Seite 17 [17]
OCR
INTRODUCTION The conventions offered in Structuring Drama Work are based on forms derived from theatre practices, but these forms are decontextualized and made independent from the complex theories they were rooted in. Their instrumentalisation in practice had made me feel that the interconnection of content, underlying structures and form that creates good drama was missing from the school of drama in education I was educated in. Finding new possibilities of creating drama lessons more complexly connected to the art form could offer important avenues for the whole field of drama education. It took some time and new impulses for me to realise that even though I had learnt drama in education from the best teacher in Hungary at the time, there were many other ways of engaging in this exceptional artistic-educational form; and that a theoretical rather than a methodological approach would help in experimenting with drama and making it mean more both to myself and the participants. I remember being surprised by the complexity of the practice of Neelands when I attended his full day workshops in Austria; I went back next day when he was devising a process drama on his feet and that was even better. Then meeting and working with Big Brum Theatre in Education Company and understanding the work they had done with Edward Bond was decisive in determining the direction I was interested in exploring further. The seriousness of the problems presented to young people and the forms offered to let them engage with those dilemmas through situations fascinated me. The two fundamental elements of this research — Living Through Drama and the Bondian approach — were and are constantly referred to and experimented with in Big Brum’s theatre in education work. However, it was Davis’s”* proposal and experiment to connect the two fields that led me to develop my own action research. I see the uniqueness of the Bondian approach in how it opens gaps for the audience in which culturally set explanations need to be questioned. As Bond’s theory and practice is created for theatre, adapting it to participatory drama lessons is an exciting task. I see the power of Living Through Drama in the extent it takes the participants seriously, not only in the problems, events it engages in, but also the responsibility shared with the group in creating the drama. I wanted to explore the possibility of incorporating Bond’s theory and practice into drama lessons based on a living through approach. The links between the two have been highlighted by many” and there has been important 24 David Davis: Edward Bond and Drama in Education, in David Davis (ed.): Edward Bond and the Dramatic Child, Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books, 2005. °5 Konstantinos Amoiropoulos: BALANCING GAPS: An investigation of Edward Bond’s theory and practice for drama, Ph.D. Thesis, Birmingham City University, 2013; Chris Cooper: The Imagination in Action: Theatre in Education and its relationship to Drama in Education +16 +
