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Volume 2 Number 17 - October 9, 2004
Hi Folks,
Kim's Drama Blog
A busy week despite it being school vacation time. The highlights include yesterday's visit to the Perth Royal Show... quite an eye-opener - the show is so squeaky clean and corporate these days. There was a display of show memorabilia that brought back memories of my childhood show experiences. The "freak" displays, the crazy mirrors, the dodgy games and rides. There still seems to be a great sense of expectation of the show. And even though the rides are probably a lot safer, and more thrilling (although there is a certain edge when the constant threat of real injury is present)... there is still a sense of the exotic. I worked with "carnies" during my teens and when living in Scotland I also got to know a few people who work the carnival and fair circuit. There's is a life that is full of seemingly amazing paradoxes.
Also, this week I got the go ahead to finish my M.Ed thesis - so for the next few weeks I'll be head down and bum up trying to get it all into shape. Its only a little one so it should be fairly manageable. If anyone has ay interesting papers or articles that somehow reflect the attitudes of Drama teachers towards technology in their classrooms I'd love to hear from you... I probably have enough here to keep going on with but I'm hoping there'll be some quirky thing turn up so I can spice up my paper a little. A lot of my effort has gone into quantitative evaluation of the data I'm working with - to reveal some fairly obvious conclusions. The more interesting part of the work is the qualitative analysis of comments and statements by respondents. They do make for a broad snapshot of opinion.
I ran my session at the Educational Computing "Hands on Learning" conference on Wednesday - it was great fun... although the turn out to my session on Drama and IT was fairly small, it was a very creative and thoughtful bunch of English, SOSE, and Design and Tech people who really took some of my ideas on board and began to extrapolate the possibilities for their own contexts. It was good to get such immediate and positive feedback as people played with various online environments. John Carroll's "Spice Islands" project got a showing as a teacher from Geraldton expressed an interest in how to explore the "Batavia" as a project topic. I think she was a little overwhelmed by the degree of engagement and learning that is offered by using Process Drama and Applied Theatre strategies. A friend who was delivering a keynote on the day quipped "Kim, you just frighten too many people", I think it was intended as a positive comment, and yes, I do seek to provoke and challenge... if that translates occasionally to being frightening, then GREAT!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Tonight I'm off to see Yandy, a new play at Black Swan Theatre.... on Monday night I had the pleasure of seeing a presentation of excerpts of Japanese Noh. It was a pleasant night out although plagued by speeches and acknowledgements... the performances highlighted three aspects of the traditional form and would be a great teaching tool for schools. The performance styles are totally "presentational" and I can see how Brecht has taken on board the idea of "showing" the characters. Ultimately, I think I prefer presentational forms to representational forms. I recall being similarly awakened to the possibilities when I experienced the Chinese opera "The Peony Pavilion" a few years ago.
An interesting aside is that lately I've experienced a range of "world" theatre, the aforementioned Noh, some medieval players from Tuscany, and an indigenous Australian dance/story troupe - one thing that really struck home was the humour inherent in many of the presentations and just how familiar it is despite the forms seeming disparate. As a former clown (some would question "former"), I could really see how the same elements of comedy and humour seem to permeate all the forms. The quirky, the unpleasant, the uncomfortable situations in which people find them selves, and the strange way in which we respond to such circumstances - it cuts across culture, race and religion... something we could all be reminded of in these days of strife of torment around the world. What would it be like if we'd dropped Clowns rather than bombs on Iraq??
Leadership Team required.
The DramaPlayShop is interested in finding a few people to take on responsibility of becoming facilitators. If you have a specific interest in Drama and IT that you'd like to explore, I can help you set up a section of the DramaPlayShop (and provide some mentorship) where you can gather together a loyal band of investigators and document your explorations and findings. I have set up a "Facilitator's Testbed" that is essentially a little playground for potential facilitators to learn how to use the interface and develop some confidence before running their own course... contact me if you'd like to be a leader in this area.
Credentialed Professional Learning
Edith Cowan University in Mount Lawley is offering a range of courses during its Summer Institute (first weekend in December). I am involved in delivering two of these courses - one is a specific look at approaches to the new Post-Compulsory Drama courses and the other is about technology integration in the Arts. These courses are a great way to gain credit towards post-graduate qualifications - I'm not entirely sure but I believe that one of these weekend courses will give you 1/3 credit towards a Master's coursework unit. You would need to check the ECU website for specific and accurate details.
