Structuring the Ensemble-based Learning: The Conventions Approach

Peter Brook views an actor’s participation in a permanent artistic company as an essential condition for talent to flourish, while, at the same time, emphasising the necessity of a “school” for the artistic growth and autonomy of this group of actors (Brook, 1990, pp.32-34).

[E]ven a permanent company is doomed to deadliness in the long run if it is without an aim, and thus without a method, and thus without a school. (ibid., p.34)

It is argued that the interdependence he ascribes to the notions of aim and of the method makes apparent their collaborative function in the structure of what could be called the

92 company’s vision for theatre. From this perspective, a company’s vision, its artistic and political aspirations – or aims, in Brook’s terms – are interrelated to its school of artistic thought and to the method of its theatrical practice. In the analogous course of the professional ensemble, the learning ensemble requires a respective apprenticeship model on which it will base its artistic vision and its socio-theatrical autonomy (Neelands, 2008). In this context, a comprehensive apprenticeship model is chosen to structure the ensemble drama work on a conception of theatre that balances its aims between the existing cultural knowledge of students, and a more subject-specific learning (Neelands, 2004). The reason for aiming to achieve subject-specific knowledge derives from the aspiration of providing students with a powerful system of expression, communication and world creation that can function as a tool for their imagination, rather than as an impediment (Winston, 2010, p.97).

In this framework, the conventions approach – constructed by Neelands and Goode in Structuring Drama Work (2000)– frames the dramatic activity of the specific project, since it can fully respond to the inclusive and multi-perspective nature of theatrical learning and of the broader political and citizenship education that an integrated curriculum advocates. In this approach, drama is viewed as

the direct experience that is shared when people imagine and behave as if they were other than themselves in some other place at another time. This definition seeks to encompass all forms of creative imitative behaviour – from the loose and spontaneous imaginative play of young people […] through to the more formal experience of the play performed by actors for an audience. (2000, p.4)

Based on this inclusive and participatory definition of theatre, the suggested conventions assume that “theatre does not describe a single form of activity, e.g. the performance of

93 a playwright’s work to an audience” and therefore include a wide range of theatrical repertoire that constitute a “bridge between spontaneous and innate uses of theatre and the more poetic conventions of performance craft” (ibid., pp.3, 5).

This dramatic framework lies at the core of the ensemble philosophy of theatre- making, because it provides the students with a wide range of given circumstances to develop different levels of theatre ability and hence to utilise different strengths during their participation in the common process. A range of conventions is provided to enable students to be actively engaged with the theme of a story (context-building action), to explore the narrative dimensions of theatre (narrative action), to perform symbolically complex and sub-textual meanings (poetic action) and to reflect on the actions and meanings that the symbolic reality entails (reflective action). This non-hierarchical structure for working in drama (ibid., p.6) legitimates a range of skills and abilities through which students can participate in the process of drama. The writer, director, painter, actor, spectator and other roles emerge through various conventions in order for students to be initiated to the process through a secure contribution based on their different strengths, while, during the evolution of the process, they are given the opportunity to view and experience other modes of contribution and participation. Similarly, the conventions of group work allow students not only to choose how they wish to participate, but also the extent to which they participate.

Removing drama from the exclusive norms of performance, and including various forms of participation, a range of conventions such as still-image, shape-shifting, choral speak or group sculpture recognise the right of students not only to act at the forefront of the activity but also in its periphery. Gallagher refers to Anderson’s ‘peripheral participation’, in which a student participates in drama as a spectator or in a different position from the actor. This notion attempts to legitimate students’ right to

94 participate in drama from different positions. It can be argued that the conventions approach reinforces this quality of drama, because different conventions utilise different roles in drama participation and invite students to participate in different levels of drama (2007, p.159).

The second reason for choosing the conventions approach to structure the ensemble drama lessons lies in the integrated dimensions that conventions bring to the drama classroom, because they provide an opportunity for students both to use and extend their cultural resources as well as to make deeper meanings both of the theatre reality and the wider world. In the first place, the comprehensive quality of the conventions approach moves the theatrical experience beyond a mere consideration of dramatic skills, and transforms it into a wider cultural resource. In this context, students are able to identify familiar entry points to take part in the process and new stimuli in order to extend their cultural repertoires (Neelands and Goode, 2000, pp.3-5).

The conventions approach can be also viewed as an enhanced educational experience that systematically stimulates students to develop understanding about both human experience, and the ways in which it is constructed and represented (ibid.). In this approach, students are not asked to replicate real life, but are encouraged to explore and experience real life in ways which cannot happen in real life. Moments are focused, actions are paused, inner thoughts are enacted and sub-textual meanings are publicly performed. Therefore, there are more possibilities for students to acquire greater consciousness of the meanings that are treated in the play and the ways in which these meanings can be communicated more efficiently or re-created according to participants’ imaginations (Fleming, 2001, p.16). Conventions such as the ‘alter-ego’, ‘analogy’ or ‘behind the scenes’ enable participants to achieve different levels or perspectives on the same meanings, and to create connections between the concrete action of drama and

95 wider personal and socio-political actions of the world outside the classroom (Neelands and Goode, 2000, p.45, 48, 49).

Finally,

the emphasis in the conventions approach […] on giving students the means to take their own dramatic representations by introducing them to increasingly wide and complex choices of ‘means’ for depicting the world (Neelands, 2010, p.103)

constitutes the final reason for basing the ensemble process on the specific drama conventions approach. As discussed above, ensemble theatre-making is a process that aims to foster the self-instituting ability of students as a social and artistic group. As is also analysed above (See section 2.1.3), the process of self-institution is a precondition for subverting the omnipotence of external authority, and instead fosters students’ autonomy. However, for this autonomy to be achieved or approached, students must gradually become able to use the means of theatre in a more autonomous or self- sufficient way. In this context, a range of conventions is gradually and systematically introduced according to their complexity and to emphasise different qualities in the theatrical possibilities. This constitutes a comprehensive and systematic way for students to develop their educational and artistic autonomy. The scaffolding character of theatre learning has the potential to enable students to build upon subjective responses to theatre experience with a more conscious application of form to meaning (Neelands and Goode, 2000, p.3). From this perspective, conventions can be viewed as a clear, comprehensive and systematic vocabulary, the learning of which will enable students to develop their theatrical literacy and therefore their greater artistic autonomy.

96