Kim Flintoff B.A.(Drama Studies) Murdoch Grad Dip Ed (Secondary Drama) Edith Cowan
John Forrest Senior
High School
Kim Flintoff is the creator, moderator and maintainer of the DramaWest website and the international email discussion list. Formerly the first Technology Officer of DramaWest (The Drama Teachers Association of Western Australia). He teaches high school Drama in Western Australia and has an extensive background in theatre production. While currently working on a Master’s thesis examining the role of technology and virtual domains in educational Drama, Kim is also interested in NLP, Brain-based and Accelerated Learning Applications in Drama. Kim worked as a clown/magician for several years, is co-founder and former chairman of Class Act Theatre (Theatre-in-Education) and founder and present chairman of SHY (Seen and Heard Youth) a newly-formed youth arts organization in WA. Kim has recently accepted the position of Director of Technology for Drama Australia.
Rationale
The purpose of this paper is to propose a variety of studies and investigations to explore the possibilities, scope and efficacy of utilizing emergent interactive technologies in Classroom Drama within my context in high school teaching in Western Australia. I hope to relate some of my observations, perceptions and speculations not only about possible approaches to beginning to explore ways of utilizing computers in Drama education but also to consider some of the responses and attitudes that I have experienced over the past few years. I make no claims to having any deep insights, nor do I offer any particular answers; what I can do though is offer some challenges, arguments for the experimentation and further study within this area, and some necessarily speculative – possibly spurious – ideas about strategies. It is slowly taking on the shape of a framework but it is too early to make that leap.
The title of the paper “Of Bodies in Place or In Place of Bodies” raises the question of what degree of embodiment is required for our practice to still be regarded as Drama. Have we somehow prioritized the “body in space” as an essential aspect of the work we do at the expense of other possibilities. Is a Virtual Body or an interaction with one any less significant, does it provide experience of a “degraded” quality or have we failed to consider alternatives? What has happened to our expectations of new ways of seeing from some 30 years ago? Have we constructed an image of Drama that transcends the “reality’ of experience and delimits it by “physical presence”? This paper is intended to be more general in its scope but this question seems to come to the fore whenever the topic arises.
It seems also that when discussions turn to the use of computers in Drama or indeed Drama in computers we activate ideas that are quite polarized. On the one hand are the proponents, like myself, who argue that we do not yet know enough about our interactions with and within these new and emerging forms; while on the other hand we seem to trigger an intense response in the negative, “under no circumstances is there a place for computers in the process and product of Drama education!”
Since the paper will function in a speculative mode it is not expected that any generalisations will be forthcoming, although there may well emerge implications and considerations for future introduction of so-called learning technologies in Drama education, and specifically within my own context in Western Australia. I do believe, however, that the questions I raise have significance for all Drama educators.
After briefly considering my own
experiences in encountering the idea of Drama and Computers, I will discuss
some ideas I have about how the use of IT can be positioned within the Drama classroom. As more teachers and schools begin to
incorporate learning technologies,
information technology and especially the Internet into classroom practice I
believe many are overlooking the interactive communications potential –
especially the immersive[1]
forms – preferring instead to deal with it simply as an information retrieval
tool or as a means of mechanical storage and reproduction. I believe and hope to illustrate that
this seriously underestimates both the potential and consequence of engaging with
and within virtual environments.
The Beginning
I believe it is interesting to go back a few years to where (and when) I began to develop my interest I this area.
In 1996 when I decided to become a teacher and commence studies towards a Graduate Diploma of Education (Secondary Drama) I was faced with a class at university that required me to select a “resource” and demonstrate practically within a workshop with my peers how to apply the use of that resource to facilitating various aspects of classroom Drama. The list of possible resources included such things as “mask”, “newspaper”, “costume”, “images” and a range of other familiar stimuli. The familiar items were quickly snapped up – there were many choices still left but at the bottom of the list the word “computer” caught my eye. My tutor advised me that it had been there for several years and no-one had ever attempted to address the topic. My contrary nature saw this as a challenge and I set about to explore the possibilities.
To this time I had barely dabbled with personal computers and had not even tried accessing the Internet.
Like any good student, I set about to do a literature search and discover what had gone before. Surely, I thought, in a time when every medium and body of thought was discussing and exploring computers, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and the Internet, there would be a wealth of material specifically related to Drama. The university where I was studying also hosted an academy of performing arts and ran an undergraduate program in Drama Studies. After a complete catalogue search and a search of abstracts, I located a grand total of 1 book and 1 article. The book was Jonathan Neelands’ Drama and IT and the article was in the NADIE Journal.
