What Is Drama?
Section: Theater Essays
By performing such activities as mime, tableaux, and mirror imaging we can learn to restrain any unnecessary movement and to make the most minuscule action mean so much. Focus and concentration also plays a large part in drama. Each person involved in the group must not only focus on what he/she is doing but also on what the group as a whole is doing. It is only through focusing on the tack at hand that any dramatic activity may be completed. One must block out all outside stimuli and distraction and concentrate on what is required of them. The rhythmic skipping exercise required the class to skip in time to the music, to skip in time to each other and to follow the commands of the teacher at the same time. Personal feelings are not the only subject for drama. Drama can be used to introduce the student to a number of different topics, be it historical, political, scientific, or artistic. A variety of situations can be concocted, allowing the child to explore his actual social relationships at the real level, and an unlimited number of hypothetical roles and attitudes at the symbolic level(McGregor 24).
By experimenting with various roles in society, the child becomes better prepared to face these challenges in the real world. As well, by allowing him/herself to experience things as a different personality and by letting the imagination grow free, the teacher is building up the child's confidence in him/herself and the validity of their own ideas and feelings. The child is now more perceptive to the needs and feelings of others, having portrayed many different types of people. This fits in nicely with Gavin Bolton's definition of dramatic action as a tool for learning that rests in its capacity (1) to separate and objectify an event and (2) to break down established concepts and perceptions (142). At the beginning of the course, we performed a few activities that illustrated this point. By using all of our senses, or deliberating inhibiting one of them, we as individuals were able to break down pre-established ideas about our environment and our fellow classmates. The objective given to us was to observe your own hand using all seven senses, i.e. sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, beauty and humour.
I had never before taken so much time to explore any part of myself. In the past, I had always considered my hands as small and wrinkly, in fact I find all hands revolting. To me, hands had always been the filthiest part of the body, as they consistently were exposed to all kinds of germs. My hands were especially ugly. I had crosshatched lines covering my palms. During this exercise, I stared intently at my hands for a good ten minutes, following the lines up and down the palm, taking detours on the smaller lines; it looked like the road map of a large metropolitan city. I took time to notice that my hands were soft and smooth, the pads of my fingers were fleshy, but the bones of my fingers were pronounced and stiff. I noticed the difference between the first joint of one finger I had broken and one that I had not. When I listened to my hand, it sounded like the ocean. It was then that I discovered that my hand was no longer a hand, but a seashell instead.
All along, I thought that my hand was ugly and useless, but drama had helped me to overcome my prejudices to see that I truly had something beautiful. This also occurred when I had the opportunity to compare my hand with someone else's. We told each other the story of our hands, and I actually could see the tree and its leaves on her hand. We were using drama to learn more about each other and to correct any prejudices we may have had against the other. The other exercise we participated in also occurred near the beginning of the semester. One of each pair of students was blindfolded and the other had to lead them around the vicinity, exploring familiar territory in a different light. I led my partner to the reservoir to walk through the grass and to explore the stone walls along Elm. I had always considered the 'res' to be a dangerous place; somewhere I should never walk through at night. This time however, while leading my partner under archways and along the bike path, I discovered things I had never seen before.
In the alcoves, there were large stone columns and intricate spider webs as large as picture windows. We found a tiny ditch filled with beautifully coloured leaves running alongside the field. What was even more wonderful was that she was discovering all that I was, but without seeing them. When I took off her blindfold, she could not believe where she had just been. My turn was next to be blindfolded. My partner led me down Main Street to Elm through the long grass at the side of the road. We then walked along Elm, taking a detour through the slight embankment leading up to the apartment buildings. I felt a number of seemingly foreign objects, including a bubble-like structure which I later found out was a window, and some sweet smelling flowers. On a regular day, I would walk by this area at least four times and never before had I seen the things I had just explored with six of my senses.
Drama had helped me to see my surroundings in a different light, in fact without seeing at all. What I had established previously as an ugly building with an overgrown lawn became a refuge for Mother Nature in the middle of an urban apartment complex. Drama had truly broken my preconceived notions to show something beautiful. Drama is a very strong force in my life; it has determined the course of my development as a child. It is unfortunate however, that drama has not always existed in the way we know it as today. Agreed, throughout history there has always been some form of dramatic expression, but drama as an educational tool is a fairly recent development. In the early 1950s, a man named Peter Slade wrote a book entitled Child Drama.
The world was changing; people's perceptions were changing. Children were finally seen as people who needed to be nurtured, directed, guided. Unfortunately, there were still some groups who felt that the traditional outlook (drama with an audience) was the way to go. Slade was advocating drama for personal development. He stated that he sees formal theatre as a final stage in a child's development(Bolton 22). Many traditionalists extrapolated from this statement that he was anti-theatre. He was not anti-theatre, he merely felt that not all activities had to be performed; some were for self-exploration only. He wanted to turn away from the formalised styles designed to make all children sound like 'little adults' and turn back to the natural direction that children wanted to take. Slade stood for 'personal circles' and 'child-centred activity' and individualisation.
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