Experiential Storytelling: A Student-Centered Learning Approach in Theatre Education
In the realm of theatre education, the traditional approach often revolves around instructing students to interpret and rehearse established classic texts. Both the physical space of the theatre and the narrative space of the stage merge, drawing audience into an immersive experience where they become engrossed in this shared illusion of theatre. As a result, central to traditional theater pedagogy is the rigorous training and continual honing of acting skills. Actors transport audiences beyond the bounds of reality, allowing them to momentarily suspend disbelief through the adept portrayal of authentic human behavior and speech. Traditional approaches of theatre education task students with interpreting, embodying, and portraying their characters.
Instead of focusing solely on honing physical, vocal, or expressive skills, the applied method enables students to directly connect their inner selves with their on-stage personas. In this article, I will introduce how I led a three-month applied theatre with 24 amateur participants (6 of 24 were my students from Changshu Institute of Technology) to collaboratively create and perform a play depicting their lives. By integrating experiential storytelling components, I was able to enrich students’ emotional learning skills and foster their creativity in theatre practices. This approach not only enables art educators to gain genuine insights into their students’ narratives and actions, but also facilitates the exploration of intimacy when transforming life experiences into public performances. I focused on two primary approaches:
- Encouraging self-reflection: Students are prompted to repeatedly introspect and delve into their own experiences, emotions, and perspectives;
- Facilitating peer learning: Students collectively develop their ideas and performances through interaction and collaboration in a supportive learning community.
Self-reflection
In my theatre education practice, I integrate self-reflection as a fundamental component of the learning process. Specifically, I utilized storytelling and embodiment as two main methods to connect students with their inner selves.
Personal story is a good way to invoke conversations within self and with others. Through conversations under a fiction setting, students started to build a character for individual stories. As they can freely talk about how to create a biography for their characters, and how to write a story in dramatic scenarios, students are unconsciously defamiliarized from real life experiences.
Moreover, self-reflection through storytelling fosters a culture of continuous growth and learning, inspiring students to strive for excellence and pursue their artistic passions with confidence and conviction. They then reflected on their own stories in written words and tells the story to each other, ultimately became more self-directed and self-motivated learners.
Another method I used to construct the play was embodiment through dance and music. For example, I designed a body movement activity where students reacted to different melodies by spontaneously moving and stretching their bodies. Along with three different melody, students gradually stretched their body and moved with the music.
The first two melodies were easy to react to, students might feel a sense of peace, then they were walking and jumping around the space with the happy music. Some people were jumping with their friends with hands held while others got to know each other when their paths crossed. The third melody was deep and dramatic, students appeared hesitant to move, as expected. At that time I went on stage, pulled my arms and legs in opposite directions, making eye contacts with students while keeping mysterious facial expressions. I ended up in a vulnerable situation where I squatted down with my knees embraced. I buried my head into my arms and raised my hand, asking someone to hold me. They followed me and we made one full circle. I was glad that students were learning to react with their body instead of words.
I later received clear transformations on students’ feedback. Before they were used to working harder in order to achieve success, so they tend to ask more on artistic techniques such as performing and storytelling. On the contrary, by self-reflection through storytelling and embodiment, students switched their learning focus into listening, reflecting and working within the group. And the most important thing was they began to realize that their individual experiences and emotions are the real driving force that fuels up this play.
Peer Learning
Peer learning contributes significantly to the learning outcomes desired in theatre education, it promotes a sense of ownership and responsibility among students for their own learning process. By working together, students can share insights, perspectives, and skills, enriching their understanding of theatrical concepts and techniques. They become more self-directed learners, taking initiative to explore topics independently and seek out solutions to challenges they encounter. This autonomy cultivates a deeper sense of engagement and investment in their creation practices.
By collaborating with peers and incorporating their feedback, one student changed her approach to the story and script, shifting from a focus on artistic effects to a more realistic style. This student played the leading actress and was encouraged to integrate her real experience into an existing script. She learned from other participants that the play could be more emotionally powerful and resonating with the audience if one can relate the story of the play to one’s own life situations/examples. As a result, in her own part of the play, she decided to portray a rich and realistic mother-daughter conversation instead of simply showcasing a classic artistic ending.
Through her conversation with her peers and receiving constructive feedback on the play, she gained valuable insights into human nature, relationships, and the human conditions. She learnt to appreciate the complexity and depth of the characters in real life, while also developing empathy, authenticity, and self-awareness in her own artistic practice.
Conclusion
Through this immersive process, students not only co-created but also performed, delving into narratives drawn from real-life experiences. Firstly, it empowers students to think outside the box and challenge conventional storytelling norms. By embracing experiential storytelling, students can explore innovative ways to convey meaning, evoke emotions, and engage audiences, allowing for a more dynamic and impactful theatrical experience. Moreover, experiential storytelling plays a crucial role in students’ self-development and understanding of themselves. Through the process of creating and performing stories in these applied theatre workshops, students have the opportunity to explore their own identities, perspectives, and personal experiences.
Experiential storytelling in a student-centered learning approach in theatre education fosters a sense of agency and autonomy among students. This sense of ownership not only enhances students’ confidence and self-esteem but also enables them to develop a deeper understanding of themselves as artists and individuals. These workshops became a nexus for self-reflection and peer collaboration within a supportive community. I learnt that experiential learning transforms the classroom into a fertile ground for creativity where students can unlock their full artistic potential, deepen their self-awareness, and cultivate a lifelong love of storytelling and theatre. I believe more educators can integrate theatrical elements such as role-play and narrative art, into their teaching methodologies when embracing creativity in classroom.
Yuyang Zhang is a theatre learner and teacher. Her research focuses on the application of theatre education’s in facilitating mental health.
