the lighting. The filters can be easily placed in the lamp, this could be used to create different settings for the performance. 

For example, the blue lighting filter could be used to create an underwater setting, or a dream setting, etc. The lighting filter can impact the theatre effects a lot. It creates an atmosphere that tells the audience immediately what the setting of the play is. I think that the lighting filters are very useful for theatrical effects, and they could be controlled through the lighting desk, which would make a change of setting during the play possible. The lighting filters can change the look of the setting a lot. For example: 

This shows that lighting filters can be very important and useful as a production element. 

Next we looked at the sound aspect of the production elements of Drama. 

We first looked at the sound system that wires the speakers in the drama studio.

Although the sound desk looked very complicated, but after seeing how each speaker is wired the specific channel, it was easier to understand. The sound desk could control the sound of the speakers very well, and I thought the sound system in the drama studio was very good. The sound system as an aspect of drama is very important, because in theatre you not only need to deliver information through visual effects, but also you need to use the hearing sense to create the theatrical effects that is needed. Therefore, sound systems are also very important as a production element. 

After this, we looked at the how the position standing in the light could change the visual presentation of the character during the performance. For example:

In these two pictures, it shows the difference the position where Sonny was standing changes the perspective of him from the audience. This change could be used as a way to show the change of the mood or a setting during a theatrical performance. Therefore, this is also very important for bringing theatrical effects to the audience. 

Lastly, we saw the different backgrounds in the drama studio and also we were shown of the space we could play around with as the theatrical space. 

This was one of the backgrounds in the studio that we were shown. After being showed all the different kind of spaces and backgrounds in the studio where we could use, I thought that about how there could be many different kinds of performances held in the same space, without actually using the same plot of theatre arrangement. I thought that this was also a major production element in drama. 

After being showed all the different production elements, I understood more about how the dfferent elements could bring different theatrical effects to the audience. 

What is reflection?

Today, Mr. Evans had shared two links to us that we could use later in our reflections. These two links both contain ideas that could be used for reflections.

The first link was about the sketchbooks of artists and how it is beneficial to people if they use it.

This link was about an interview between the author and the artist Julia Rothman. The first question asked was about whether an artist's sketchbook bespeak the fact that either the success of an artist is based on their "genius talents" and if it is based on practice alone, compared to whether if it is the mix of both. For this question Julia Rothman answered that an artist's sketchbook actually shows that is the mix of both an artist's "genius talents" and them practicing over and over again. She says that sketchbooks are full of evidence of the artist spending lots of time practicing for their work to come out like they expected. Then she states that work in the sketchbooks would not be possible with practice alone, it also involves the creative and the talents of the artists. Therefore, she agrees that it is a mix of both options. There were two questions that followed in this interview. They were mainly about how sketchbooks would be able to contain both the talents of the person and his/her efforts and practices. To conclude, sketchbooks can be very useful in reflections. As the link says, sketchbooks contain both the effort of the individual and also the creations of that person. Therefore, when reflecting it would not only show your work, but it would also show all your inspirations and creations that have led you the the final creations.
The second link was about how an artist's notebook is a huge collection of the person's thoughts and efforts.

Notebooks can be a good reflection tool as well. Notebooks reflects a person's work and their ideas through the whole process of making the final creations. It would greatly show that the person did the work and put effort in making the product. Therefore it would be a great reflection tool if used to explain the process of making the product.

In this lesson, we also investigated the different types of writing for reflections. They were, Descriptive, Personal, and Reflective writing.

I used my experience of moving from Shenzhen to Nanchang in the past, to write the three types of reflection. From this practice, I had learned the different ways to reflect and what ways I could choose to write in my reflections in the future. These different styles of writing can be used in different ways. Such as, if it is a reflection of the facts of a performance the descriptive writing style would be used. If the reflection is about reflecting on personal emotions and feelings the personal writing style would be used. Lastly, for reflecting how a performance impacts on you personally, then the reflecting writing style would be used. Therefore, there are many ways where these different writing styles could be used to reflect.
Finally, in the lessons we also looked at the different medias we could use to reflect.
This was the handout we looked at:

These media widens the range of media that can be used for reflections that I know before I looked at the handout. All these different ways of reflection are creative and can be inspirational comparing to the normal type of reflections with only text involved.
After this lesson, I had learned the different ways to reflect. This would help me with the reflections I would have to do in the future.