Applied Theatre AAU 202 Done by: Carmen Chan
Topic/ Issue: Racism
Targeted audience: Lower Secondary School students in a drama class
Estimated no. of workshops: 3 workshops of 60 minutes
Rationale of chosen topic:
We have chosen this topic because we felt that the issue of racism is very relevant in a multicultural and religious country like Singapore. Our group also felt that it would be appropriate to promote racial acceptance and cohesion to reassure and educate our students especially at this point of time taking into consideration of the recent incidents that have been happening which tests the notion of racism in Singapore. We believe that it should begin from the younger generation so as to instill the importance of racial harmony in them at a crucial stage of development as teens are vulnerable to various influences. It is through understanding that one begins to appreciate the multiculturalism in Singapore which in turn influences one’s actions.
Therefore, through this drama workshop, we hope to be able to allow participants to understand that it is wrong to be racist and why it is wrong to be racist through exploring the consequences and solutions of being racist. This is done through a ‘believable’ experience which Dorothy Heathcote’s Mantle of the Expert (2004) advocates. It is through this ‘believable’ experience that allows participants to experience the emotional and psychological aspects of a character or situation, developing awareness and empathy in participants. This is where, even the hidden agenda, preconceived ideas we had in us which may come to light and through discussion, we hope to raise awareness and consciousness through critical thinking.
In order to understand other’s perspectives, we plan to engage lower secondary students through an exploration process by adopting Augusto Boal’s Forum theatre techniques and image theatre. Image theatre helps participants to think about the actions and consequences based on the topic of racism, thereby realizing the impact of the consequences and developing empathy for other races. Through Forum, one would put oneself into the situation to experiment the various possible ways to react in a situation (Boal, 1979).
Objectives:
Through this workshop participants will be able to,
Resources:
Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre Communication.
Heathcote, D. (2004). Mantle of the Expert.
Heathcote, Dorothy. (2004). The mantle of the expert. Retrieved October 20, 2012, from http://www.moeplanning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dh-mantle-of-the-expert.pdf.
AAU 202 Workshop
No. of Participants: 16
Warm-up activity - Clumping (5 mins)
Purpose: To allow participants to realize the commonality between participants even though they are different in many ways, particularly in terms of race. This activity helps to warm up the bodies of the participants as participants move around in space.
Instructions:
1.) Facilitator ask participants to walk around the space.
2.) Facilitator say ‘get into groups of...3/5/7 etc.’ (odd numbers to cause uneven groupings)
3.) After participants have formed groups, facilitator tell participants to find a common characteristic within the group.
4.) Next, participants have to pose and freeze in the chosen common characteristic.
5.) When facilitator says ‘freeze’, participants will pose.
6.) After participants have posed, facilitator says ‘unfreeze’.
7.) Participants will continue to walk around the space and another round begins.
(repeat around 3 rounds)
Main Activity 1 - Image theatre (10min)
Purpose: Through the creation of tableaux, participants would explore the different ways to devise a freeze frame of a scenario by playing with space, body movements, gestures and facial expression.
From this activity, participants would develop an awareness of the issue of racism from devising and observing the tableaux. As participants participate actively in the tableaux making and observing, they learn to have empathy towards the race that was being oppressed through the discussion.
Participants: 4 groups of 4
Create a Tableau
Instructions:
1.) Facilitator ask participants to...
“Create a tableau to depict a situation of oppression based on the theme of ‘racism’”
2.) Give participants about 5 minutes to create the tableau/frozen image
3.) After 5 minutes, each group will observe each other’s tableau, taking turns.
4.) While observing, participants will comment on what they observe and interpret respective tableaus.
If there is time...
5.) While participants are observing and interpreting respective tableaus, facilitator will give instructions to participants,
“You may choose to tap on 1-2 participants in the tableau to hear their thoughts or feelings.”
Suggestion 1 (first priority):
Facilitators will allow participants to pick a tableaux to devise on.
Suggestion 2 (on the occasion that participants cannot select one tableau):
Facilitator will select one group’s tableau to forum. Select the one that has the most potential to forum.
