This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Gattenhof, Sandra, Klaricich, Jenna,& Ennis, Amara (2009) Brisbane Festival 2009 Miracle in Brisbane. Brisbane Festival. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/27258/ c Copyright 2009 Sandra Gattenhof, Jenna Klaricich and Amara En- nis This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected]Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. http://www.brisbanefestival.com.au/Teachers- Resources/0,15,346,015.aspx
Transcript
This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/acceptedfor publication in the following source:
Gattenhof, Sandra, Klaricich, Jenna, & Ennis, Amara(2009)Brisbane Festival 2009 Miracle in Brisbane.
Brisbane Festival.
This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/27258/
This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under aCreative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use andthat permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu-ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then referto the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog-nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe thatthis work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected]
Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record(i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub-mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) canbe identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear-ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source.
Brisbane Festival 2009 Teacher Resource Materials Miracle in Brisbane 3
CONTENTS
Teacher Resource Materials – How to use this Guide 4
Production Information 5
Synopsis 6
Content Suitability 7
Orientating Activities 8
Enhancing Activities 15
Synthesising Activities 16
Performance Analysis 17
Sample Assessment Tasks 17
Writing a Review Pt. 1 18
Writing a Review Pt. 2 19
Resources to Assist in Understanding 20
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TEACHER RESOURCE MATERIALS - HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
Teacher Resource Materials are a guide designed to enhance students’ knowledge about, and responses to, performance experiences. It provides information about the performance, student activities, advice about audience roles and responsibilities, and resources for further investigation by students and teachers. Teacher Resource Materials gives you, the educator, the ability to prepare your students for the process of reading and interpreting a performance whether that be through performance themes, form and style, or design elements. Experience and research indicate that students’ understanding of, and responses to, performance are enhanced through sound educational experiences. This material will help you lead students to discover information, to explore processes, and to respond in critical and creative ways. Because teachers are accountable for how students use time during the school day, time at performances, like time in the classroom, must be justified for educational value. Teacher Resource Materials ensures that learning outcomes for performances are both appropriate and clear. As an educator, you may like to make use of all the activities in this guide to prepare your students to view and unpack the performance. However, Brisbane Festival also understands that your visit to a performance is not a one off event, but forms part of a larger unit of classroom work – an investigation into contemporary theatre, the use of the elements of drama within a theatrical performance, or enabling students to analyze a performance work using the structures of theatre criticism. Therefore you may not wish to use all the suggested activities, but ‘pick and mix’ what is appropriate for your classroom work and your students.
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Miracle in Brisbane
Venue: Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts
Previews:
Season: Thursday 1 October – Saturday 3 October (7:30pm)
Duration:
Performance: 75 mins (no interval)
Composer: Giorgio Battistelli
Conductor: Luca Pfaff
Director: Rhoda Roberts
Assistant Director: Deborah Mailman
Soundscape and live electronics: Davide Tiso
Set Designer: Stephen Curtis
Lighting Designer: Bernie Tan
Choreography: Contemporary adaptations of performer’s own traditional dances/Rhoda Roberts
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SYNOPSIS
An outstanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cast, including Deborah Mailman, Djakapurra Munyarrayan and Casey Donovan, brings to life an opera composed by Giorgio Battistelli and directed by one of Australia’s most accomplished directors, Rhoda Roberts. This central and important work is produced by Brisbane Festival 2009 and tells the story of a group of homeless Indigenous people ‘living on country’ who build a shantytown on Brisbane’s outskirts. The discovery of oil under the site leads them to acknowledge ancestral spirits and the life-changing wealth of the land, but people with powerful interests soon start making other plans. Miracle in Brisbane, through music, dance and ceremony touches on many powerful symbolic moments. From the removal of a baby girl, the rebuilding of family, clan relations and the gradual invasion of sacred country by the city’s looming development. Most powerfully, the message that the poor do not have a voice is illustrated by the primarily Indigenous cast. The sounds of the shantytown construction form part of Battistelli’s wonderful musical score, which features The Queensland Orchestra and the Canticum Chamber Choir. In Battistelli’s own words, Miracle in Brisbane is a form of ‘voiceless’ protest against inhumanity and highlights the incontrovertible rights of marginalised people to stake a claim in a world that ignores them. But both surprising and revelatory is the final theme of Miracle in Brisbane – hope.
