How to Use T.I.E. Skill to Tell History – Use the Play Opening the Gate in 1895 as Example|DaTEAsia Vol. 1

This paper will focus on how to use T.I.E skills to tell the history during the colonization of Japan. In 1895, due to the failure in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the Qing government was forced to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki in which Taiwan was ceded to Japan and became a Japanese colony. The play Opening the Gate in 1895 uses the form of T.I.E to tell the story of this disturbing period. In the play, some interactive theatre skills from T.I.E, such as role play, meeting, image theatre, and hot-seating, are used in the process of the performance for presenting the major issues at the time, such as dilemma of Taiwanese people at the time—whether they should open the gate and allow the Japanese Army to enter the city or not, and the issue about the confusion of Taiwanese identity.

Celebrating Playfulness in Theatre – and Reflections on the Development of Theatre Education in Hong Kong|DaTEAsia Vol. 1

Confucius said ‘let us play with the arts.’ This notion of playfulness can well be construed as in the very nature of Chinese aesthetics. Furthermore, to make students enjoy learning through playing, to entice them to participate actively, is the primary responsibility of any teacher. Playing has never been considered taboo in Confucianism; Dutch scholar Johan Huizinga has even suggested that the art of playing predates cultural activities. That children naturally learn from playing and that the Chinese have long used the classical theatre to develop collective ethical values are testimonies to the educational value of playfulness.

Inquiries into the Contemporary Drama Education in Taiwan|DaTEAsia Vol. 1

Urged by the reflection on the current educational reform and its implementation in Taiwan, as well as based on the researcher’s academic interest and teaching experiences, this thesis attempts to clarify the changing meaning of drama education in Taiwan, and derived from the researcher’s teaching own observation and reflection, propose the thinking directions and improving strategies for the praxis of drama education based on the researcher’s own observation and reflection.

‘Being in the State of Crossing’: Drama Education and Transnational Space|DaTEAsia Vol. 1

One of the results of globalisation is that increasing numbers of students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds come together to learn in one space. This article theorises an ethical approach to this challenge for drama educators, drawing principally on theories of transnational fiction (Stephen Clingman)(1), cosmopolitan ethics (Kwame Anthony Appiah)(2) and cultural understandings of space (Doreen Massey)(3). The central metaphor of drama as a means for ‘navigating boundaries’, it argues, is more politically apt if less ‘sexy’ than Giroux’s more commonly cited metaphor of ‘border crossing’. The relationship between this theory and an ethical drama praxis is illustrated by examples drawn from work carried out by two Asian postgraduate students currently studying at the University of Warwick.

Diversity, Discretion and Distinction in Drama Learning (English)|DaTEAsia Vol. 1

In this Keynote address from the World Conference 2009 on Drama and Education in Chinese Communities (19-21 December, 2009) Hong Kong, Madonna Stinson unpacks the title of the conference “Embarking on a 3D Journey - Search Diversely, Think Discreetly, Use Distinctively” in terms of questions relating to curriculum in general, and with particular reference to the current context in Singapore. She encourages the drama education community to be open collaboration as we engage in the curriculum “conversation” with awareness that we have no definitive answers to the big questions that shape our journey.

Cultural and Theatrical Signs: the Ethical and Methodological Issues in Tang’s Heritage Theatre|DaTEAsia Vol. 1

This Heritage Theatre programme was a new venture by the Hong Kong Drama/Theatre and Education Forum. They introduced to primary and secondary schools the story of Hong Kong’s famous local clan, the Tang’s, through an interactive performance done in two of Tang’s ancestral halls. The aim of the project was to discuss the relationship between history and heritage buildings, and the meanings and difficulties in preserving these buildings. As I happened to be a consultant of the project, I adopted a participant-researcher role in this study. The beginning of the project experienced good progress, until on the very day of final rehearsal with a group of secondary students in the audience, some unsettling things happened which nearly forced the performance to come to a halt at the middle—a clan member did not think the story was presented in an appropriate way! The incident let us re-think about the function of heritage theatre as applied theatre, and the methodological element we need to take into consideration for the best facilitation of such function to be performed.

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