Issues of musical and vocal education of theater students

The author considers the problem of training specialists in the field of Acting and shows that the need of theaters for actors of a "synthetic" kind (with universal voice capabilities, with a high degree of musicality) is dictated by the increasing role of musical elements in a modern performance and is also determined by the search in modern directing. Theatrical practice demonstrates that the musicality of an actor is a crucial quality of acting. Today, in general, as always, the issues of organizing and implementing vocal education for future actors are among the most complex and energy-intensive. First-year students who come to the theater program track at the higher educational institution either do not have any preliminary vocal training at all, or are trained at the elementary level. Nevertheless, it should be noted that some of them were trained to play musical instruments and have musicality. The article deals with the specifics of working with students, aimed mainly at the formation of basic singing skills, which are associated with the acoustic properties of sound, high singing position, vocal diction, breathing, voice science, i.e. all the things that make up the technology of singing professionalism. Meanwhile, the author shows that this work is not with students of the vocal department, but with future actors of the drama theater. And our task is to educate an artistic and creative person, a participant in the dramatic process, which is all theatrical activity.

The Music in Berlin: Spaces and Places

In a complement to the networks and styles of the previous chapter, this chapter offers a detailed analysis of the spaces that frame the Berlin klezmer scene. It draws on the influence of British cultural studies to locate this scene within the characteristic fluidity and bricolage aesthetics of the city’s wider street-level musical culture—brought to life here through description and analysis of the sonic profusion of Mauerpark’s weekly “mini-festival.” The chapter then moves on to explore in depth ways in which we might understand “Jewish space,” including the important role of music in the mediation of German-Jewish space. The majority of the chapter then looks in detail at the official/unofficial spatial spectrum that frames several characteristic klezmer venues in the city: a long-running and appealingly shabby club/bar; a contemporary arthouse theater program; a well-established, friendly yet surprisingly formal dance night; and the lively space of a West Berlin kosher cafe. It then discusses in depth the three klezmer jam sessions that take place in the city, considering each of these sessions as its own version of a wider “scene,” with reference to the work of Will Straw and others. The last part of the chapter discusses how several unofficial spaces that have developed recently point to a possible paradigm shift in the presentation and reception of Yiddish musical culture in the city, seen in the ground-level complex of Yiddish cultural activities established over the last six years in the Neukölln district. Once again, the solid theoretical underpinning is brought to life by strong ethnographic description and interviews.

Promoting Kindness Through the Positive Theatrical Arts: Assessing Kuwait’s Boomerang Program

As positive psychology expands its range of strategies to raise levels of flourishing, many interventions have been identified with new ones emerging. The positive arts offer a new avenue; one such intervention is drama and theater that can benefit subjective and social wellbeing as these offer individuals the opportunity to empathize with others, as well as consider alternative ways to act and think. These can be valuable for bullying prevention. Kuwait's "Boomerang" anti-bullying theater program designed to increase social kindness is one such example. The tools of applied theater were taught to teachers and/or school counsellors of during a six day training workshop. They in turn, trained seven to ten students who were real life bullies, victims and bystanders in their respective schools to become actors in each school’s culminating theater play. Participating acting students and audience members were assessed to determine the effects of the program on perceptions of school kindness, depression, life satisfaction, subjective wellbeing, social cohesion and trust, perceptions of school climate. Data collection was conducted across 7 private middle and high schools, with the final pre-intervention sample consisted of a total of 216 participating students and 1207 observing students (N = 1423). The quasi-experimental study shows that the intervention was successful in increasing perceptions of social cohesion and trust, a positive school climate, and student life satisfaction; however, there were no significant effects on outcome variables. This multi-school intervention improved overall school climates and shows promise in addressing bullying behaviors.