LESSON/ACTIVITY IDEA
So here is the challenge - who would be interested in setting up their own MOODLE (I can assist with this) - and then developing a range of subject or topic specific courses that can be shared or swapped with colleagues? I'm quite happy for my two Drama/Drama Studies courses to be the basis of the project... they could set other Western Australian drama teachers on the journey of integrating ICT support with their classes... once shared and installed courses are easily adapted and modified to suit your specific needs... we have 12-year olds running their own Moodle courses - so Drama teachers should manage it easily! (Besides the MOODLE community is huge and totally willing to help you learn and develop skills)
One simple project I'd like to get underway to encourage people to use the full functionality of the drama-education.com website is to establish a "wiki" style glossary. By allowing visitors to build and contribute to the development of a significant resource such as a glossary of drama terminology we begin to create a sense of community - I still find many people see themselves as consumers of the net rather than co-creators. The internet was founded on principles of sharing and collaboration and that is slowly being allowed to be whittled away by complacency. Teachers, especially Drama teachers, are well aware of the power of sharing experience - so why don't we lay claim to our little corner of the net and show the rest of the world how its down? Is there no-one so enthused to stand alongside me in this?? You can access the start of the Glossary in "The Bar" at the drama-education.com website.
Gill has once again contributed one of her projects to share with the drama-education.com community. This time it is an AS-Level Drama Scheme of Work focussing on Jean Anouilh's "Antigone". You can access it from the lessons section of the drama-education.com site.
Gill's own websites are as follows:
http://www.millhilldrama.ik.org
http://www.astrologica.co.uk
http://www.millhillcreativearts.ik.org
RECOMMENDED WEBSITES
Justin Cash has spent a lot of time building his Drama links resource pages. The resulting site is a good starting point for students and teachers to discover online material relating to topics of interest. The new interface he's adopted is very clean and keeps the material focussed. Well worth adding to you own list of links, bookmarks, and favourites.
Another of the triumvirate. Ken's site has a very straightforward approach to resources and is well organised. He also links to and archives material from the UK Drama teachers egroup. Check it out soon.
PROFESSIONAL NEWS
PLEASE ADVISE OF ANY UPCOMING PROFESSIONAL EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES AND I WILL LIST THEM HERE
Abstract Submission Deadline: 11 December 2004
Papers reporting on new research and development in any aspect of drama are invited for the 29th Comparative Drama Conference that will take place at California State University, Northridge, March 31 - April 2, 2005. Papers may be comparative across disciplines, periods, or nationalities; and may deal with any issue in dramatic theory, criticism, and literature or any method of historiography, translation, or production. Papers should be 15 minutes in length and should be accessible to a multi-disciplinary audience. Scholars and artists in all languages and literatures are invited to email a 400 word abstract (with paper title, author's name, institutional affiliation, and postal address at top left) to Dr. Kevin Wetmore at compdram@csun.edu by 11 December 2004. Those whose abstracts are accepted for presentation are expected to attend the conference. Abstracts will be printed in the conference program.
Call for Contributors
Conference Statements
This symposium will take as its central notion that globalisation happens in ways that call for those-of-performance to counter, to create other narratives.
Specifically the symposium will consider the identification of the dominant narrative and the extent to which it can be subsumed under the term globalisation' to examine what is being countered, and how it is manifest. It will consider who 'creates', 'receives' and 'responds to' the other/counter narratives in the context of examining if such notions of counter-narrative derive from a 'neo-liberal meta-narrative of liberation which itself remains part of a un-critiqued dominant orthodoxy'. The proliferation of narratives - global, local, individual - in their many forms - moved, sounded, told, discrete, discreet, virtual - will be tested alongside the capacity and inclination of such stories to be created.