Main Activity 2: Forum Theatre (15 min)
Purpose: To allow participants the freedom to experiment the possible reactions based on the devised scene through role-playing and improvisation. Through that, we want participants to have a sense of urgency and empathy to want to improve the situation.
Devise a short scene from the selected tableau. Break up into your groups. Chosen group will need to devise based on their tableaux while the other two groups will discuss on the issue based on the chosen tableaus.
While 1 group is devising (with facilitators’ guidance), the other 3 groups will discuss the issue, Possible questions:
- Who are in the situation? Who are the protagonist and antagonist?
- What is the conflict here?
- Where is this happening at?
- What is happening in the situation?
- How can this situation be improved?
Group perform their devised scene once. After the act, students would participate in a forum theatre workshop.. Students will then come up with possible solutions to help the oppressed. . The facilitator would allow at least about 2 to 3 times of forum so as to allow a variety of responses from our students. This would then give sufficient opportunities for students to voice out their opinions openly.
Discussion/ Dialogue - If time permits. (5 mins)
Discussion session would be conducted to raise further awareness into the issue and to engage participants into critical thinking on the issue.
Possible questions:
Homework
Purpose: To help students to realise that this has been a prevalent issue and problem which is a cause for awareness in singapore.
Task: Students will go back to research and find past Newspaper articles on reports of racism in Singapore. Articles should be dated as 5 to 10 years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jasmine Mong
Joanne Liu
John Praveen
Topic/ Issue: Racism
Targeted audience: Lower Secondary School students in a drama class
Estimated no. of workshops: 3 workshops of 60 minutes
Rationale of chosen topic:
We have chosen this topic because we felt that the issue of racism is very relevant in a multicultural and religious country like Singapore. Our group also felt that it would be appropriate to promote racial acceptance and cohesion to reassure and educate our students especially at this point of time taking into consideration of the recent incidents that have been happening which tests the notion of racism in Singapore. We believe that it should begin from the younger generation so as to instill the importance of racial harmony in them at a crucial stage of development as teens are vulnerable to various influences. It is through understanding that one begins to appreciate the multiculturalism in Singapore which in turn influences one’s actions.
Therefore, through this drama workshop, we hope to be able to allow participants to understand that it is wrong to be racist and why it is wrong to be racist through exploring the consequences and solutions of being racist. This is done through a ‘believable’ experience which Dorothy Heathcote’s Mantle of the Expert (2004) advocates. It is through this ‘believable’ experience that allows participants to experience the emotional and psychological aspects of a character or situation, developing awareness and empathy in participants. This is where, even the hidden agenda, preconceived ideas we had in us which may come to light and through discussion, we hope to raise awareness and consciousness through critical thinking.
In order to understand other’s perspectives, we plan to engage lower secondary students through an exploration process by adopting Augusto Boal’s Forum theatre techniques and image theatre. Image theatre helps participants to think about the actions and consequences based on the topic of racism, thereby realizing the impact of the consequences and developing empathy for other races. Through Forum, one would put oneself into the situation to experiment the various possible ways to react in a situation (Boal, 1979).
Objectives:
Through this workshop participants will be able to,
- Understand that racial harmony is crucial in developing an inclusive environment through exploring the consequences of their actions based on the recent controversies.
- Experience behavioral aspects through embodiment of character/s.
- Develop empathy, tolerance and mutual understandings towards different races.
Resources:
Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre Communication.
Heathcote, D. (2004). Mantle of the Expert.
Heathcote, Dorothy. (2004). The mantle of the expert. Retrieved October 20, 2012, from http://www.moeplanning.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dh-mantle-of-the-expert.pdf.
AAU 202 Workshop
No. of Participants: 16
Warm-up activity - Clumping (5 mins)
Purpose: To allow participants to realize the commonality between participants even though they are different in many ways, particularly in terms of race. This activity helps to warm up the bodies of the participants as participants move around in space.
Instructions:
1.) Facilitator ask participants to walk around the space.
