Teaching Theatre Acting: A Case for Student-Centered Learning

In the first blog, viagra I gave you a peek into the Seminarium Elements book, decease  Pedagogy and Student-Centered Learning: Designing the right environment and shared a little about the first two chapters highlighting the differences between student-and teacher-centered learning and investigating a variety of pedagogies that can and are used in the classroom.  I introduced the use of theatre and creative pedagogies as highly effective methods for fostering a student-centered teaching and learning environment.  Current teaching trends are seeing a rise in arts-based educational approaches, generic which hold promising applications to virtually all subjects. This is because the creative process is intrinsically student-centered and engages students in a way that fosters and develops “soft skills” necessary for every career path.

Teaching Theatre/Student-Centeredness

This excerpt will introduce theatre acting pedagogies, teaching actor training, and student-centered learning amidst the landscape of university actor training in the United States. Any art form is a reflection of the culture from which it springs.  Acting is dependent on multiple skill sets, each involving different modes of thought and brain function. Therefore, it is impossible not to include in the discussion the range of acting pedagogies intrinsically influenced by culture, religion, science, other art forms, and history.

Sarah d’Angelo is a renowned Professor, and a highly talented and skilled Master of Theater Arts.  She has an extensive background in theater acting, theater teaching, writing,  producing, and editing.  She shares her experiences, knowledge, and background in chapter 3 of the Seminarium Elements book, Pedagogy and Student-Centered Learning: Designing the right environment as she makes a case for student-centered learning as it relates to teaching theatre acting.  Let’s take a quick peek into her chapter.

Ceremony and Ritual; how did it all begin?

Evidence of prehistoric performative storytelling is found worldwide in other art-form mediums such as cave paintings, decorated pottery, artifacts, and hieroglyphics. These markings from ancient human hands document the stories, necessities, and triumphs of human survival: successful hunts, seasonal changes, life cycles, social relationships, and lessons from the gods. Early humankind learned by doing. They experienced firsthand that certain actions performed by the group or by an appointed spiritual leader within the group resulted in positive outcomes for the whole society. The successful results became associated with survival, which lead to habit, then to traditional stories and myths, and eventually formalized ceremony and ritual based on the stories and myths.  Rituals and ceremonies that revered victories and heroes related to duty and formed a cultural history grounded in the oral tradition. Rituals and ceremonies practiced for the gods also brought entertainment and pleasure and were usually facilitated by a spiritual leader. These types of rituals and ceremonies often utilized costumes, paint, or masks to ensure the performers were visible to the gods they sought to appease.

Leading into Education

Given the interdisciplinary nature of theatre, a university training program offers a diverse education to strengthen the student actor’s artistic and intellectual resources. Theatre-specific subjects can include vocal production, speech, dialectics, playwriting, analytical criticism, theatre history, history of costume, costume design, set and lighting design, stage management, stage combat, movement, dance, singing, and music. The rationale behind this structure of education is striking: once the foundation of general and theatre-specific education has been laid, the student is allowed to plunge into the activity of acting. Acting is the only performing art informed by many disciplines to engage the voice, body, mind, heart, and spirit. Given the range of topics and their applications to the actor’s process, student-centered learning is the only effective method of teaching. Actor-training classes in a university environment typically fall into three areas of skill development: character- creation technique, vocal production, including speech and dialects, and body-awareness/movement training.

The Interconnection of Kolb and Stanislavski

Acting is a confluence of skills engaging the whole person that gradually merges into a single act. During the scene-performance and work-shopping portion of the beginning acting class, we see the cyclical nature of Kolb’s model in real time. Student actors engage in Concrete Experience by applying the basic Stanislavski acting principles in the performance of a scene. Reflective Observation follows the scene performances with performers and witnesses articulating feedback of the experience. Abstract Conceptualization occurs as the specific acting problems are identified and related to the basic Stanislavski acting principles. Active Experimentation takes place during the work-shop exercises and the rerunning of the scene.  I leave you with this:

Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.—Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed:30^th Anniversary Edition 

Pedagogies for Student-Centered Learning: Online and On-Ground is part of the Seminarium Elements book series. Look for it November 15, 2014.

Preorder today at fortresspress.com and Amazon.com.

Photo credit: “Acting for Film & Television: Movement” Copyright Vancouver Film School. Licensed for reuse by CC BY-SA 2.0 license

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