applieddramayear2

[applieddramayear2]

Hello and welcome to my blog!

In order to get to know me better, firstly I am polish and live in England. I am trying my best with writing in English, but if I do make any mistakes, I do apologize! It would be great if you let me know by messaging me so I can quickly correct any mistakes!

On here I would like to share some of my research and experiences to do with the applied drama practice!

I hope you enjoy!

[applieddramayear2]

A POLISH company, which I wanted to share with you about!

A company focused on an extremely important topic which is applied drama, is called Hothhaus and is based in Poland, in Kraków. The mission of the Hothaus Foundation and Theatre is to promote and offer widely understood artistic education and enabling creative human development. According to their mission statement, they are doing everything in order to create a safe and unique environment for people who are interested in theatre. It is crucial since applied drama would have no sense without participants’ personal involvement, and because participants are coming into the environment of applied drama practice, it sometimes raises emotions. Additionally, emotions can lead to heated exchanges or exposure of insecurities, therefore the safe environment is demanded. I believe applied theatre is a correct place for raising emotions because if the participants raise emotions it means that they care and this is already a success. This is of course with trained facilitators who know how to lead their emotions in the way that it will not hurt them or other participants. 

Applied drama is about opening up to others. Showing emotions is one of the ways of doing that. The key purpose of their mission is to make sure that all participants learn about art and theatre from the practical side rather than just supplying them with the theory, and feel safe and important at the same time. Restrictions - like predispositions - constitute the truth about each person, leading to finding their own identity. This is how the basic function of artistic education is understood in HOTHAUS Company: it is discovering the truth about yourself, about others and about the world that surrounds us. HOTHAUS’s underlying value is most importantly, to make sure the participant feels safe and to allow and help him discover his artistic powers in order to make his life better and to fill the gaps in his life which need filling. That can be in any subject, for example of being more sociable, believing more in oneself, understanding one’s and others emotionality, improving imagination and many more. 

It seems to me that these underlying values are inspired by a sense of duty and moral imperative. First of all, it is understood that the name HOTHAUS indicates word hothouse which according to Cambridge dictionary means “a place or the environment in which people, especially children, are taught to develop skills and knowledge more quickly than usual” (Dictionary.cambridge.org, n.d.) In one of the company’s statements, it is also mentioned that they create a warm atmosphere for all participants and their priority is to improve people’s lives in order to make their lives better.

Bibliography

● Dictionary.cambridge.org. (n.d.). Znaczenie HOTHOUSE, definicja w Cambridge English Dictionary. Available at:https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pl/dictionary/english/hothouse

● Hothaus.org. (2017). Available at: https://www.hothaus.org/about

[applieddramayear2]

Building by cooperating. 

“It is through cooperation, rather than conflict, that your greatest successes will be derived.” - Ralph Chavell

[applieddramayear2]

Hothaus is a Polish company that I was researching. You will be able to read about them in one of my upcoming posts, stay tuned!  This is their website and here you can find their Facebook fan page.

[applieddramayear2]

Circle formation, so you can see everyone, everyone can see you and we are all equal! That’s what applied drama is about! Here on page 37 you can find out why I like circle formations so much and why they are important.

This is a little bit longer to read, but worth reading! Also about the circle formations. Enjoy!

[applieddramayear2]

I wanted to recommend this book to anyone interested. I got it from my university library, but it is so good that I have actually bought it!

If you’re interested, here is a link to amazon auction

[applieddramayear2]

This is just a short, two-minute video me exploring the role of a facilitator. 

[applieddramayear2]

How did the workshop go and what I would change in the future

One of my key theoretical influences that underpinned my practice, apart from what I have learned on the applied drama module, were James Thompson and Richard Schechner. I especially looked into the fact that there is no predictable outcome of the workshop, so even if I plan everything perfectly it may work out completely differently with the participants and I will have to adjust it to them. That can mean either taking longer on some exercises and getting rid of others or have a “plan b” with a couple more things to do, depending on what the participants seem to need more.

When it comes to the workshop, I was in a group with Olivia and Naomi. I was happy about the final outcome in roughly 70%, I will explain why now.

Strengths: - I knew that my group members would do their part to make sure that the workshop goes correctly according to the assessment brief. -We were all energetic and positive towards the participants. -The participants seemed to enjoy the workshop throughout and there were effective participation and laughter but were all still focused. -During the workshop, there were not any significant issues.

Weaknesses: -The group work while planning was one of the biggest weaknesses. The reason why is because, during the time when we should be focused on planning, researching and talking through ideas, my group members would focus on completely different topics which were not to do with our work at all, such as holidays, plans for the weekend etc. -Additionally, it has been very difficult for me to convince Naomi and Olivia to take any of my ideas into consideration. I had to spend a lot of time, fighting for them and coming up with many arguments about why we should do it. I would just hear “no” and no explanation why most of the time.  What worked: 

-The overall plan made before the workshop worked almost perfectly

What did not work: 

-When doing the exercise of breathing at the end of the workshop, I was told by Olivia to “wrap it up” because we were running out of time. What could have been done is skipping the very last exercise of counting so then the breathing exercise would not be so rushed. If I could do the workshop again I would just stick with the breathing exercise, since the counting one did not work in the end as it should. 

So... Those are the main things why 30% is missing, but overall I am happy I have had the opportunity to be able to do the workshop with such wonderful participants and met their facilitator, Bec!

What would I do next, if I could develop my practice with the participants? If I had the opportunity to develop my practice with the participants my next step would be working with them on acting exercises and techniques. As we have done the AB script with them on our first workshops, I would want to go into something more demanding. For example, I would prepare a more demanding (within reason)  but still quite short scripts for each 2-3 member groups. I would invent character goals and ask them to find out what their character goal is and why it is important to know what the character wants and why they want it. When that would be all clear and all participants would know how to use this way of understanding I would then lead them into trying to perform the script in their groups. I would develop my work this way because when watching their rehearsal process it was difficult for me to tell what their character wants. It seemed like there was a lack of interpretation of the script. Therefore, understanding goals and reasons for them would be something to improve their understanding of a character and also they could introduce it into their acting which would improve their skills. Another thing I would invent is try to teach them how to be louder and clearer. I would come up with a fun way of doing it, for example telling them to imagine that the audience is full of elderly people who cannot hear very well and we need to be really loud. That would be connected to the grandma’s footsteps game we did in the workshops and it would hopefully stay in their mind for the next rehearsals and the future final performances.