2.) Facilitator say ‘get into groups of...3/5/7 etc.’ (odd numbers to cause uneven groupings)
3.) After participants have formed groups, facilitator tell participants to find a common characteristic within the group.
4.) Next, participants have to pose and freeze in the chosen common characteristic.
5.) When facilitator says ‘freeze’, participants will pose.
6.) After participants have posed, facilitator says ‘unfreeze’.
7.) Participants will continue to walk around the space and another round begins.
(repeat around 3 rounds)
Main Activity 1 - Image theatre (10min)
Purpose: Through the creation of tableaux, participants would explore the different ways to devise a freeze frame of a scenario by playing with space, body movements, gestures and facial expression.
From this activity, participants would develop an awareness of the issue of racism from devising and observing the tableaux. As participants participate actively in the tableaux making and observing, they learn to have empathy towards the race that was being oppressed through the discussion.
Participants: 4 groups of 4
Create a Tableau
Instructions:
1.) Facilitator ask participants to...
“Create a tableau to depict a situation of oppression based on the theme of ‘racism’”
2.) Give participants about 5 minutes to create the tableau/frozen image
3.) After 5 minutes, each group will observe each other’s tableau, taking turns.
4.) While observing, participants will comment on what they observe and interpret respective tableaus.
If there is time...
5.) While participants are observing and interpreting respective tableaus, facilitator will give instructions to participants,
“You may choose to tap on 1-2 participants in the tableau to hear their thoughts or feelings.”
Suggestion 1 (first priority):
Facilitators will allow participants to pick a tableaux to devise on.
Suggestion 2 (on the occasion that participants cannot select one tableau):
Facilitator will select one group’s tableau to forum. Select the one that has the most potential to forum.
Main Activity 2: Forum Theatre (15 min)
Purpose: To allow participants the freedom to experiment the possible reactions based on the devised scene through role-playing and improvisation. Through that, we want participants to have a sense of urgency and empathy to want to improve the situation.
Devise a short scene from the selected tableau. Break up into your groups. Chosen group will need to devise based on their tableaux while the other two groups will discuss on the issue based on the chosen tableaus.
While 1 group is devising (with facilitators’ guidance), the other 3 groups will discuss the issue, Possible questions:
- Who are in the situation? Who are the protagonist and antagonist?
- What is the conflict here?
- Where is this happening at?
- What is happening in the situation?
- How can this situation be improved?
Group perform their devised scene once. After the act, students would participate in a forum theatre workshop.. Students will then come up with possible solutions to help the oppressed. . The facilitator would allow at least about 2 to 3 times of forum so as to allow a variety of responses from our students. This would then give sufficient opportunities for students to voice out their opinions openly.
Discussion/ Dialogue - If time permits. (5 mins)
Discussion session would be conducted to raise further awareness into the issue and to engage participants into critical thinking on the issue.
Possible questions:
- What were you considering when you were moulding the tableau? What was in your mind? Why do you think your choice of moulding the tableau would change the situation for the better?
- Do you think you were affected while you were in character? What do you want to achieve or change while doing the forum?
- What were your initial views on the situation in the beginning and how has it changed after the workshop?
- Do you think you are able to better understand why it is wrong to give racist remarks and to be racist?
- Through this workshop, has it enabled you to realize the consequences of Amy Cheong’s actions and what can we learn from that?
- What can we and the school do to prevent such incidents from happening?
- If such situation happen in our school, what can the school do?
Homework
Purpose: To help students to realise that this has been a prevalent issue and problem which is a cause for awareness in singapore.
Task: Students will go back to research and find past Newspaper articles on reports of racism in Singapore. Articles should be dated as 5 to 10 years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Problems faced:
- How do we link the activities together?
- How do we stay on the topic of racism not based on the newspaper article on Amy Cheong?
- Can the students take the level of racism base on the level of our activities? Will it be backfired?