I read Drama and IT and armed with minimal knowledge and a decrepit old Amiga 500, some simple text animation software, a music composition program, a candle and a lot of wishful thinking I developed the presentation/workshop with my study partner. We drew upon one of the ideas in Drama and IT; adapting as best we could given the very different circumstances. We used the computer to construct a scenario of messages coming from the future warning us about an impending disaster. With our peers functioning as our students we conducted the session, tapping into rhythmic movement, ritualised patterns of behaviour, role play, improvisation and story-telling to engage in a Drama that eventually saved the planet – all the while having our progress and discoveries mediated by a computer program. The limitations of the “preprogrammed” nature of the computer interface I developed cast an interesting light on what is often an organic and negotiated “pacing” of progress. Whereas a teacher might allow a few minutes and discern when it is “most” useful to move on, the computer insisted on it’s own pre-determined schedule of events.
I became intrigued by the possibilities and began searching the Internet and started to discover that a few people were wrestling with ideas. I read Sherry Turkle’s Life on the Screen in an attempt to draw some connections between life roles, assumed persona in virtual environments, constructed persona and dramatic role play. This area still remains enormously complex and contentious.
I maintained my interest and read
widely, whenever possible I contacted authors doing significant work in the
area, needless to say such instances were infrequent as there are few studies
specific to the field of Drama. (I have documented all the material I have
located in a links category called Drama and Computers on the DramaWest website http://members.iinet.net.au/~kimbo2/Dramawest.)
In 1999 I had the opportunity to become involved in a project that I thought offered an opportunity to study a group of Drama students on considering their engagement in a learning process utilising computers in developing a performance project.
The LifeForms™ software we used is
especially designed to simulate human movement and generate rendered characters/figures[2]
in combination with audio and other multimedia elements. The software has been utilised by Merce
Cunningham, a prominent contemporary choreographer, in a dance performance in
the United States. The emphasis in
the LifeForms™ project was on the use of the software in the context of Drama
studies. To this end, most students involved have been selected from Year 10/11
Drama classes in Perth secondary schools.
The objectives of the LifeForms™ project were to introduce and train students in the use of the software and then to apply an informed use of the software to the creation of a performance.
Several students were involved in the training program and spent approximately 48 hours over several weeks working with a professional choreographer in learning the software. They were then asked to create and present a short example of their own creation as a video clip. This stage of the project left me quite disheartened as I thought that the potential had deteriorated to a project in media techniques and digital animation. The students also demonstrated a degree of frustration with this limitation; in response to the deletion of the original intention to create a live performance based on interaction with their LifeForms™ creations one politically astute student entitled her video sequence simply “PRODUCT”.
The second phase in 2000 originally
sought to engage students in the creation of a 40-minute performance utilising characters/figures
generated by a variety of software, possibly including the LifeForms™ software
interacting with characters played by the students themselves. Difficulties with maintaining the same
group of “trained” students saw the nature of the project change and we had the
opportunity to engage with virtual environments to initiate our revised
performance project. I seemed to
me that we missed the point when our engagement became more of an exploration
of the “idea” of online persona than with any actual exploration using the
technology. The performance itself
transformed and computers were used in a process of presenting alternate
personalities – secret identities, if you like – in overlapping scenes of
traditional performance and computer delivered video sequences. The idea of computer generation and mediation
of the development of the Drama was lost somewhere in the process – especially
so when a playwright was engaged to script the piece.
In considering these missed opportunities I am reminded of a statement by Esther Dyson, who was reported as saying that “the most effective users of “cyberspace” are those who can conceive of and act as though it were a performance and space”. I find it hard to ignore the parallel that this statement could also be true of students and teachers of drama. If, as many Drama educators believe, “Role is the central skill of drama. It is the process of pretending to be another person. For educational drama to occur students must be negotiated in the enactment of another person’s viewpoint in a fictional world. Drama requires the ability to step into another’s world view.” Then surely the virtual world of MUDs, MOOs, 3D worlds, VR, IRC and other “chat” technologies offers unprecedented opportunities to explore the possibilities of role.
It was also during 1999 that Arts Accord (the affiliation of Arts Education associations in Western Australia) convened a technology-focused conference called Collaborarts Arts and Technology Conference 1999 [3]. The purpose of this conference was to provide a forum whereby Arts educators might address some of the possibilities of the application of learning technologies to their practice. The conference offered a range of sessions that covered all art forms, especially well represented were the visual arts and music. It is significant to note that only one session was offered that focused on Drama education. Body and Place – Drama and Interactive Technologies was presented by this author and had a very small number of attendees. A grand total of four drama educators attended the session and reported that they saw great relevance to classroom practice.
