Education Resource - Drama Improves Lisbon Key Competences in ...

Documented practicesroom by the girl in Malta creates a unity of sites A and B in the workshop. Site B providesthe logic of the situation, of the drama, which is why we build the room and the street withreal attention to detail.Site C is the means by which Sites A and B are conveyed to the audience (site D). Thisis through the story, objects, images and actions. And this is critical to the workshop onmany levels. The focus is on the objects in the situation rather than the ‘character’ of theMan, because we are focused on the situation embodied in our story and our objects.The objects use us as much as we use them: it’s the paradox of our culture. The objectsin the workshop are used in relation to the story, or text, in order to create a gap for theaudience to fill with meaning. We do this by cathecting the objects.Bond calls this a Drama Event, a DE. A DE occurs when objects that are ideologicallyneutral or where the ideological content is striking in a given dramatic situation, aredeconstructed by cathexis and decathexis. This process charges/imbues the objectwith meaning (and energy) and value that extend beyond the thing itself and penetrateideologically-given meanings in order to reveal to us what was previously concealed – theobjective situation (also known as the Invisible Object).In the opening dramatic sequence presented to the participants, the suitcase is cathexedfrom being an everyday object to something else, an almost personified human presence,not yet fully definable but imbued with a different set of values from those that wenormally associate with the object. There is a tension between the received meaningascribed to the object in everyday life (which still remains) and the new values investedin it. The suitcase is constantly cathexed and recathexed; transformed from a suitcaseto something/body that, in the words of the participants, the Man ‘wants to talk to butcan’t’ because he can’t yet access his own story, his own ‘self’. For the participants, thesuitcase holds ‘his memories’, ‘a part of himself that he’s ashamed of’. It is something that‘he wants to bury himself in’, something ‘he wants to keep out’ or ‘keep secret’ because‘he is frightened of the world’ and ‘he has nothing left he can believe in.’ On the occasionthat one of the participants force-fed and beat the suitcase we had found the invisibleobject of our drama. Objects become incredibly powerful in the site because, by beingdramatised, they are not operating primarily as metaphor or symbol but metonymically –the suitcase actually embodies these things. It is the logic of the imagination.This creates the gap. It is an extreme situation. The facilitator does not fill it with wordsof explanation, however. It requires the audience to make meaning of this in time andspace by entering into the site imaginatively. This is site D, the site of the audience asimagination, the site of the ‘self’. By feeding and beating the suitcase, the boy in questionwas seeking reason (for the Man’s situation) imaginatively. He was exploring the logic ofthe situation and in doing so he was engaged in an act of self creation by testing his ownvalues. This is why the emphasis is on experience rather than reflection, on enactmentrather than acting. Acting closes down meaning. Enactment opens meaning up. It iscloser to play than theatrical convention; it is the imagination in action. And it is throughthe imagination that we connect with the basis of our humanness.j. Further readingBakhurst David & Christine Sypnowich (eds) (1995) The Social Self, Sage PublicationsBolton, Gavin (1998) Acting in Classroom Drama: a critical analysis, Trentham BooksBond, Edward (2000) The Hidden Plot: Notes on Theatre and the State, MethuenDaniels, Harry (2001) Vygotsky and Pedagogy, RoutledgeFalmerDavis, David (ed.) (2005) Edward Bond and the Dramatic Child, Trentham BooksDavis, David (2009) Introduction to Saved by Edward Bond, Methuen Drama studentsedition.Elliott, Anthony (2008) Concepts of the Self, Polity PressJohnson, Liz and Cecily O’Neill (eds) (1984) Collected Writings on Education andDrama – Dorothy Heathcote, HutchisonVygotsky, Lev S. (1978) Mind in Society – The Development of Higher PsychologicalProcesses, Harvard University Pressk. Teachers: A guide to practiceRecommendations, issues and questions to considerIf you are interested in using this workshop or adapting elements of it to your own contextwe would take the following into consideration:Content: The Suitcase workshop was created primarily because Big Brum have anongoing interest in some core ideas that we wanted to explore with young people. Wehave been exploring aspects of this core for a number of years in different forms. Theneed return to these ideas is an expression of an artistic drive that exists within thecompany both individually and collectively. This drive is critical to successful practice.If you are driven to want to explore the centre of Suitcase with a similar or differentstructure it will be a major step forward and will furnish you with the necessary fortitudeto withstand the inevitable struggles and set-backs you will experience if you are new toworking in this way. If the drive does not exist, we recommend you find something elsethat fascinates you or that you feel passionate about as a starting point; that way you willfind it easier to structure lessons that will engage young people.In educational theatre and drama one has to consider the dual function of working asan artist and educator. Our experience tells us, however, that unless you are functioningDocumented practices4445