Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People: Images and Observations (Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education)

228 Pages·2006·1.72 MB·English

by  Shifra Schonmann

Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People
Landscapes: The Arts, Aesthetics, and Education
VOLUME 4
SERIES EDITOR
Liora Bresler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
EDITORIALBOARD
Magne Espeland, Stord University, Norway
Eve Harwood, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Minette Mans, University of Namibia
Bo Wah Leung ,The Hong Kong Institute of Education
Gary McPherson, University of New South Wales, Australia
Christine Thompson, Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A
Francois Tochon, University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S.A.
SCOPE
This series aims to provide conceptual and empirical research in arts education, (including
music, visual arts, drama, dance, media, and poetry), in a variety of areas related to the
post-modern paradigm shift. The changing cultural, historical, and political contexts of
arts education are recognized to be central to learning, experience, and knowledge. The
books in this series present theories and methodological approaches used in arts education
research as well as related disciplines - including philosophy, sociology, anthropology and
psychology of arts education.
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
Theatre as a Medium for
Children and Young
People: Images and
Observations
by
Shifra Schonmann
University of Haifa, Israel
AC.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-10 1-4020-4439-9 (PB)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4439-7 (PB)
ISBN-10 1-4020-4438-0 (HB)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4438-0 (HB)
ISBN-10 1-4020-4440-2 (e-book)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4440-3 (e-book)
Published by Springer,
P.O. Box 17, 3300 AADordrecht, The Netherlands.
www.springer.com
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 2006 Springer
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording
or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception
of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered
and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
Printed in the Netherlands.
To my Menachem
Contents
About the Author i x
Foreword by Maxine Greene x i

Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction - A Synoptic View: Images and Arguments to
Provoke the Imagination 1
Chapter 1 - Boundaries: Between Theatre for Young People
and Adults’ Theatre 9
Chapter 2 - An Experience: A Unique Cultural and Artistic
Phenomenon 29
Chapter 3 - The Audience: Levels of Communication with
Children 51
Chapter 4 - Catharsis: The Nature of Private and Public
Catharsis in Children’s Theatre 69
Chapter 5 - Conventions: Shedding Light on the Sign System
used in Theatre for Young People 87
Chapter 6 - Criticism: Ways to Evaluate a Theatrical
Performance 119
viii Contents
Chapter 7 - Theatre for Young People as a School Event:
Advantages and Disadvantages of Children
Attending a Play en masse 145
Chapter 8 - The Culture of Schools and the School Play:
Social, Pedagogical and Artistic Dimensions 169
Chapter 9 - Politics and Aesthetics in Theatre for Young
People in Israel: A Concise View 193
References 205
Subject Index 217

Name Index 221
About the Author

Dr. Shifra Schonmann is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Education
University of Haifa, Head of the Laboratory for Research in Theatre/Drama
Education and Head of the Arts Therapy-Bibliotherapy Department.
Her research interests lie in the fields of Aesthetics Theatre and
Education, a combination which provides insight into issues of Curriculum,
Teacher Training, and Arts Education. Within these fields, she has con-
ducted extensive research, developing a profound body of knowledge on
Theatre Drama Education.
She has published numerous articles on these issues, as well as books:
Theatre of the Classroom (in Hebrew) and Behind Closed Doors: Teachers
and the Role of the Teacher’s Lounge co-authored with Ben Peretz,
published by SUNY Press.
Over the past ten years, she has been developing research in the field of
Children and Youth Theatre, highlighting its importance in the dual territory
of educational and theatrical settings. Dr. Schonmann, an educator, scholar
and theatre person is an invited speaker in international conferences and acts
as member of the Editorial Board of several leading journals.
Throughout her career, she has been a visiting faculty member at the
University of Rochester, New York (1988/9), Department of Women’s
Studies, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, School of Education
(1996/7) and a visiting professor at New York Univeristy, School of
Education (2001/2).
Foreword
This book opens doorways to new understandings, even as it poses a
challenge to educators, theatre people, and others concerned about the lives
of today’s children. At once it raises a wealth of questions regarding the
meanings of theatre, the role of imagination, the difference (especially for
children) between the fictional and the real. Indeed, one of the attractions of
Dr. Schonmann’s book is her evident cherishing of open questions, many of
which involve her rea ders in explorations of their own experiences and in a
renewed wonder at wh at the arts can bring to human lives.
Her focus is on children’s theatre as a unique art form with its own symbol
system and its particular demands on audiences. Dealing as she does with
images and enactments as well as with a range of theories, she makes readers
aware of unexplored possibilities—pedagogical and aesthetic—for early
childhood and elementary education. Her core argument is that children’s
theatre is not a reduced version of adult theatre. Nor is it arbitrarily
concocted in accord with adult notions of children as incomplete adults. It is
well known that the idea of a child as a being in process of growing, of
becoming, stems from the work of John Dewey and others at the turn of the
last century. Dr. Schonmann’s conception of children’s theatre responds to
such a view.
Plays for children, whether in or out of school, whether performed by the
young or by professionals, are not developed by formula. To see the
alternatives, readers are enticed into the sphere of the artistic-aesthetic, the
sphere in which the relations between creative artist and audience. It is a
two-way relation, a transaction in part made possible by some acquaintance
with conventions like aesthetic distance, by a capacity to enter into a created,
alternative world, and (perhaps most of all) by a joining of emotion,
sensation, and imagination. There are few occasions for this to occur outside
the realm of the arts: and Dr. Schonmann—educator and scholar and theatre
person—provides a rare and scintillating occasion for numbers of us to
awake.

Maxine Greene
Tea chers College
Columbia University