This seems to suggest that there is some reluctance on the part of Drama educators to engage with the introduction of computers and associated technologies.
This perception is also informed and influenced by another experience during 1999. I initiated a thread of discussion on the Dramawest Discussion List, a global email “community” of Drama educators, about the role of computers in Drama classes. I asked what people had attempted with computers in their classrooms – unfortunately I am still awaiting a single answer to that specific question. I did however receive many other responses and the thread of discussion continued to evolve over a few weeks. During that time I was told in a variety of ways that I should not even be considering the use of computers in Drama. Some correspondents insisted that it “dehumanized” or “disembodied” Drama – there was certainly a prioritizing of this issue of embodiment
Virtuality [4](or cyberspace), with its apparent offerings of vicarious and disembodied experience, poses challenges to the field of Drama studies. Classroom Drama traditionally seems to presuppose the physical, the spatial and the verbal, focussing heavily on role; in virtual environments – which can accommodate disembodied, ethereal and textual/graphical practice - these presuppositions are cast in a new light and demand that new questions be asked.
Yet I get the impression many of us are unwilling to ask. Instead I received responses such as “your post scares the hell out of me”, “No machines. No computer graphics. No interaction with gadgets.”, “I would rather see my students engaged with each other than with some computer image”, “…lets not introduce machine driven projects that only add to the already passive, machine served generation.”, and more. Curiously, many of these emerged from the United States where classroom Drama seems, to my limited experience, more a theatre production model. Interestingly from Western Australia came such comments as “I want drama educators to take on the full possibilities of the new technologies”, “gain a deeper understanding of the ‘real’ and embodied form of performance”,
My Own Teaching Context
To date in Western Australia no educational sector has generated a programme to address how students are to engage with learning technologies in classroom Drama. The Curriculum Council of Western Australia has expressed in its Curriculum Framework that there is a need to consider how Arts education may be informed via the use of learning technologies. The educational community is yet to identify strategies to allow the achievement and demonstration of this outcome.
As mentioned above no published documents specifically relating to the role of learning technologies in Drama Education have emerged from Western Australia. In the broader Australian context, the NADIE Journal[5] has published only one paper since 1976 that has addressed the topic. This article, Drama and Technology: Realism and Emotional Literacy (Carroll, 1996) and this concluded with the warning that “real life is not optional”. (I have since been made aware of at least two other articles and ADEM recently had a issue with a technology focus.)
If Drama, as one
of the “arts” subjects in schools, is to “contribute
to the development of an understanding of the physical, emotional,
intellectual, aesthetic, social, moral and spiritual dimensions of human
experience” (Curriculum Council, 1998 pp50), and further if it is to “assist the expression and identity of
individuals and groups through the recording and sharing of experiences and
imagination” (ibid.) then to
what extent can Drama learning occur and be engaged with in virtual domains? (The author expects to continue to encounter varying degrees of
receptivity to the engagement of virtuality by the drama students and teachers.)
In discussing the
role of “The Arts” in education, the W.A. Curriculum Framework asserts the
following:
· They [students] need to be encouraged to question existing practices and conventions and to value innovation (Curriculum Council, 1998 pp 69)
I assert that the emergence of new environments in which to enact arts activities must offer up existing practices and conventions to be questioned and evaluated.
· Students need programs that challenge them to move on: to use more challenging arts ideas, work in a new genre, style or form; develop control of a new skills [sic], technique or process; or respond to an arts work that uses unfamiliar conventions. They need the challenge of exploring a broader diversity of arts works from different times and places, comparing them, analysing and categorising them, seeing relationships and evaluating them. They are more likely to learn if existing understandings are questioned and reflected on in creative and supportive ways (Curriculum Council, 1998 pp 70)
I believe and hope to illustrate that engaging in Drama activities utilising emergent technologies, technologies that are redefining our perceptions of the world and our place in it, provides unprecedented opportunities to question and reflect upon our existing understandings. Engaging in Drama in cyberspace provides unfamiliar conventions. To begin with, physical laws need not apply, bodies and voices are optional, gender is not fixed, and space becomes one of the elements we construct rather than simply that in which we work.
· Students have ready access to arts equipment such as paints, computers (emphasis added), dress-up boxes, puppets, masks, tuned and untuned percussion instruments and cameras (Curriculum Council, 1998 pp 70)
If computers are to be considered as “arts equipment” then teachers are challenged to find ways of incorporating them in the actual process of producing non-representational art works and this should ideally extend beyond only mundane mechanical and reproduction opportunities. It is anticipated that entirely new vocabularies will emerge that reflect the new application of this technology. It is hoped that new investigations will not encounter the same problems as the LifeForms™ project, and subsequently will reveal examples of effective potential uses of computers in Drama education.