BACKGROUND
Miracle in Brisbane is a recontextualisation of the 1951 film Miracle in Milan which has taken themes of poverty, oppression and disenfranchisement and placed them within the context of Australian Indigenous culture. The screenplay was co-written by Cesare Zavattini and based on his Italian novel Totò il Buono.
The film Miracle in Milan is set in Italy in the 1950s reflecting the human condition of those suffering through the World War II depression where many people were afflicted by poverty. Vittorio de Sica, the film’s director made the following comments in regards to the film’s perspective
It is simply a way of looking at life: the way in which each of us takes up his position and reacts to the facts of his existence and to the circumstances of other men. On the one hand, above all, I select the happier, more optimistic aspects of life—its positive side I might say—and neglect the other aspects, perhaps not seeing or not understanding them. (de Sica, 2008)
In contemporary Australian society many of these issues still resonate for the Indigenous peoples of Australia, which has provided a thought provoking context for Battistelli’s Australian adaptation. The director has cast Miracle in Brisbane with a primarily Indigenous cast, Swiss Conductor, Luca Pfaff, Italian soundscape artist Davide Tiso and percussionist Nicola Raffone.
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CONTENT SUITABILITY for MIRACLE IN BRISBANE
Year Levels Years 10, 11 and 12
Language English, no course language
Sexual References Nil
Setting Brisbane outskirts
CURRICULUM APPLICATIONS
Drama Absurdism Indigenous Theatre Re-Interpretation of Text Stylised Gesture and Movement
Music Use of Music to Convey Narrative Music in Theatre Instrumental Music Music from Found Objects
Indigenous Studies Land Rights Terra Nullius Oppression by dominant culture Poverty
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ORIENTATING
INTRODUCTION TO ABSURDISM
… We are here as on a darkling plain, Swept with confused alarms of Struggle and flight Where ignorant armies clash by night. Matthew Arnold The Absurdist plays of the 1950s reflect a belief that life is essentially without meaning or purpose and that human beings have lost the ability to communicate with each other. This was a reaction to the despair felt by many following World War II who found themselves unemployed, bereaved, desperate and without hope of support or improvement to their situation. Miracle in Milan was set in post-war Italy. At this time many playwrights were producing a new kind of theatre that was later labelled ‘Absurd Theatre’ by Martin Esslin. The Absurdist paradigm was influenced by the philosophy of Existentialism that asserts that humans start life with nothing and that life is made up of a number of actions, through which we become conscious of our original nothingness. The existentialists saw humans ‘adrift’ in a world devoid of meaning. They expressed that by abandoning the rational approach to life, we can attempt to find values in a world devoid of values; and attempt to find order in a world gone mad. Key playwrights of Absurdism (including Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and Jean Genet) depict humans oppressed by ‘non-man’ and forces outside their control. Life is a ‘waiting period’ that is painful and monotonous and the only escape is routine, fantasy or death. Source: Acting in Person and in Style in Australia, 2007 Features of Theatre of the Absurd include:
• Does not use traditional play structure with the gradual build towards a climax following a linear progression.
• Instead, it borrows some of its effects from surrealism to express irrationality- persons with three noses, no heads, turning into a rhinoceros or floating through the air.
• Very little may happen in a play. It could possibly begin and end at the same point.
• These images are not used for shock value but to prove a philosophical point.
• This is not a theatre of events or one of logic. Instead, it gives the audience an experience of the absurd condition.
• Obscuring the distinction between human and non-human, sometimes suggesting that humans and animals are interchangeable.
