Drama

:This article refers to the art form. For the town, see Drama, Greece.

The problem with the term

There are many forms of drama. It may be helpful to imagine drama as an umbrella, with all of its subforms underneath it.

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Theatre is one of these forms. It is the act of drama, a dramatisation, if you will. Theatre requires an audience that is engaged by the action. This requires the audience to willingly suspend its disbelief (to allow itself to believe that what is happening on stage is real, and to forget about the fact that it is not real).

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Drama, it could be said, is a tool that can be used in many different ways; it has a unique ability to allow us to play, allowing us to be another person or in a situation that we would not normally encounter such as, being a general in a war. This is what makes Drama a great way of teaching, learning, and growing as a person.

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Drama has a holistic way of teaching people. Whether it be in a play or by partaking in a role-play situation, we learn through interactions with others--this allows participants to not only learn facts as they would from a book or in a classroom, but to enter the world of another person, to be allowed to explore how they feel about this situation or person, whether it be a war-torn town or the wolf in the Three Little Pigs. Every interaction with another character or situation gives a greater understanding of what is happening around us.

Related Topics:
Holistic - Role-play - Three Little Pigs

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In a drama session with primary children on the subject of homelessness, the class was asked to enter its own classroom, but to imagine that it was a back lane where a homeless person lived. The class was given pieces of newspaper and was asked to place the newspaper so as to represent objects, such as a telephone, television, cat, and so forth. Through the drama, the children began to feel the isolation of this character, even though he never existed. The class added to the drama by giving each object a story, thereby creating a background for this person; the children worked together, respecting other ideas and not feeling pressured, the outcome being that they thought more about how hard it must be to live alone. They broadened their own perceptions of the world. This all occurred within the safety of the classroom, the group, and the drama.

Related Topics:
Telephone - Television - Cat

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Drama has many uses in today's world. It is already used by therapists, and is being introduced more into schools as an alternative to just reading facts from a book.

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