· Students with disabilities should be provided with appropriate alternative ways of demonstrating the outcomes of arts programs: for example, they may need computers with appropriate software… (Curriculum Council, 1998 pp 71)
In an atmosphere of inclusivity this statement presumably refers to the special needs of all students. As cyberspace, virtual environments and other learning technologies emerge as significant players in our society educational systems must provide opportunities at school for students (and teachers) to explore its possibilities and ramifications in all learning areas. However there begs the point that in some cases the use of computers will be the only way to engage students.
How would any of us deal with another Stephen Hawking in a Drama class.? Engaging with alternative spaces for enactment may alleviate physical and social “limitations”. In virtual worlds the familiarity and “comfort” of computer games, chat rooms, interactive worlds and live-action role playing might be used to engage otherwise alienated or marginalised students. Physical disability, social discomfort and other “inhibitions” need not limit interaction if we can effectively find ways to utilise available technologies.
The Questions
Therefore I am lead to ask the following questions.
To what extent can Drama in cyberspace legitimately be a site where students can develop understanding of the various “dimensions of human experience” (the physical, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, social, moral and spiritual)?
· What are the constituent elements of Drama that can also be identified in virtual environments – beyond the interface, what else is present?
· Do virtual environments offer some type of compensatory practice to what else exists in classroom or other spheres of real life (RL)?
· To what extent can Drama in VR be considered “incomplete" compared to RL Drama?
Can students engage in the “authentic” expression and construction of a self-concept (identity), through arts practice, specifically Drama, enacted in virtual reality?
While the “real” exploration of the potential of the virtual in Drama education continues to be considered I think this forums theme of Odyssey and the theme of Betwixt and Between at the 2001 IDEA World Congress are suitable metaphors for the current state of practice in the area of Drama and computers.
We do not know enough about the possibilities to be able to dismiss out of hand the learning opportunities that may exist by engaging with the new technologies. We are not yet able to engage in the totally immersive Virtual Reality of Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity and Johnny Mnemonic. We are not all the way there, but we are in between. We operate at the interface, we interact within the liminality of the interface, we are in that “space” betwixt and between the virtual and the real. Our experiences of the virtual are still embodied in the present body. Despite the relocation of the “I” of the actor in role to a conceptual and negotiated “cyberspace”, the actor and indeed, any audience still experience the performance in the “real”.
We may well be able to engage with “computer representations” in place of bodies but I assert that our bodies are still where they have always been and our experience, knowledge and emotion stems from and returns to the physical body regardless of what negotiated environment our interactions occur within. In computer mediated interactions we are still engaged with each other – whether we be real or highly sophisticated software systems seems to me to be irrelevant. I ask, does it matter – does virtuality change the essential quality of my experience – I can have connections to books, pets, stuffed toys and develop strong emotional responses to the presence or absence of any of them – why is it somehow “inferior” to acknowledge that I can have REAL responses to situations and events that occur via CMC (computer-mediated communication).
I am fascinated by these issues and believe our students have every right to engage with them – and what better forum than a Drama class, where the very fabric of our subject is human embodiment.
For the time being our bodies are in place, but the work of such people as Ray Kurzweil (The Age of Spiritual Machines) and Australian artist, Stelarc certainly challenge the importance of the “soft body”, claiming it may well be redundant. This concerns me as well, but my interest lies more with he ability of Drama to “humanise” the existing and emerging interfaces. What can we do as Drama teachers to ensure that the inevitable use of technology offers opportunities for our students to enhance “the physical, emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, social, moral and spiritual dimensions of human experience”?
[1] Immersive forms of computer technology are considered in this paper to be those in which the interface becomes invisible to some extent. It includes Virtual Reality, 3D simulations, environments in which users directly manipulate the actions/behaviour of characters. It can also include chat and games environments.
[2] This term is expressed “under erasure” as the researcher is, at the
time of writing, unwilling to assign a definitive interpretation to the
representations that are created by the user and the software. The question remains to be explored as
to whether or not the students involved perceive their creations as characters, extensions of self, or some other
representation.
[3] To date there appear to be no published proceedings or papers from this conference.
[4] Virtuality = virtual representations of reality, as opposed to Virtual Reality hardware. It is more concerned with the user perception of the environment in which actions apparently occur. The interface cannot be deleted from the equation. It is analogous to “cyberspace” or the nexus between multiple users (real or virtual), the hardware they utilise, the interface and the virtual “space” in which users meet.
[5] A refereed publication of the National Association for Drama in Education (Australia), now known as NJ published by Drama Australia.