• Often using disconnected and non-communicative speech
• The ideas that without hope, time and space are meaningless, and that within the concept of time, everything has happened before.
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When viewing an Absurd play students may notice the following: Voice Words, sounds, and noise as spectacle; energy; variety;
certainty; unusual use of silence and pause; rhythmic; monotone; wide range; combination of real and non-real techniques.
Movement
Mix of realistic, non-realistic, ritualistic, circus, commedia, acrobatics, silent films; dexterity and precise timing; muscles relaxed; disciplined and nimble; vaudeville and dance activity; balance of presentational and representational. Gestures that are inventive; disciplined; fluid; considerable oriented to hands and feet.
Character
Combination of multi-dimensional and complex with stereotype and simplistic.
Language Part of theatrical spectacle; often illogical; often immediate meaning only; often stereotyped and clichéd; combination ranging from prose to lyric poetry; philosophical- usually Existentialism.
Mood/Atmosphere Extremely varied; at times, moment-to-moment combination of serious and comic.
Pace/Tempo Generally used in consistently fast or consistently slow tempo. Long pauses in speech are used to create meaning in the silences by drawing attention to what is not being said.
Source: Acting in Person and in Style in Australia, 2007 ORIENTATING CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES Improvisation exercise: Sound and Movement In groups of 4 devise an improvisation of everyday activities such as, making breakfast, going to a sporting event, telling a friend about a movie etc. The group must choose 3 or 4 words that will frequently occur in their sketch, and designate a nonsense sound and gesture that the entire group will perform following each occurrence of the chosen word. Most characters in absurd plays are based on realism, but at some point in the play the author will usually distort reality by changing the character, or dehumanising it or by having inanimate objects take on life. Absurd Quiz! Step 1: Students walk around the room and view a gallery of Absurd artefacts, such
as pictures, pictures of plays and playwrights, promotion material, reviews, excerpts from Absurd texts, playwright biographies, historical contextualising documents, descriptions of Absurdism and Absurd plays, video and audio recordings etc.
Step 2: Students form two lines 10 metres behind two desks with paper and pen. In one minute students must take in turns running to the desk and writing one word at a time associated with what they have just viewed. Which ever team has the most words wins.
Step 3: Teacher questions students of their overall feeling about what they think Absurdism is based on what they have written and seen in the gallery.
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Teacher and students discuss each of the words on the lists created and their significance to Absurdism. (Optional have students write on OHT so the lists can be easily shared.)
Step 4: In groups of 4 students select 3 words from the lists and create a dream sequence incorporating these words. This can be scaffolded with more or less boundaries depending on the class and year level.
INTRODUCTION TO INDIGENOUS THEATRE
Community Consultation and Respect for Indigenous Australian Content
Across curriculum schools need to reflect the fact that Australia has an Indigenous history and Indigenous viewpoints on social cultural and historical matters. It is essential that Indigenous viewpoints, interests, perceptions, and expectations be reflected in curriculum, teaching and learning in schools.
Source: Drama Australia Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Guidelines for Drama/Theatre Education, 2007
This should not be done in a tokenistic way that distances and ‘others’ the Indigenous cultures as exotic, stagnant or inferior. Addressing Indigenous perspectives should be done authentically, sensitively and respectfully in ways that acknowledge a shared humanity. These stories can help to create a common ground on which a deeper understanding of Indigenous issues can be explored. We encourage the building of relationships between teachers and schools, and the local Indigenous Elders and seeking of permission to use Indigenous stories.
The purpose of Indigenous drama
Australian Indigenous drama is a complex dramatic style comprised of a convergence of forms and dramatic perspectives, both heritage and contemporary. The purpose of Indigenous drama is to educate and inform audiences about Aboriginal life. It seeks to teach audiences about Indigenous culture and inform them of an alternative political viewpoint. Indigenous playwrights often show customs and family life in a positive light, highlighting the unique and complex religious systems of Indigenous Australians.
