In this article, I explore Bertolt Brecht's philosophy of education with particular reference to his notion of the Verfremdungseffekt (estrangement effect) as brought to life in the art of gestic acting (Gestus). Giving examples from the 1960 "Mother Courage" DEFA film version of the play, I demonstrate how Brecht's philosophising…

The current heightened sensitivity around history, colonisation and the aftermath of the socio-political and cultural ethos of the world can create in many people the fear of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. This fear can affect the ability to imagine and play in certain learning settings, especially in devising performances, socially…

Recent proliferation of participatory performance forms has prompted debate on the agency of participants. Consideration of agential potential must go beyond the enactment of the work, however, to assess how participatory experiences can be self-documented and how such records may inform artistic pedagogy. Through discussion of a creative learning…

This article examines the creation and reception of "The Stream You Step In," a digital series co-produced by Outside the March for University of Windsor students and performed live over Zoom in 2020. While Zoom is assumed to be a care-less medium, we argue that it offers new, altered modes of caring through its disruption of boundaries…

This study explores the contribution of a person-centred approach as applied in the drama course of a teacher education programme to the growth of the professional ethics of a group of pre-service primary teachers. It is founded on three questions, which examine the conducive epistemological conditions of the drama course to the development of…

Approaches to Learning (AtL) is widely included in many state standards for preK, as a process-oriented disposition that describes how children learn. Play is one pedagogical strategy teachers can employ to support the development of AtL. This paper uses Vygotsky's depiction of two kinds of play, object play and socio-dramatic play, to provide the…

This article examines how "Off Centre," a play by Haresh Sharma about mental health in Singapore, first devised and produced by The Necessary Stage (TNS) in 1993, provides a valuable opportunity for audiences to encounter characters labeled "mad" or "off centre" (a colloquial term in Singapore for being mentally ill),…

This article will provide an overview of how the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) has attempted to explore the use of interdisciplinary art-based practices for peacebuilding in Rwanda. In particular, we will detail how performance has been used to create a…

In drama lessons based on improvisation and role playing, participants express themselves spontaneously, take on various roles and act out by pretending. With improvisation, which is one of the two basic strategies used together with role playing in drama, the participants act in accordance with the designed dramatic fiction. The goal of this…

This activity introduces undergraduate students to the idea of metacommunication by means of a performance praxis assignment. Students will engage in a performance that enhances their communication skills and better understand how the frames of mimesis and poiesis are utilized to understand communication form and context. Courses: A single-class…

The purpose of this paper is to study how pre-analysis affects drama-based art programme in South Korea to reach the drama educational goals. In the cognitive, psychodynamic (functional), and affective parts, the learner's analysis has been analysed through questionnaires, the learner's situation, and the lesson plan. Also, through the pre-meeting…

Theatre practitioners use empathy formation techniques within their acting methodology to develop particular characters for the stage. Here, Ann Phelps and Dylan Brown argue that, when Constantin Stanislavski's seminal dramatic method is placed in conversation with exemplarist moral theory, acting can become a tool for moral formation. To…

In this paper, I explore German playwright Bertolt Brecht's conception of the art of acting, and his views on the new actor's conduct towards their craft, as a pedagogical model for Brechts' broader view on how we should live our lives. Drawing on his key writings -- most importantly, his famous street scene essay -- I will show that Brecht's…

A recent production of "Romeo and Juliet" at the Globe Theatre in London has foregrounded the themes of mental health and a sick society. My essay begins by exploring the controversial reception of the 2021 production. But Shakespeare's play has a number of key features that are undecidable, by design. These are directly relevant to the…

Two studies investigated the effect of a short improvisation intervention (theatrical improvisation in Study 1, musical improvisation in Study 2) on negotiation processes and outcomes. The expectation was that an improvisation exercise, compared to a control condition in which participants engaged in jigsaw puzzling, would result in better…