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- Volume 10, Issue 2, 2022
Applied Theatre Research - Chinese and Norwegian Perspectives on Drama and Applied Theatre, Dec 2022
Chinese and Norwegian Perspectives on Drama and Applied Theatre, Dec 2022
- Editorial
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Editorial
Authors: Tor-Helge Allern, Gong Baorong and Adam CzibolyCooperation between Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) has a nearly twenty-year history. The current project between STA and HVL, which began in 2018, is financed by the Norwegian Government. The partners seek to strengthen the quality of education and research within applied theatre, especially the fields of process drama and theatre in education (TiE). The current project between STA and HVL, which began in 2018, seeks to strengthen the quality of education and research within applied theatre, especially the fields of process drama and theatre in education (TiE). This issue presents some important contributions made by the project to the international field of applied theatre.
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- Articles
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Educational drama, traditional Chinese culture and current government policies
Authors: Tor-Helge Allern, Sisi Zheng and Stig A. ErikssonIn this article, we present and discuss how traditional Chinese culture is connected to moral education (deyu), current governmental strategies in education and educational drama as an approach to moral education. We argue that the mixture in deyu of moral and ideological education in today’s China is nothing new, and totally consistent with China’s pre-revolutionary periods. Although current government strategies in education emphasize aesthetic subjects such as drama/theatre (Xiju), and include methods and conventions in educational drama, it is hard to perceive whether the policy is open to an explorative learning process, characteristic of educational drama, or rather implies a more classical approach, based on textbooks and memorization, or even pure learning techniques. Nevertheless, processual processes to drama seem to harmonize with ambitions in China’s current school reforms and to be relevant to moral education within a social framework.
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What can the translation of key terms reveal about understandings of drama education in China?
Authors: Sisi Zheng and Adam CzibolyBased on the authors’ previous academic exchange and observations, translation of terms related to drama and theatre from English to Chinese and vice versa is likely to cause misunderstandings. This research investigated what the translation of key terms may reveal about the understandings of drama education in China. Through a desk research, we collected key terms primarily related to drama and theatre from 26 seminal English and Norwegian books in the field of drama education and their Chinese translations, sorting out and comparing the English/Norwegian originals and the Chinese translations of each term. Findings confirmed that the same Chinese expressions had been used for completely different drama-related terms, while applied theatre-related terms may be misleading as the translation may refer to theatre architectures. Elaborating on the understanding of drama and theatre in China and the new drama praxis, the Drama Etudes, this study discusses what the term ‘drama education’ may refer to in the Chinese context. The overall aim of this study is to contribute to an extended understanding of drama education and its relevant praxis in a global context.
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Conceptions of drama and theatre
Authors: Tor-Helge Allern and Stig A. ErikssonThe article presents and discusses etymological background, cultural adaptations and different perspectives to the key concepts in drama and theatre, starting from western and Chinese conceptions. Drama has at least three levels of meaning: (1) as an overarching concept for fictional and non-fictional cultural practices; (2) as an aesthetic learning practice within education; and (3) as a script made for theatre performances. The drama is thus a frame for the actions, and within this frame there might be other frames, marking different roles and perspectives. The meaning and potential for knowing in drama and theatre lie between those layers and differences. This idea is illustrated by a comparison between the British pioneers and partners Dorothy Heathcote and Gavin Bolton, and by exploring how divergent views on theatre and art lead to differences in perspective about a specific approach to educational drama, mantle of the expert.
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Educational drama in Norway: From cultural expression to curriculum element
Authors: Stig A. Eriksson and Tor-Helge AllernThe article is conceived as a survey exploration of significant historic developmental stages of the Norwegian educational drama field. The article first engages in an historical consideration of educational dramatics from traces of performed education in old Norse culture, via school drama organized by the church in the Middle Ages, to a decline of drama and theatre after Pietism in the eighteenth century, with a succeeding narrower view of knowledge and teaching in the following century and scarce information about drama as education. The focus then turns to deliberation of educational reforms in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, offering new possibilities for drama pedagogy through the Progressive Education movement, followed by identifying the position of drama in the six national curriculum reforms from 1939 to 2020 and the changing role of the subject area resulting from policy accentuations underlying curriculum revisions.
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From short story to process drama: A Chinese and a Norwegian classroom approach
Authors: Xu Jun and Stig A. ErikssonIn this practice-oriented article, each author has found an example in their national contemporary literary legacy to be explored through educational drama approaches. One is a short story (and a one-act play version of the story) by Lao She, China; the other is a short story by Tor Åge Bringsværd, Norway. Both stories are about experiences on train journeys and the article presents ideas for how to use them in drama pedagogical settings. Each author contextualizes their drama approach in terms of current public curriculum policies relevant to aesthetic education and drama education in each country, and theory from the field literature.
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The opportunities and challenges of drama in education in Chinese kindergartens
Authors: Yiou Wang, Xiuqing Qiao and Shusheng MaWith the introduction of drama in education and creative drama in China in the late twentieth century, drama in education has become a new practice and research hotspot in the field of education. However, children’s theatre performance and dramatic acting training have for a long time been the main form of Chinese preschool drama education and still have a noticeable impact. In this article, we explore how drama in education can improve and expand Chinese kindergarten teachers’ teaching repertoire and how it can contribute to children’s interpersonal development. This design-based study uses interventions in the form of drama in education workshops in a Chinese kindergarten. By undertaking these workshops, observing workshop participants and interviewing teachers and children, we have found that drama in education supports children’s language learning and helps develop their individual self-awareness. In addition, it also provides multiple new methods of teaching and thus promotes teachers’ individual growth as professionals in the kindergarten classroom. In terms of kindergarten curriculum reform, this study aims to contribute to the current developments and debates about teaching, learning and overall education.
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- Interview
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Interview with Li Yingning
Authors: Tor-Helge Allern, Sisi Zheng and Stig A. ErikssonIn this interview, the Chinese playwright and drama education pioneer Li Yingning (b. 1942) talks about her life and way into educational drama. Li and her family’s life is to a remarkably large extent connected to modern Chinese history. Li’s plays focus on women’s issues, social problems and historical productions. Her life seems to include much of China’s modern history – and drama – in many levels of meaning of this word.
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