Indigenous drama often pushes the envelope with issues surrounding notions of ‘settlement’ and the former ruling by the Privy Council that Australia be regarded as ‘terra nullius’. Indigenous Theatre also questions the values of western society such as obtaining materialistic items, and amassing possessions compared to the Indigenous tradition of sharing.
Common Features in Australian Indigenous Style
Indigenous drama is comprised of two distinct waves and has developed and changed throughout its inception. The first wave of Indigenous drama may be traced back to plays written by Jack Davis and Kevin Gilbert who wrote throughout the 1960s and 1970s. These plays often dealt with issues of subject matter and the relationship between actor and audience. The second wave involved a younger generation of playwrights during the 1990s, which included Deborah Mailman, Wesley Enoch and Leah Purcell. Plays of the second wave often portray an encouraging declaration of culture and identity, and a positive outlook to the future.
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First Wave Second Wave Key Themes and Ideas
• The land
• Invasion
• Being caught between two worlds
• Resistance
• Exposition of the social and political injustices suffered by Indigenous Australians (fragmentation of families, massacres, dispossession, deaths in custody, the effects of policies)
• The land
• Celebration of and assertion of culture and identity – Aboriginality
• Acknowledgment of the past in the present
• Political and social injustices contextualised
• Political engagement and cultural critique through artform practice
Plays
• The Cherry Pickers by Kevin Gilbert
• Murras by Eva Johnson
• The Cake Man by Robert J. Merritt
• The Keepers by Bob Maza
• No Sugar by Jack Davis
• The 7 Stages of Grieving by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman
• Oh My God, I’m Black by Maryanne Sam
• Box the Pony by Scott Rankin and Leah Purcell
Source: Dramatexts – Creative practice for Senior Drama Students (in press)
ORIENTATING CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Discussion
After viewing the performance of Miracle in Brisbane engage in dialogue with students about what they already know with regards to Indigenous drama, and how it affects them as a non-Indigenous or Indigenous person. Talk about a student’s cultural heritage or background and how it influences their interactions with other people today.
Poem & Sorry Speech
Step 1: Students read Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Sorry Speech (2008) and Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s poem Son of Mine (1960) and discuss reactions to them.
Step 2: Use a research engine or the personal accounts of the Indigenous members of you community to find stories from the Stolen Generations.
Step 3: Discuss what other voices or points of view you could include.
Step 4: Use these parts of the Prime Minister’s speech and other found materials to create, in a collage form, a dramatic statement of your group’s response to the ‘Sorry’ motion.
Source: Dramatexts – Creative practice for Senior Drama Students (in press)
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Son of mine (1960) By Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)
My son, your troubled eyes search mine, Puzzled and hurt by colour line. Your black skin soft as velvet shine; What can I tell you, son of mine? I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind, I could tell you of crimes that shame mankind, Of brutal wrong and deeds malign, Of rape and murder, son of mine; But I'll tell instead of brave and fine When lives of black and white entwine And men in brotherhood combine-- This I would tell you, son of mine.
Sorry Speech by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (2008)
I move: That today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history. The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country. For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry. To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry. And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry. We the parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation. For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written. We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians. A future where this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity. A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
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A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia. There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future.
INTRODUCTION TO THE WORK OF EXPERIMENTUM MUNDI AND GIORGIO BATTISTELLI
Italian contemporary composer Giorgio Battistelli integrates and transforms sounds associated with traditional working environments into music in his extraordinary ensemble Experimentum Mundi. The works of Giorgio Battistelli (b. 1953) are often linked to the theatre, and even his instrumental works are highly dramatic, with various instruments and elements considered as 'characters' in a drama. For the past 20 years, Experimentum Mundi has been one of the most-performed works of 'musique concrete,' i.e. music made with everyday objects instead of conventional instruments.
