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CHAPTER ONE: LIVING THROUGH DRAMA
The next section discusses LTD in the context of other drama approaches
and also considers critiques of the approach examined in my research.
THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT AND A CRITIQUE
OF LIVING THROUGH DRAMA
I offered a glimpse into the Hungarian context of drama education as
the reason for my drive to engage in this research. This section contextualises
LTD within the wider field of drama education. After a brief study of
the context I continue by looking at the criticism that has been articulated,
questions raised about LTD.
Contemporary Context: Elements of
the Different Drama Approaches in LTD
The examples illustrated that LTD incorporates elements of many other
approaches and forms of drama. Bolton defined his approach as Type D in
1979 labelled as “drama for understanding”’” incorporating elements of
games and exercises, dramatic playing and theatre. In the examples above
there were games like Hunter and Hunted, exercises of free improvisation
as in a skills based approach, forms like paper-location or forum theatre
also used in the conventions approach, a drama starting with a distanced
frame like in a Mantle of the Expert drama, or starting out from a text that
could be part of a performance oriented approach to drama. Looking at all
these forms of drama would demand a survey of a different kind. However,
it is useful to compare LTD with two dominant approaches that can be
considered re-interpretations of living through, which also differ from it in
important features. I discuss the Mantle of the Expert (MoE) approach and
the conventions approach in this section.
Maria Gee explains MoE as follows:
Heathcote’s model offers an imagined context (the Enterprise) within which
the learning happens. Within that fictional context, the students work on
a multitude of tasks connected with the Enterprise they are running. They will
be responsible to the (fictional) client, who has approached them with a problem
which they are required to deal with. Within this context, information from a wide
14 Bolton: Towards a theory, 11.
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