Thank you Nate for your comments on it.
I'll try to drop some light in the dark parts of the paper translation
pointed by you.
That dicothomy related to instrumental and aesthetic features of Theater
in Education has, in fact, only an heuristic value.
We know that the boudaries between them are not so definitive as it
seems to be, in a first look at it. There is a dialectical dimension of
them that I failed to explore.
Theater language, according to new brazilian standards education Law
9394/96 is supposed to be thaught since 1st grade.
I aline myself in the group of theachers that uses Spolin's system to
scafold knowledge on Theater in school education, particularlly from 1st
to 4th grade. It is not an uncritical appropriation of it. We use the
four main elemments of it (focus, instruction, audience and avaluation)
incorporatting some other procedures developed by the group of brazilian
researchers on Theater in Education. They are:
1) DISCUSSION CIRCLE (from Freire's pedagogy of opressed proposal) in
order to open and finish each session with theater games;
2) a more plastic concept of PLAY AREA. Then, play area can be any
physical area conventioned by group consensus - carpet,garden, stairs,
an specific space drawn in classroom floor or established from verbal
instructions, a street location etc - and not necessarilly the school
stage (from Boal's theater of opressed);
3) PROTOCOLS or written reviews of each session by one or a group of
participants (from Moreno's psychodramatic therapy and Brecht's learning
play theory);
4) Brazilian popular TRADITIONAL CHILDREEN PLAY adapted to Spolin's
structure (from Neva Boyd's ludduspedagogy);
5) Rigorous instuments to verify students apprendicenship like
PROTOCOLS, STIMULATED RECALL (video, audio and photo), PORTFOLIO
(collection of protocols presented along sessions).
P.S.Students can attach to a protocol their or another ones draws, and
figures from newspapers and journals and also objects etc.
6) TRIANGULAR DIDATIC PROPOSAL of Arts teaching (from Ana Mae Barbosa)
It consists in an articulattion of TO MAKE (to play a role in a
theatrical comunication), TO "READ" (to watch a team's play) and TO
CONTEXTUALIZE (to identify the social-historical context of theatrical
utterances and every artistical-cultural products under discussion);
7)AUDIENCE TO EVERY GAME proposed to the group (all participants can
play the roles of "players" and "audience" in each scenic challenge
presented to the group).
8) Focus on Spolin's concept of PHYSICALIZATION (players can only use
their bodies to comunicate WHO, WHERE and WHAT). So, it is not permited
or necessary to use figurines, scenary, or any real objects as "pivots".
They make things become "real" or "visible" using their imagination and
own bodies.
In the original text, written in Portuguese, there are transcriptions of
them (Boal, Brecht and Moreno)and a more long argumentation.
Now-a-days a very important line of research in this area here, in
Brazil, is the pedagogical use of Brecht's learning play theory since an
articulation of it with Spolin's system.
The luddus approach of texts and pieces of texts in school education is
a promissing field of investigation.
It is possible to observ through such an investigation how words can
have their meaning changed within theater games developed since a given
text in a luddus fashion.
BRecht's and Boal's proposal however seems to be more adjusted to a
CULTURAL ACTION (in broad contexts) than to the systematic work in
school education - like Freire's pedagogy of oppresed.
There are a series of constrains in formal education like attribution of
notes to students production, concrete instruments to verify students'
apprendicenship that hit, front to front, to a much more fluid and
plastic conception of avaluation in a cultural action context (in whitch
Brecht and Boal inscribed their proposals).
Moreno:
Well, as a Theater teacher I might recognize the specific field of
action of psychotherapists and I have to advocate the specificity of
Theater language (our field of work) and Arts (Theater) intrinsic value
to cultural formation of students.
And I myself, personally, prefer focus on social growth of students from
their interaction developed in a specific cultural-historical context
like classroom than on their private life psychology or affective
"troubles".
I hope I had answered, in part, your questions.
I have many questions too. I'm trying to find answer to them.
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