The conference is open to papers, panels, workshops, special interest groups, practitioners, performance, performative events and so. For further information and to express an interest in taking part please contact:
Malcolm Floyd
School of Community and Performing Arts
King Alfred's, University College Winchester
Winchester
SO22 4NR
UK
Email: Malcolm.Floyd@wkac.ac.uk
SIPA is hosting the Second International
Conference for Digital Technologies and Performance Arts in July 2005 and is
currently requesting papers to be submitted for review. Potential topics
could include:
Cultural mediatization
Conference Dates - 4th - 6th July, 2005
Dr Dave Collins
The School of Intermedia and Performance Arts
Doncaster College
High Melton
DN5 7SZ
Tel: +44 (0) 1302 553 845
The Journal of Performance Arts & Digital Media (PADM) is a new peer-reviewed journal seeking contributions from a wide range of researchers and practitioners. It will act as a forum to energise innovative and creative thinking and practice in the combination of digital technologies with performance arts.
PADM is now inviting full-length articles (5000-8000 words), shorter articles for debate on current issues (1500-3000 words) and review of performances (1000 words). PADM also welcomes the submission of book reviews (1500-3000 words).
For more information or to submit an article, please contact the editorial team:
Editor:
David Collins (david.collins@don.ac.uk)Associate Editors:
Steve Dixon (s.dixon@salford.ac.uk)
Sita Popat (s.popat@leeds.ac.uk)
30th March - 3rd April, 2005
A conference toward performance/studies: modes of thinking, physical methodologies, spatial thoughts, sound disturbances, and knowing bodies.
We acknowledge that the conference title understates, closets, titillates, misarticulates, sneaks-up upon, middle-classifies, play-acts, and jumps track. We also hope that it incites action, direction, thought, movement, and choice. For us, when we started planning, the title referred to the necessary discomfort in building a performance, a life, a discipline, a world.
Newer, darker meanings have since accrued.
Proposals, suggestions, and requests:
E-mail: Ken Prestininzi, conference co-ordinator, PSi@brown.edu
Fax: attention John Emigh or Ken Prestininzi in USA, (1) 401-863-7529
Write: John Emigh,
conference director or
Ken Prestininzi conference co-ordinator
Brown University
Box 1897
Providence
RI 02912, USA
Abstracts (up to 1 page) are invited for papers relating any aspect of consciousness (as defined in a range of disciplines involved with consciousness studies) to any aspect of theatre, performance, literature, music, fine arts, media arts and any sub-genre of those. Please send the abstract to Dr Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe, dam@aber.ac.uk. Deadline for receipt of abstracts is 1 March 2005. Colleagues will be informed within 2 weeks of receipt whether their abstract has been accepted. This should allow speakers enough time to obtain funding support. The status of accepted papers (presentation in plenary or parallel sessions), will be decided after the deadline, and all presenters will be notified by the 15th of April.
Mapping Uncertain
Territories. Space and Place in Contemporary Theatre and Drama
CDE Conference 2005, Bremen,
Germany,
2-5 June 2005
Deadline for Proposals: 31 December 2004
e-mail: t.rommel@iu-bremen.de or mark.schreiber@iu-bremen.de
conference website: http://www.ContemporaryDrama.de
The German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English announces its 14th Annual Conference (5-8 May 2005). It will be organized by the Chair of English Literature at International University Bremen and held on the university campus.
In our post-national, post-colonial and postmodern world, categories of space and place have become increasingly contested. The capacity to create or "produce space" (Lefebvre) is a quality that all literary and artistic genres inherently share. Theatre and drama, however, takes a particularly challenging role in this respect. As a performative genre, it continuously oscillates between the imagined spaces and places of the text and the real, social, cultural and political spaces and places of its production and reception. Public spaces, market places and the stage as "the other place" create territories that invite exploration and mapping.
This conference aims to investigate the ways in which theatre and drama engages with, (re)negotiates and (re)defines the changing nature of contemporary notions of space and place.
THE
THIRD WINTER CONFERENCE ON ARTS EDUCATION
Arts Education: A World View February 16-18, 2005.
The University of Arizona College of Fine Arts Committee on Arts Education, Department of Language Reading and Culture, and the Arts and Learning Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association invite researchers and educators in all aspects of the arts join us for a three day conference focusing on our international connections in the arts. Keynote speaker is Max Wyman, President of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, member of the board of the Canada Council for the Arts, and author of The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
BOOKCLOSEOUTS are still my hot pick at the moment. Careful searching will reveal many bargains.
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Kim Flintoff
Copyright © October, 2004
