Journal of Drama and Theatre Education in Asia (DaTEAsia)

This article results from reflections on the 9th International Drama/Theatre and Education Association (IDEA) World Congress, which took place in Reykjavik, Iceland from July 04th-08th 2022. The Congress title was DRAMA 4ALL. Drama for Tall and Small.

Based on an in-depth case study of a workshop adapted from the picture book A Lion in Paris, this paper explores the possibilities of introducing drama to promote primary children’s moral values of trust and care in the Chinese educational context.

In this paper, the author reflects on the delivery of a sub-degree course in hybrid mode under COVID-19 from the perspective of a drama educator. The course aims to equip students with expressive, artistic means to discovery themselves and write their self-narratives. The author reviews some students’ self-reflected assignments and their encounters in the hybrid learning environment—a mix of simultaneous online and F2F teaching and learning. She finds that students can be seen as “prosumers” of their arts experiences, and raises the question of the nature of “presence” in mediated online learning environment. At the end of the paper, the author reflects on the possible pedagogical implications of her online teaching experiences for drama education.

This article accounts the director’s reflection on the creating and performing of the auto-ethnotheatre See You Zoom series (February-October 2020), through the video-conferencing software Zoom during the staying home period due to COVID-19. Driven by an urge to connect community people under the cumulative impact of the social unrest and the pandemic since mid-2019, the director started this creative journey, encountered challenges, and gained insights of devising, rehearsing and staging auto-ethnotheatre entirely through Zoom. Three aspects of online theatre-making were reflected: (i) working with actors without their physical presence (ii) playing with the public and private spaces, and (iii) managing the engagement of Zoom participatory-audience.

During the pandemic, conflicts arise readily between homebound parents and children and result in emotional instability. In this article, the author shares how elements of drama can be applied to help children, teenagers and parents regulate their emotions and foster a healthy parent-child relationship. This article illustrates that appropriate application of elements of drama promotes quality parent-child interaction, through which children learn to regulate their emotions.

This article examines the notion of transfiguration and analyses how process drama and arts education can help achieve elevated mental and spiritual states through transforming adversity to something that inspires beauty and deep meanings. This article illustrates this transfigurative function of drama education with an online pedagogical resources project which supports kindergartens with mainly drama education during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The author accordingly points out that drama education can effectively address the emotional, spiritual, ethical and mental needs of teachers and young children in the context of post-pandemic education.