The In-process collective as a form of inquiry through performance
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Date
1990
Authors
Steinberg, Shirley R.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Lethbridge, Alta. : Faculty of Education
Abstract
The concept of a theatre collective originated about twenty years ago in Quebec as a form of social theatre. The medium included a group of actors improvising and then scripting scenes that pertained to certain topics chosen for performance. Noted collectives include ones produced on William Lyon McKenzie King and "The Farm Show", both dealing with social and political issues in Canada. The performances were scripted and the collectives, now published, remain basically the same each time they are produced.
The idea of a collective intrigued me, consequently I decided to apply the concept with students and to create a collection of personally written material with dialogue and improvisation to produce a performance. After several collectives on gender and giftedness, I realized that the medium was not restricted to any topic, and that the collective would be an excellent method of democratic teaching within the regular classroom with regular classroom curricula.
For my one-credit project, I decided to facilitate the production of a collective within a Grade Nine Social Studies class that I was teaching. I wanted to employ the ideas presented within feminist pedagogy, that of allowing empowerment to take place and to
become a "midwife" to the students instead of the teacher-director
expected in many productions. Including the concepts that Freire discusses in his ideas of students being able to name their world and have a concept of place and understanding of the world through their own experience, I developed a model of presenting the drama collective.
Description
Keywords
Social sciences -- Study and teaching -- Alberta -- Enchant , Drama in education -- Alberta -- Enchant , Prejudices -- Study and teaching -- Alberta -- Enchant