Creative Drama in Groupwork

Sue Jennings

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351699402
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Terapia ocupacional

This bestselling book is now updated with new material and more tried-and-tested ideas, bringing it up-to-date with contemporary drama. 150 ideas for drama in one practical manual makes this a veritable treasure trove which will inspire everyone to run drama sessions creatively, enjoyably and effectively. This book features advice on setting up a group, defining and negotiating aims and objectives, and how to ensure a successful session. It contains activities which encourage memory, interaction, concentration, feedback, and many other skills. It also includes games, warm-ups and starters, improvisation role-play, visual dynamics, and closures.

Part 1
The Scope & Possibilities of Creative Drama in Groupwork

1. 1 Exploration of Structure and Roles in Group Drama
2. 2 The Focus of Drama Work in Groups
3. 3 Before Setting up a Group
4. 4 Supervision and Training
5. 5 Some Words of Caution
6. 6 Planning and Preparation
7. 7 Equipment
8. 8 Negotiating a Contract
9. 9 Opening a Session
10. 10 Developing a Session
11. 11 Closing a Session

1 Exploration of Structure and Roles in Group Drama

Structure

Social psychologists have observed that we organise our lives in a dramatic structure or framework. We can view ourselves and others in a series of scenes and episodes, some of which have a consciously predictable structure, such as when we organise a celebration or a formal meeting. Such scenes have a conscious ‘test’ and usually the ‘roles’ are prescribed. Each scene has its ‘key actors’, a ‘supporting cast’, and a known ending.

There are other scenes which do not appear to be predictable – chance meetings; informal gatherings; daily interactions with the family. However, on examination we find that many of these scenes can have predictable elements including an unacknowledged ‘sub-text’, ‘roles’ which may be inflexible, and a seemingly inevitable ending.

During the course of certain creative drama exercises, a formal and less formal structure of interaction can be explored by members of the group.

Embodiment-Projection-Role (EPR)

EPR is a very useful developmental structure that can be used with any type of group and ensures that you follow a developmental progression in the groupwork. EPR follows the same developmental sequence that takes place in child development from birth to 7 years. The first 12 months of a baby’s life is mainly physical and sensory (Embodiment); everything is experienced through the body, whether it is large movements or tiny eyelash flutters. Sensory and dramatic play between mothers and babies form the healthy core of the attachment relationship. Around 13 months the infant becomes more interested in the world beyond the body in terms of objects and substances (toys, sand and water, messy play), progressing to puzzle play, drawing and painting, doll and puppet play; all forms of projective play (P). At around 3–4 years old we can observe that children start to go back into themselves again and instead of projecting roles and stories through the puppets, they play the roles (R) themselves (see Bibliography for further information). This brief illustration shows the importance in the sequencing of Embodiment-Projection-Role and how we can use this sequence to structure our sessions: starting with movement and physical warm-ups, then moving on to drawing and painting and then to playing roles.

Roles

There is sometimes a reluctance to admit that we constantly engage in role playing. It is the word ‘playing’, perhaps, that makes us feel it is not real. Or is it that being in a role somehow implies that we are not being ourselves?

In fact, each one of us adopts a variety of roles; indeed, it is important to remember that we develop the capacity to role play from a very early age – about ten months. It is most significant that we become, as it were, ‘mobile in character’, even before we become ‘mobile in body’. Our role play is further developed through play in childhood and through experimentation in adolescence, whilst also being shaped by the family and outside world. On reaching adulthood, each individual has embraced a variety of roles which together form our role repertoire, by means of which our external and internal worlds are related.

In creative drama groups, individuals may be found to have difficulty in making connections between these internal and external facets. Others may have developed rigid and fixed roles in early life; or else inappropriate roles have emerged, often through inadequate or faulty ‘modelling’. Drama not only helps us come to terms with our everyday life and facilitates exploration of our inner life, but it also enables us to transcend ourselves and go beyond our everyday limits and boundaries.

Through various forms of dramatic structure and dramatic role play the group leader aims to help group members achieve some of the following:

• expand the limits of their experience and stimulate their artistic and aesthetic sense
• uncover the predictable structures that trap people in unhelpful behaviours and find some creative alternatives
• redevelop appropriate roles through practice and remodelling until they become more natural and less conscious
• encourage the extension of role repertoire, ie, a range of roles that are appropriate to different situations
• create new possibilities for experiencing scenes in unusual or unprescribed ways
• discover ways of connecting internalised responses with external behaviour, and vice versa.

The basic premise for the above section is that we all have potential for some change – of life, of love, of vision – given the opportunity and the right kind of support. One way in which to explore these possibilities is through drama, for which everyone has potential – although they may not be aware of it.

2 The Focus of Drama Work in Groups

Those who venture into drama work with groups naturally hope that their approach will produce creative results and encourage expression, while also perhaps bringing about new insights and enabling members to accomplish tasks. However, as described in ‘Models of Practice in Dramatherapy’ (Jennings, 1983), a specific focus tends to emerge, largely determined by the type and needs of the group members. Three fairly distinct types of focus can be identified. These are described below and form the basis for advice offered in later sections. The exercises in Part II have also been classified according to these categories although many of the activities can be used to achieve different objectives simply by presenting them in a different way, thus making them suitable for more than one of the following types of group.

Focus on Creativity and Expression

The emphasis in such a group is placed on the creative development and aesthetic experience of the participants. Drama activities can include movement, mime and improvisation; puppets and masks; and text and story work. Members may also be encouraged to focus on performance, such as seasonal celebrations. Productions should avoid becoming competitive, but it is sometimes valuable for creative experiences to be shared with a wider audience.

Apart from giving creative and aesthetic enjoyment, a group of this nature provides stimulation, encouragement and a heightened experience of self. The work also increases an individual’s confidence through development of the imagination and the tapping of undiscovered potential. Furthermore, it improves communication and encourages cooperation (an important social skill), for members have to work together to create an improvisation or production. The leader’s role as facilitator is most important: a balance has to be struck between allowing the group’s creative energies to meander without any sort of direction, and imposing the leader’s own opinions and ideas as to how the activity should develop.

Creative drama groups have potential with many sorts of people, whatever their age and circumstances.

Focus on Tasks, Skills and Learning

In a group of this nature, the behaviour and skills of everyday life can be rehearsed and refined or modified through the medium of drama in a variety of activities such as role play. Some skills develop as a by-product of creative drama work; other programmes must be specifically designed. Skills acquired may include simple communication or training in the use of non-verbal signs; initiating conversation; or improving conceptual skills like problem solving. Group members can gain experience of decision making and negotiation, and begin to develop some autonomy as well as cooperative skills. This drama work is very goal specific; and it is often developed, for example, in rehabilitation groups in prisons, psychiatric hospitals and children’s homes.

The work planned for a group with a focus on ‘skills’ is likely to form one part of an overall programme of training or education; and in such a group, the leader’s role as ‘model’ is especially important.

Focus on Insight, Self Awareness and Change

Here, the focus is again entirely different. An ‘insight-type’ group would be set up for the benefit of particular clients such as acute admissions groups and those people in family and marital therapy (or indeed all those groups already mentioned).

Within the context of the group, unconscious processes may be given creative expression by enacting scenes from past, present and future, and sometimes by recreating the themes of dreams and fantasies. The drama activities selected for work of this kind give members an opportunity to explore their own feelings and relationships within the security of...