We believe that it is possible to do the topic of racism because we believe that to solve the issue, we need to start when they are young and when their experiences with other races are still new and fresh. If we start with the older generation, they may not respond very well because their past experiences may still be ingrained in their mind and it will be difficult for them to forgive. To treat an illness, it is easier to deal with it in the beginning stages rather than the later stages. Furthermore, I think they are of age to deal with racial issues afterall they have been celebrating racial harmony day (just one day in the whole year) and they should know the significance of it rather than just having a holiday and celebration.
I do agree that the racism in Amy Cheong's remarks may be dangerous because it may spark tension in the classroom where there are chinese and malay students. Therefore, we decided to do away with the newspaper article and tell students to come up with racial issues that they have come across in their lives or experiences through still images. Life experiences are always good to have as issues because they are real life situations that most people encounter daily. Dealing with these issues will help students to relate better and provide solutions that are not based on biasness whereas in the case of Amy Cheong, they may deal the issue with biasness. They are to observe and analyse what is going on in the tableau and tap on the images to hear the thoughts. We wanted them to ease the oppression in each tableau by replacing one of the images, but we realize it defeats the purpose of having forum later on.
We did away mantle of the expert because it is difficult to link to the previous activity. So we decided to use one of the tableau that students choose to forum it. They are also developing their devising skills to devise a performance based on the tableau. The rest are to think of answers to the 5 Ws and How to help them forum the performance better.
Basically, our activities aim to raise awareness of the issues of racism in Singapore through tableau and to help them think why it is wrong to be racist against other races through actions and consequences in forum theatre. This is the pedagogy that freire explains of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. In forum theatre, students themselves 'assume the protagonic role, change the dramatic action, try out solutions, discuss plans for change - in short, train themselves for real action.' (Boal, 2000, Pg 122) It is also what Dorothy Heathcote meantioned of dramatic improvisation where we put ourselves in 'other people's shoes, and, by using personal experience to help us understand their point of view...' (Hornbrook, 1998, cited in Heathcote, 1967) Through Forum theatre, we hope that students will reflect on their actions and consequences through exploration, experimentation and discussions. In turn, apply it and practice it in their lives.
Bibliography
Boal, A., Ed. (2000) Poetics of the Oppressed. London: Emily Fryer
Hornbrook, D. (1989) Education and Dramatic Art. Oxford: Blackwell Education
I do agree that the racism in Amy Cheong's remarks may be dangerous because it may spark tension in the classroom where there are chinese and malay students. Therefore, we decided to do away with the newspaper article and tell students to come up with racial issues that they have come across in their lives or experiences through still images. Life experiences are always good to have as issues because they are real life situations that most people encounter daily. Dealing with these issues will help students to relate better and provide solutions that are not based on biasness whereas in the case of Amy Cheong, they may deal the issue with biasness. They are to observe and analyse what is going on in the tableau and tap on the images to hear the thoughts. We wanted them to ease the oppression in each tableau by replacing one of the images, but we realize it defeats the purpose of having forum later on.
We did away mantle of the expert because it is difficult to link to the previous activity. So we decided to use one of the tableau that students choose to forum it. They are also developing their devising skills to devise a performance based on the tableau. The rest are to think of answers to the 5 Ws and How to help them forum the performance better.
Basically, our activities aim to raise awareness of the issues of racism in Singapore through tableau and to help them think why it is wrong to be racist against other races through actions and consequences in forum theatre. This is the pedagogy that freire explains of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. In forum theatre, students themselves 'assume the protagonic role, change the dramatic action, try out solutions, discuss plans for change - in short, train themselves for real action.' (Boal, 2000, Pg 122) It is also what Dorothy Heathcote meantioned of dramatic improvisation where we put ourselves in 'other people's shoes, and, by using personal experience to help us understand their point of view...' (Hornbrook, 1998, cited in Heathcote, 1967) Through Forum theatre, we hope that students will reflect on their actions and consequences through exploration, experimentation and discussions. In turn, apply it and practice it in their lives.
Bibliography
Boal, A., Ed. (2000) Poetics of the Oppressed. London: Emily Fryer
Hornbrook, D. (1989) Education and Dramatic Art. Oxford: Blackwell Education
No comments:
Post a Comment