Challenges for teachers of Performing Arts
A Yr 12 student, CJ, pointed out that the first act of our new creation for the opening of The Joe Woodward Theatre was actually an Existentialist piece of theatre. I hadn't thought of it in this way; though I acknowledged the Post Modernist influences. Today another student suggested that most of the cast couldn't even spell "existentialist", let alone know what it meant. He has read much of Peter Brook, Michael Chekhov, Suzuki and Bogart (to name a few) and wondered if our work was too sophisticated for our cohort of students; even though they were actually part of the creation team for it. And he wasn't making supercilious suggestions or criticisms. I am reminded of how students can take their learning far beyond the curriculum when they actually read and chase up questions for themselves. But then I ponder how many teachers are more concerned with dotting the "i" and crossing the "t"; the application of anal retentive pedantises over critical thinking and creative application!
In 1969 as a Yr 12 student in Brisbane I was totally fascinated by the poetry of John Keats; this was part of the English curriculum then. But I have never forgotten the disillusionment with the system when my teacher at the time sarcastically rubbished me for my references to Leigh Hunt when writing an essay on John Keats. He had never heard of him ... or at least this was what he suggested at the time! This was when I became totally emersed in the story of Keats and the influences and contexts for his work. Keats the man was Keats the poet. His loves and his exhaustions grabbed me in both a psychological and in an academic sense. So I wonder if many Drama teachers today are even aware of the references some students actually raise when exploring difficult and sometimes confusing issues in the construction and discussion of performance.
This is a serious issue as most PL programs for teachers in Australia are about pedagogy and not content! I wonder if this actually inhibits their understanding of what students are capable of achieving. This is further at issue when Government agencies responsible for curriculums consistently publish the suggestion that a teacher is a "teacher"; this teacher can teach anything! Well! I am paraphrasing. But in reality, teachers can't teach "anything". So to suggest a teacher who once sang in a musical by some company from Pumpkin Creek or who confidently takes English classes can automatically teach Musical Theatre or Drama is a total betrayal of the Arts and Drama.
Exploring that relationship between art and life; between the character and the actor; between the writer and the interpreter has opened up many liminal spaces within our company's mindset. The essential liminality within these relationships gives rise to so many underlying features of all theatre practice and theory. The young actor is not only asking "how do I link with my character?" but more essentially, "how do I link with myself?" How do I break out of the character I am allotted by fate? by circumstance? by all those around me?
Of course the questions are rhetorical. They can only point to continuums that might easily suggest some cracks in the paradoxical sarcophagus of life's entrapment. Yet these are the critical questions for all creative activity.
The student who is exploring through diverse literature and academic treatises on the multitudes of cultural, social and artistic traditions, variations and viewpoints has critical advantages in choice making over the one trapped within one's own experience. Concepts of meditation and enlightenment certainly also play a part. One's own struggle through repetition and continuous practice of whatever chosen craft may also play a significant part in understanding something of the paradoxical relationships between the creator and what is to be created.
"Do I create my character? Or does my character create me?" ask characters from our DTC production of "The Heart"? In attempting to answer the question, each has to find deep within themselves, an awareness of their own heart; an awareness that is obscured and militated against by cultural and social norms that militate against such slowing down to a discovery of simply BEING!
CJ was right. Our play is very much within the scope of Existentialism; while also challenging its concepts within the second act. Students have had to lift up and challenge their concepts of theatre and presentation to do this. But then to contribute to much, if not most, of the writing from my initial scenarios and treatment has taken truly a great commitment from all involved. The students themselves have taken on existentialist shadowing within their process to come to that point of creation. This is a far cry from simply aping popular commercial works likely to produce unthinking audiences seeking distraction and well-intentioned though patronising applause.
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Tickets can be purchased for the DTC production of THE HEART taking place in the inaugural season at The Joe Woodward Theatre, in the Issoudun Performing Arts Centre, Canberra.
Tickets available for 18 and 19 October 2024:
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