Inspired by everyday sounds of craftsmen from his hometown Albano Laziale, Battistelli created a score that has been performed successfully around the world for 18 years.. What makes it so unique, is the fact that except for the percussionist, all "musicians" are musical laymen. They are exactly the same craftsmen whose work forms the basis of the composition.
Begin by showing students a short example of the work of Experimentum Mundi
available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U28bSTvSOD8
The short clip shows a moment from a recent work in which composer Giorgio Battistelli took sixteen artisans dressed in overalls and aprons and set them to work producing a compelling and evocative symphony. Demolishing the barriers between life and art, everyday tools become musical instruments and the workmen transform into musicians in this fantastical and memorable performance piece.
New Music Theatre
Giorgio Battistelli, originally a percussionist, studied with Kagel and Stockhausen in Germany and worked in Paris where he was influenced by Aphergis and Bussotti. The work that made him well known grew directly out of his ability to think about and hear music from a percussionist’s point of view. Experimentum Mundi had its origins in the rhythmic tappings of the shoemaker at work. Craftsmen of all sorts – originally all from his hometown near Rome – were instructed to do what they do. The score asks for 10kg of flour, 30kg of eggs, 70kg of bricks, and 50kg of sand as raw materials. There is an end result to the performance: shoes are made, knives are sharpened, a wall one meter high goes up, and the pasta is ready to eat. All those activities produce rhythms and sounds that not only reproduce a traditional soundscape of human life but also connect to many ideological, historical, and sociological ideas.
The score of Experimentum Mundi – the title comes from Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch’s last book – instructs the craftsmen who cannot read music to accomplish
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certain phases of their work within a given time span or to do a certain number of actions. The difference between this and a Cage-ian happening comes from the composed and musical structure of these actions, which carefully defines what both artisans and artists have to do. The score gives minute instructions about the sizes of the saws and nails that have to be used. The time-frame is equally strict; all the actions have to be completed in one hour.
There are other layers in the piece that transform the activity and help prevent the exposure of the craftsmen to sheer voyeurism or turning them into a sort of living wax museum. These additional elements are provided by two magicians (originally played by Bussotti and the composer himself), a narrator who reads the articles on arts and crafts from the eighteenth-century French Encyclopedie, and some female voices reciting names.
Experimentum Mundi is very close to other conceptual art pieces of relatively recent vintage. For example, visual artist Michelangelo Pistoletto’s theater piece Anno Uno-Anno Bianco (1989) uses villagers from Corniglia in Liguria on the Genoese coast who reconstruct their village on stage and become both the architecture and the society but also speak and sing. Pistoletto said, referring to performances of The Zoo, a group that he created in the 1960s, “… you don’t really know who is the viewer. Is it the caged animal, the prisoner, or the people on the other side of the barricade, or yourself? There is always the other…” This also applies to some extent to Battistelli’s piece. It could even be asked whether the craftsmen on the stage are also watching the audience in the same way that the audience watches them.
After the success of Experimentum Mundi, Battistelli has never stopped producing music theater and opera on a vast field of subjects.
Here is Cristina Cimagalli’s comment about his work: “Invisible yet strong threads connect Battistelli’s work to the influences of the historic and post-war avant-gardes. From a distillation of this musical heritage – too hastily forgotten by many today – Battistelli has developed an approach that is as distant from a restorational aesthetic as it is from all technological fetishism.”
Source: The New Music Theater: Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body by Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Music from found objects is music that is played on an object which has not been designed specifically for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as manufactured or things which occur in nature. In both cases the objects are discovered by the artist or musician to be capable of being used musically, and are designated as “found” to distinguish them from purposely created items. Found objects in music are often used in music to add unusual percussive elements to a work. Their use in such contexts is as old as music itself as the original invention of musical instruments almost certainly developed from the sounds of natural objects rather than from any specifically designed instruments.
