Given the premise that the primary
curriculum should be based around narrative (Egan, 1988, cited in Ewing, p. 6),
this workshop was a series of process drama conventions to explore the theme of
the Stolen Generation, using The Rabbits (Written by John Marsden, Illustrated by Simon Tan 1998) as a starting text.
We started by pairing up, one holding a
balloon in front of them and closing their eyes, whilst the other guided them
around the room. John popped the balloons one-by-one. I was the last. The
suspense grew, and I put my trust in my partner to keep me as far away from
John as possible. Although we didn’t know it at the time, John was alluding to
the feelings of fear and anxiousness families would have felt, as children of
the Stolen Generation were removed from their families.
Secondly, we spent a few minutes drawing
our families. Although we spent little time on them, I still felt sadness and
shock when John tore them up in front of us. He was encouraging us to empathise
with the families torn apart during the Stolen Generation. He then read us the
starting text, a highly symbolic and confronting historical analogy with an
effective use of surreal images.
Thirdly, we walked quickly around the room
without looking at each other, changing direction. I felt swept up in a busy
room, and it was an effective way to mix the room dynamics up instead of always
forming groups with the same people. In groups, we created three freeze frames,
capturing the moment a child was removed from their family. We watched the
performances, accompanied by piano music. You could really see the effect of
body language, facial expression, and the tension, relationships between
characters and embodied roles, through this contrast created when you closed
your eyes between transitions. We then added a phrase, word or sentence to
capture each scene, and performed them again. Some words could be repeated,
some people could stay silent etc… I noticed how effective it was when a person
stayed silent. We had “we are united”, “taken” and “just the beginning”. This
layering technique is interesting as you could see how a dramatic performance
can be built up slowly, taking the effectiveness of each element into account.
We then
listened to a passage about a son and mother being reunited for the first time.
Each of us came up something either the son or mother might say in this
situation, mine being “I never knew I could miss someone so much who I haven’t
met.” We wrote these on post-it-notes and passed them to the next group, who
then ordered them into a scene. Two characters recreated this scene accompanied
by a simple gesture. An effective one for us was I, the Mother, cupping my
hands over the son’s hands, saying “my baby”. The son in turn placed them to
his forehead and said, “I never stopped thinking about you”.
 |
| "My baby" |
 |
| "I never stopped thinking about you" |
In the ‘dream’ convention, half the class
whispered a thought (embodying the role of either mother or son) into each of
the other class member’s ears, who were on the ground with their eyes closed.
This was a highly emotional convention, being barraged with dream-like thoughts
and it really made me feel empathy for the role. With these thoughts in mind,
we then wrote a letter as the son. The words flowed easily as I felt such deep
empathy and emotional connection to my role. We walked about the room like a
letter gallery, stopping by a letter, and underlined a thought-provoking
sentence. The class then created a poem by ordering these underlined sentences.
It was a non-judgmental means of creating a deeply moving literary piece.
This whole sequence seamlessly flowed from
one convention to another, deepening our relationship with the others in the
class and with the text, the role and the concept. It would be an effective way
to have students engage with historical events or debates, or any literary
piece. Authentic integration (Ewing) is allowed across a variety of KLAs,
particularly HSIE. As Ewing describes, the arts creates a space for
risk-taking, and gives you the confidence to explore your abilities. It was a
very sensory experience, heightening your experience of one sense by removing
another, such as the dream sequence and the balloon popping conventions. Having
our shoes off and soft music playing in the background also created a safe,
quiet place. It was also a good mix of individual, paired, small group and
whole class collaborations.
References
Ewing, transforming the curriculum through
the arts, Ch1, pp. 1-14.
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