Kate Donelan

Embodied Practices: Ethnography and intercultural Drama in the Classroom

Abstract The goals of contemporary ethnography and intercultural performance are similar within an educational context; both encourage participants to build an embodied understanding of the lived experiences of others. By integrating intercultural performance practices into our drama curriculum we can encourage students to critically examine their own social and cultural attitudes and build dynamic and embodied understandings of other socio-cultural worlds. Contemporary ethnographic practices allow drama teachers and participatory researchers to engage with the experiences of students as they create and explore intercultural drama.

Talking About Liveness: Responses of Young People in the Theatrespace Project

Abstract 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.

Where did we come from (and why does it matter?): shared memories of Drama Australia

Abstract As part of the first Drama Australia Symposium in 2016 three of Australia’s best loved ‘vintage’ drama educators, who had been instrumental in the establishment of the association, were asked to contribute a keynote. Kate Donelan, Val Johnson and John O’Toole drew on their shared memories of the 40 years since the foundation of Drama Australia to highlight key moments in the association’s history. Here is the script they presented to delegates, 1st October, 2016, Adelaide.

The Education Landscape: Building Engaged Theatre-Goers

This chapter examines the significant relationship between school education and young people’s attendance and engagement with live theatre. Through studying theatre as an exciting, participatory art form and through viewing diverse theatre productions with classmates and teachers, many school students become confident, motivated and critically engaged audience-members. Teachers play a vital role in inducting students without a family background of theatre attendance into live theatre as a meaningful and enjoyable cultural experience. However, inequitable educational funding, particularly in disadvantaged schools, restricts the capacity of some teachers to offer comprehensive drama programs or to provide their students with access to appropriate theatre experiences. Enthusiastic teachers within schools with a strong performing arts culture assist many students to build a social and educational platform for independent theatre attendance. Students from ‘theatre-active’ schools participate confidently in articulating, sharing and refining meaning of performances and are engaged by diverse styles of theatre including productions they perceive as difficult and challenging. In evaluating and analysing professional theatre they draw on their own practical drama experiences at school, identifying themselves as theatre-makers within an inclusive theatre community. Most drama students in the research believed that their drama teachers and their curriculum had significantly deepened their knowledge and appreciation of theatre and enhanced their critical enjoyment and confidence as audience members. However the linking of theatre excursions to compulsory performance analysis assessment tasks reduced some students’ enjoyment and constrained their responses as audience members.

MyStory/OurStories:Growing andConnectingThroughEnactedStories

Abstract This paper reports on a study of four performing arts projects in Melbourne schools led by SCRAYP Youth Arts with an Edge. This community arts company works with disadvantaged and culturally diverse young people and employs and mentors emerging artists. The study focused on the ways in which young people make sense of their world through their enacted stories. The research highlights the young peoples construction of moral frameworks and social messages in the performances they create and present to their communities.

Critical Contexts: A Rationale for the Inclusion of Drama in the Critical Development of Pupils from the Age of 10 to the Age of 12

Abstract This article develops the argument for the application of drama methodology in the effective teaching and learning of pupils in the later stage of primary and the early stage of secondary education. Through a series of case descriptions; glimpses of drama taking place with class groups in Northamptonshire and Derbyshire in the UK, we see how drama supports the teaching of language development and critical thinking and offers highly motivating contexts for sustaining the desire to learn in the sometimes difficult transitional stage between primary and secondary education.