Indigenous Australian musical instruments are constructed from materials readily available from the land of a family group or clan’s local area. Evidence of music developed from found objects can be seen in the way Indigenous peoples of all countries have developed found objects into refined musical instruments and unique musical styles. Music has formed an integral part of the social, cultural and ceremonial lives of Indigenous Australians and the Torres Strait Islander people’s individual and collective histories. The songs of the Indigenous Australians are both
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sacred and secular; they tell stories of creation, they map the land, and are used for moral education and ceremonies.
Ever since the 18th century European colonisation of Australia began, Indigenous Australian musicians and performers have adopted and interpreted many of the imported western musical styles, often informed by and in combination with traditional instruments such as the didgeridoo, clap sticks, seed rattle, bullroarer and the single head skin drum.
ENHANCING ACTIVITIES
THEATRE OF THE ABSURD
Discuss and View Absurd excerpts on film Watch Act Without Words 1, What Where and Footfalls from The Complete Beckett 19films x 19 directors Vol.1-4 with students and discuss the following questions. Discuss with students the following questions: -How does it make you feel? -What are your initial reactions to the performance? If bored, why? -What messages can you read from this performance about the writers view of life? -What do you think about Absurd performance? - What affect does pause have on the way the audience? Examine the following quote with students: “One should not ask of Absurd Theatre ‘what is it all about?’ or ‘what is going to happen?’ the question more properly is ‘what is the felt experience communicated through rhythms, sounds and images?’” (Harrop and Epstein)
Group Forming Activity
In groups of 3-4 students are given random excerpts from a number of Indigenous Australian texts and asked to perform and discuss their interpretation of the meaning of their texts. Perform to class.
Exploration of Monologue
Discuss the staging of Absurdist plays and how the unusual or unconventional choices made often have a strong symbolic meaning that reflects something of the text. (Eg. Footfalls, pacing feet- passing of time, dimming light- nearing death). Give students an excerpt from a non-Absurd monologue and ask them to transform it through staging choices and Absurd Conventions into an Absurdist piece. Students should write a 50-100 word rationale justifying their artistic choices. INDIGENOUS THEATRE
In groups of 4-5 students are given 2 excerpts from different Indigenous Theatre texts and are asked to compare the ways in which the director has represented Indigenous Peoples. Discuss the following elements of drama and how they
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contribute to the dramatic representation of key characters in each play text: place, space, time, roles, relationships, tension.
‘Murri gets a Dress’ Monologue
Focussing on the convention of comedy students must read and perform the monologue ‘Murri Gets a Dress’ from 7 Stages of Grieving by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman. The extract is meant to be performed as broad comedy, and demands vocal ability in terms of timing and should capture the irony and bitterness which underlie the humorous spoken text, both though vocal techniques and non-verbal expression.
Source: Living Drama, 2008
MUSIC CURRICULUM & INDIGENOUS STUDIES
Composing and Performing Narrative
Students form groups of 3-4 and compose a 1-2 minute piece of music using the percussion instruments available in the classroom and any found objects to tell convey a story from their personal lives. Students could explore tempo, timbre, rhythm, texture, instrumentation and layer to give shape to their narrative. These compositions should be performed informally to peers for discussion of the elements of music and the way they have expressed their story.
Our songs, our stories
Throughout our lives we identify with songs for different times, ceremonies, ages and occasions. Discuss with students what significant songs we all share in Western culture such as Happy Birthday, Jingle Bells, Twinkle Little Star and Imagine. In Indigenous Australian cultures a clan or families songs and dances hold their histories, identities and life stories. Indigenous Australians identify songs for many different occasions both everyday and ceremonial.
Ask students to think more personally now about what songs they choose to listen to when feeling certain moods or songs that have a strong impact on them or hold a special memory for them. Give students a photocopied CD template and ask students to design a CD of all their special songs.
Ask students who are prepared to share their songs to the class and why they have chosen them. For those who are uncomfortable sharing their songs because they are too personal, respect their decision. Discuss why the songs of some Indigenous Australians are sacred and cannot be shared for similar reasons.
