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Abstract
This article discusses a case-study revolving around an experiment in transferring online a teaching component on physical theatre. It documents a response to the COVID-19 pandemic when actors, teachers, and students had to find ever more creative ways of working in the digital space. The article argues that working online does not need to refute those values and learning objectives that are typically embedded in performance training, such as interaction, collaboration, and experimentation and adaptation. The article also offers concrete suggestions aimed at facilitating the transition to online teaching.
Notes
1 Some of the online projects carried out at the School of Performing Arts (University of Malta) during the year of the pandemic include the collective performance The Book of New Grief, the devised piece Colliding with Beckett, a theatre festival titled Light, dance productions, and a series of ‘bite-sized’ music concerts. For more information see: https://www.um.edu.mt/performingarts.
2 More information about the course can be found here: https://www.um.edu.mt/courses/studyunit/THS1104.
3 For more information about Dr Vivas’ work see https://www.judita-vivas.com/. Vivas has also kindly provided me with an interview during which she explained her aims, objectives, and practices when leading online teaching. This interview can be accessed here: https://www.ctatt.org/interviews-judita-vivas.
4 Running since 2018, the CTATT practice-based project researches how actor training techniques are transmitted across cultures, and in this process become appropriated and transformed. For more information see www.ctatt.org. See also Aquilina (Citation2019).
5 For more information about Camilleri’s work, especially within the Icarus Performance Project, see www.icarusproject.info. More information about DUENDE can be found here: http://www.duende-ensemble.com/duende-school-of-ensemble-physical-theatre/. Vivas also refers to her formation with Gey Pin Ang in voice work and, more recently, Viewpoints. Synthesising elements from these practices allows Vivas to ‘build up a baggage of techniques to slowly start finding [her own] way of working’ (Vivas Citation2021a, 5:14–5:18).
6 Scott Palmer paraphrases these theories about space/place and gives the following reference points: ‘The Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre suggest that place emerges as a particular form of lived space – and that such places are created and defined through the distinctive activities which take place there. Michel de Certeau also argues that place is practised space, and that space becomes place when it develops significance by its inhabitants or users’ (Palmer Citation2011, 74).
7 Most of the students were working from home, while a few requested rooms on campus.
8 For more information see https://sourcingwithin.org/.
9 On experiments in the use of blended learning in performance classes see Zhou and Li (Citation2019), Parrish (Citation2016), and Cloete et al. (Citation2015).
10 Jonathan Pitches summaries these transmission belts into four categories, namely training places, theatre, spaces, documentation sources, and factors and conditions (Pitches Citation2017, 19–20). See also Pitches (Citation2011, 3–4).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Stefan Aquilina
Stefan Aquilina is the Director of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta. His research focuses on modern theatre, especially Stanislavsky and Meyerhold, but has wider interest in the transmission of embodied practice, amateur theatre, devised performance, and reflective teaching. Aquilina’s book publications are Amateur and Proletarian Theatre in Post-Revolutionary Russia (edited, Bloomsbury), Modern Theatre in Russia (Bloomsbury), Stanislavsky in the World (coedited with Jonathan Pitches, Bloomsbury), and Interdisciplinarity in the Performing Arts (coedited with Malaika Sarco-Thomas, University Malta Press). Aquilina is also the Co-Director of the Stanislavsky Research Centre.