Global Journal of Arts Education

Yazarlar: Paul Macneill, Jane Gilmer, Dujeepa D. Samarasekera, Tan Chay Hoon

Konular:-

Anahtar Kelimeler:Drama training,Actor training,Health care workers (HCWs),Communication skills,Role play

Özet: Two four-hour workshops were held in Singapore offering health care workers (HCWs—clinicians and others) training in theatre skills and techniques to expand their range of ‘performativity’ and effectiveness in relating to patients. Experiential theatre training exercises (including body-awareness and work with masks) were conducted by an experienced actor-director and acting teacher. This paper presents the rationale for these workshops from an actor’s perspective. Whilst objective measures, in terms of outcomes, are required in justifying innovations in education, we claim that outcome measures are not sufficient. Actor training for HCWs needs also to be underpinned by a pedagogical rationale that is derived from acting theory and practice. This paper presents several justifications from an arts perspective including that there is much that is in common between what actors, doctors and other HCWs do; that acting is not to ‘pretend’ but to express a role in a way that is effective for the role and genuine for the actor; that mask work is a means to teach HCWs to be more expressive; that there are many parallels between ‘theatre’ and ‘medicine’; that communicating well with patients goes beyond ‘communication skills’ to include ‘embodied practice’; and that actor training can provide HCWs with an experience and an understanding of their capacity to be simultaneously empathic and analytic.  

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