SYNTHESISING ACTIVITIES Thinking, talking about, and responding to the performance
After viewing the performance a discussion with students is needed to unpack the form, style and content of the performance. The following questions will provide a basis for discussion to occur. The questions may be tackled individually, in small groups or whole class discussions. SAMPLE ASSESSMENT TASKS Responding Example 1: After viewing the performance Miracle in Brisbane directed by Rhoda Roberts discuss, analyse, and synthesise why or why not
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you believe that this performance fits the Absurdist Style. Draw on your understand of Absurdism gained throughout this unit and use quotes and examples from Miracle in Brisbane and any other useful texts and play texts to substantiate your observations. Responding Example 2: Rhoda Roberts carefully manipulated the elements of drama to convey a particular message, mood and focus in Miracle in Brisbane which you viewed earlier this term. Discuss what you perceive Roberts vision for the play to have been and analyse how she has manipulated the elements of drama to achieve specific effects and reactions from the audience. You should also discuss how the conventions of Indigenous Drama are evident and how effectively they were used to create dramatic meaning. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF MIRACLE IN BRISBANE One basis for taking students to view live performance is to enable students to analyze a play in performance. They will therefore need some prior exposure to concepts of ‘theatre analysis’. One way of doing this would be to provide them with a range of written resources that explore theatre from a variety of perspectives. These may include: The ‘Theatrical Review’ Whilst the ‘Theatrical Review’ may not strictly speaking be a form of pure theatre analysis, it is nonetheless a way of enabling students to gain an understanding of a particular reviewers’ perspective. These will also introduce them to the idea of making critical judgments. Production Company Notes Many theatre companies now produce extensive notes for students on their various productions. These notes often include interviews with the director, designers, and actors and are aimed at providing students with an insight into the collaborative nature of theatrical production. The Program Many programs also include material on the play – a review, an interview with the director and may provide a source for some additional material for the students. Magazines/Newspapers There are a number of theatrical magazines that provide some level of analytical response to theatrical performance. The Internet The Internet is rich in a variety of theatre resources, but there are few websites dedicated to the specifics of current theatre performances in Australia. One site which does have a variety of contemporary reviews is http://www.stageleft.com.au
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The following worksheet from Queensland Studies Authority Sourcebook Module titled Spotlight on Script will help students to structure information post-performance in readiness to write a performance review.
PHOTOCOPY RESOURCE
WRITING A REVIEW – PART 1 Here are some questions you may want to consider when you are thinking about a play in production. Use drama terminology when jotting down ideas. What is the title of the play and what expectations does this set up?
Who wrote it? When was it written? Was it written for a particular purpose? What were the circumstances under which it was written (for example, in response to an incident or event, for a commission, in collaboration with a youth theatre company)?
What is the theme? Does the play have a particular message or several messages?
What is the plot (in as few words as possible)?
Is it set in another time or place? When? Where? How did that impact on the staging? Costume? Make-up?
How did the venue and performance space affect the staging? What was the set like and how did that support the play and the performances?
How did lighting/sound/media support the production? Were there any special effects?
Were all the actors believable in their roles? Could you see and hear them? Did you feel any connection with them? Did any stand out?
What style would you say this play belongs to? What aspects of the style could you see?
What form or structure did the play follow? Was there a clear pattern to the tension?
What contributed to the mood of the production? How was this managed and changed throughout the production?
What struck you about the roles, relationships and language?
Did the production highlight any elements or conventions of drama in unusual ways? How? Why?