Silent Voices, Absent Bodies, and Quiet Methods: Revisiting the Processes and Outcomes of Personal Knowledge Production Through Body-Mapping Methodologies Among Indigenous Youth

At the interface of Western and Indigenous research methodologies, this paper revisits the place of the “personal” and “autobiographical” self in qualitative visual research. We outline a community and partnership-based evaluation of a theater program for Indigenous youth using arts-based body-mapping approaches in Saskatoon, Canada, and explore the methodological limitations of the narrator or artist’s voice and representations to translate personal visual-narratives and personal knowledges they hold. In so doing, we describe how body-mapping methods were adapted and improvised to respond to the silent voices and absent bodies within personal visual-narratives with an epistemological eclecticism handling the limitations of voice and meaningfully engaging the potentiality of quietness. Extending the conceptual and methodological boundaries of the “personal” and “autobiographical” for both narrator and interlocutor, artist and observer, we contribute to debates on the processes and outcomes of personal knowledge production by articulating a generative, ethical, and culturally-grounded project mobilizing body-mapping as a quiet method that pursues self-work—the passionate and emergent practices of working on one’s self and making self appear in non-representational and ceremonial ways.

Investigating the Effects of Demographics and Framing on the Robot-Theater Program

While STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) education programs have shown promise in increasing students’ interest in STEM and arts & design fields, the effects of demographic and other contextual factors have not been thoroughly investigated yet. While conducting robot-theater summer youth sessions with forty participants of the TechGirls international summer exchange program, we explored these factors. Participants in teams of four to six students created a script for a theater play that required the use of programmable robots. Results seem to suggest the influence of demographic factors such as nationality, as well as the effect of framing on participant attitudes towards robots and STEAM education. Subsequent validation of these effects in other studies is expected to contribute to refining the design of robot-theater and other STEAM education programs.

Effects of the ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater Program on Social-Emotional Competence and Bullying in Youth and Adolescents: Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Students in the United States spend a meaningful portion of their developmental lives in school. In recent years, researchers and educators have begun to focus explicitly on social and emotional learning (SEL) in the school setting. Initial evidence from meta-analyses suggests that curricula designed to promote SEL likely produce benefits in terms of social-emotional competence (SEC) and numerous related behavioral and affective outcomes. At the same time, there are often barriers to implementing such curricula as intended, and some researchers have questioned the strength of the evaluation data from SEL programs. As part of the effort to improve programming in SEL, this paper describes the protocol for a cluster randomized trial of the ACT OUT! Social Issue Theater program, a brief psychodramatic intervention to build SEC and reduce bullying behavior in students. Objective The objective of this trial is to examine if a short dose of interactive psychodrama can affect SEC metrics and bullying experiences in schoolchildren in either the short (2-week) or medium (6-month) term. Methods The ACT OUT! trial is a cluster randomized superiority trial with 2 parallel groups. The unit of measurement is the student, and the unit of randomization is the classroom. For each grade (fourth, seventh, and 10th), an even number of classrooms will be selected from each school—half will be assigned to the intervention arm and half will be assigned to the control arm. The intervention will consist of 3 moderated psychodramatic performances by trained actors, and the control condition will be the usual school day. Outcome data will be collected at baseline (preintervention), 2-week postintervention (short term), and 6-month postintervention (medium term). Outcomes will include social-emotional competency; self-reported bullying and experiences of being bullied; receptivity to the program; and school-level data on truancy, absenteeism, and referrals to school displinary action for bullying. A power analysis adjusted for clustering effect, design effect, and potential attrition yielded a need for approximately 1594 students, consisting of an estimated 80 classrooms split evenly into intervention and control arms. Results This study was funded in June 2019; approved by the Indiana University Institutional review board on September 17, 2019; began subject recruitment on November 5, 2019; and prospectively registered with ClinicalTrials.gov. Conclusions Many states have issued recommendations for the integration of SEL into schools. The proposed study uses a rigorous methodology to determine if the ACT OUT! psychodramatic intervention is a cost-effective means of bolstering SEC and reducing bullying incidence in schools. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04097496; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04097496 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) PRR1-10.2196/17900

We Move Forward Together: A Prison Theater Exchange Program Among Three Universities in the United States and Brazil

In 2013, the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan and Teatro na Prisão at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro began an international exchange of university-based prison theater programs. The theater faculty at the Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina joined the exchange in 2016 and began a new prison theater program at a women’s facility in Florianópolis, Brazil. Together, these three universities not only share best practices and resources but form a community of support and understanding as they engage in a highly specialized and challenging creative process inside prisons.