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WRITING A REVIEW – PART 2 The following information and activities are drawn from Centre Stage (2000) by Mathew Clausen pp. 88-89. The flowchart may assist students in the writing phase after viewing a performance. After watching a performance, you will have quite a strong sense of whether or not a performance was effective. This is usually reinforced through feelings of whether or not you were engaged, moved, excited or disinterested. Using the words from the reviewers and interviewer as well as students’ own impressions and understandings, undertake an analysis the performance according to the following categories and questions. This could be done in written or oral form. PLOT This is the actual action that happens on stage. Try to reduce the whole story into a brief paragraph that includes all the main events. DISCUSS THEMES AND ISSUES Outline the themes and issues that you feel were important in the play. The themes and issues carry the message of the play and are important in helping the audience gain meaning from the performance. ANALYSE CHARACTER OBJECTIVE AND MOTIVATION Describe and analyse the characters. To find the character’s objective, ask yourself the question: What does the character want to achieve by the end of the play? To find the character’s motivation, ask yourself the question: Why does the character want to achieve their goal? EVALUATE THE PERFORMER How well did the actors use body language to express their character? Were their movements and gestures appropriate for their character? How well did they use their voice to express character and deliver lines? How focused did they seem during their performance? How convincing did the performer seem in their portrayal of their character? COMMENT ON THE USE OF PRODUCTION ELEMENTS Were the costumes suitable for the characters? How did the choice of colours and designs suit the overall look of the performance? Was the set an effective use of space? Was the set easy for the actors to manoeuvre about? In terms of colour and layout, did its design enhance the performance? Did the signs and symbols used within the production enhance meaning? Was special lighting used at any time for a particular effect? Did the use of live or recorded sound enhance or detract from the performance?
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RESOURCES TO ASSIST UNDERSTANDING In Print
Burton, B. (2007). Living Drama third ed. Brisbane: Pearson Heinemann. Casey, M. (2004). Creating Frames: contemporary indigenous theatre. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Crawford et. Al. (2007). Acting in person and in style in Australia. Sydney: McGrawHill. Esslin, M. (1980). Theatre of the Absurd. England: Penguin Books. Phillips, J. & Lampert, J. (2005). Introductory Indigenous Studies in Education: The Importance of Knowing, NSW: Pearson Prentice Hall. Ryan, S. (in press) “Stepping Stones to Australian Indigenous Drama” from Dramatexts – creative practice for senior drama students. Salzman, E. & Desi, T. (2008). The New Music Theater: Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body. New York: Oxford University Press.
On the Web Experimentum Mundi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U28bSTvSOD8 Interview about Beckett http://www.theatrevoice/com/listen_now/player/?audioID=70 Reviews, journal articles on Samuel Beckett http://www/samuel-beckett.net/#x3 Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/13/1202760379056.html http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16345 Kooemba Djarra Indigenous Performing Arts http://www.kooemba.com.au/index.html Ilbigerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Dance Co-operative http://www.ilbijerri.org.au/index.htm Bangarra Dance Theatre http://www.bangarra.com.au/
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The Black Arm Band http://www.blackarmband.com.au/
Battistelli Works Aphodite (1983)
Auf den Marmorklippen after Ernst Junger (2000-2001)
Begleitmusik zu einer Dichtspielszene (1994)
Chanson de geste (1990) El otono del patriarca after Gabriel Garcia Marquez (2003) “Experimentum Mundi Remix” (2004) Giacomo mio, salviamoci! (1997-98) Impressions d’Afrique (1999-2000)
Jules Verne (1987)
Kepler’s Dream (1989-90) La scoperta della lentezza (1996)
Lady Frankenstein (1993) Le combat d’Hector et d’Achille (1989) Prov d’orchestra (“Orchestra rehearsal”) (1994-1995) Richard III after Shakespeare (2004) Teorema (1991-1992) The Cenci after Artaud (1997)
The Embalmer, a “Monodramma giocoso da camera” (2001-2002) CD/DVD
Giorgio Battistelli Experimentum Mundi. Stradivarius. 2006. Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu Gurrumul. Skinnyfish Music Pty. Ltd. 2003. All Internet address (URLs) given were correct at the time of research and printing. However, due to the dynamic nature of the Internet, some addresses may have changed, or sites may have ceased to exist. No responsibility for any such changes can be accepted by either the writers or Brisbane Festival.
