#jeff redman

[teachingartists]

Making New Ideas | Jeff Redman

Our second January series here on ALT/space was inspired by an interesting confluence of December submissions from our contributors. Completely independent of each other, four of our writers sent in a story relating a can't, not, or aren't in relation to art making. This is truly the beauty of ALT/space for me -- how our stories of teaching practice are at once unique and related at the same time! Enjoy! --Malke Rosenfeld, ALT/space Editor

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There is a point in any drama workshop, no matter if it is a single session or nine weeks long where I hear a familiar phrase. I hear it from adults and children alike, middle to high school.  It is uttered when we are doing improv, when we are brainstorming, when we are developing a story or a character or a movement sequence. It can surface when the only instruction I have given is, “you can do anything in the world you want, but you must do something”.

“I can’t think of anything.”

I love this phrase! I used to hate it, thinking it was the death of the energy in the room, but now I look at it as a challenge because I know this is when my job really begins.  After all, generating ideas is essential to creation and students will never be able to move forward if they “can’t think of anything”.

A while ago I had a new group of eighth graders starting their drama exploration.  It didn’t take long for someone to say it.  It came out during an exercise where they were each to take the lead at some point in creating a simple movement that the rest of the ensemble was to support by matching the leader.  It was a simple beginning ensemble exercise that came to a screeching halt when the action froze and the next student in sequence said, “I don’t know what to do.”

Creativity doesn’t magically happen.  John Cleese of Monty Python fame delivered a lecture on the process of creativity in 1991 that has recently resurfaced on the Internet in which he says that creativity “is not a talent, it is a way of operating.”

In the drama classroom it is all about a way of operating. Giving students the tools with which to invent and develop  ideas.  Making time, giving space, and encouraging a willingness to be open to anything.  I encourage them to try different approaches because I know without a doubt that they absolutely can think of something to do. The drama room is a laboratory with the space and time for ideas to be born.

One way I create space and time for ideas is with an exercise that goes by many names-- creative visualization, guided imagery, dramatic imagination--but I just call it “play time”.  As children this kind of activity was just part of the way we operated when we had free time, but as we got older it became more difficult to squeeze it into our busy schedules.  In the drama room, the exercise is rekindled.

Guiding the students into relaxation and breathing, they center themselves and open their minds.  Focusing inward on their body sensations and breathing patterns takes away stress and enables them to think beyond their own personal insecurities.  Once we have spent time getting into the proper operating mindset the imagination takes over and they are open to possibility.

Since it is theater, we need to get up our feet and move into the scene. I count backwards from ten and clap my hands.  They sit up and are allowed to move at their own pace.  Using their body in the space they tentatively explore the world they created.  Hands run across the top off tall grass, eyes half close and noses breath in the sweet smell of wildflowers, and for some the frame of their body opens up to soak in the sunlight.

I am there as a guide, keeping them safe and making sure our session is uninterrupted. After giving them stimuli and a few checkpoints along the way they write their own script.  They are the director, the designer, the dramaturg and the main character using the entire space as their stage. In silence they explore, only interacting with another if the situation seems right and they are invited in.

Lasting anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, the session ends with the final checkpoint being the stage that they started from.  Counting backwards again, they slowly come out of their play.  Breathing returns to normal, they make eye contact with one another, and look at a space filled with possibility.  We take a short break and begin to talk.

What kind of field were you in? Did you seek out shelter from the storm?  Was the helicopter friendly or dangerous?  What was in the package that fell?  How did you feel when you were being chased? Where did you go when the pursuers had passed?

It isn’t that students can’t think of anything; it’s just that they have not been shown how to get in an open frame of mind. They are often not allowed the time and space to create or be imaginative.  And in the absence of operating with an open mind, they haven’t developed the ability to trust their own instincts.

Their journals come back to me the next day after a session filled with pages and pages of text. Vivid descriptions fully thought out ideas, and conflicts of all varieties. Pieces of their stories re-surface as we develop ideas throughout the course.  It is a reference point for theatrical terms such as being in the moment and emotional recall.  The more we practice the process, the easier it is for them to bring themselves to an open frame of mind when they need it.

While I do teach them acting techniques and theater history, the most important thing I do is giving them the experiences that build confidence to create—practicing with them the process of getting into a space where their imaginations are endless.  

Jeff Redman is the middle school drama teacher at American International School Dhaka, Bangladesh. He founded the Ivey Award winning Workhouse Theatre Company in Minneapolis where he served as Artistic Director for six years. Jeff leads workshops for educators and was invited to present his workshop, Injecting Drama! at the NESA conference in Athens, Greece. He holds a B.S in Theater and M.A. in teaching.  Jeff is currently working on connecting ex-pat students to local Bangladeshi artists. [email protected] 

Also by Jeff Redman in ALT/space: Drama Class, Day One When Art Meets Life Bamboo: Tools of Storytelling Making Sense of Modern Day Slavery through Theater What If? Making Way for Collaboration

[teachingartists]

The Well-Told Story: Celebrating Two Years of ALT/space!

Not everyone who contributes to ALT/space is a writer by trade, nor do they need to be.  Writing about our work and the things we are thinking, focusing on, wondering about and struggling with while we teach is a valuable process, whether or not we think of ourselves as writers. 

The kind of writing that gets done on ALT/space is something of a hybrid.  The ALT/space concept is part blog (vignettes of and in the moment), part magazine (presenting a polished work to a public audience) and part reflective practice within community (working with an editor/first reader and sharing with colleagues).  The goal is to provide interesting, generative stories which will potentially spark recognition or new understandings of teaching artist practice across disciplines.

Ultimately, ALT/space is about telling stories about what matters to us about our teaching, our students and the communities in which we work. In the spirit of a tale well told and in celebration of the second anniversary of ALT/space online, here are six really well told stories of teaching artist practice for you to enjoy, ponder and, perhaps, connect in some way to your own teaching practice. 

Enjoy! Malke Rosenfeld ALT/space Editor & Curator

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Worth the Mess | Kate Plows

This morning started with a huge mess.  I was absent from school for a few days, and when I returned, my students informed me that one of our glazes had settled out.  I plugged in the electric mixer, planted my feet, flipped the switch, and the bucket went flying.  Red glaze, steeped in iron oxide, splattered everywhere - the walls, floor, glaze buckets, my pants, a few nearby students’ uniforms.  The incident felt like slow motion.  When the action stopped, we all just stood there, blinking, until one student pulled out his cell phone and snapped this picture - which sent us all into throes of laughter. Read More

------------------------------------- Bamboo: Tools of Storytelling | Jeff Redman

In February I began working with my 8th grade students to devise a theater piece based on modern day slavery. Doing research in humanities class with my collaborator, they each took a turn writing a story based on a first person account of how someone fell into slavery.

Now they were bringing the stories to drama class.  My job in the project was to guide them through the dramatization process, to help them interpret the material and make it into a theater piece. Read More

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Take a Walk on the Wild Side | Holly Adams I have just begun a two-week venture called “Imagine That” with ten 3-5 year olds (some of whom have English as a second language, some of whom are maneuvering with other challenges). It’s a project I do with the Ithaca Youth Bureau for a couple sessions every summer, and one I look forward to with relish. The children come from a wide range of ethnic, language, and economic backgrounds, having only age as a common thread. Each session runs from 3:30-5:30 Monday-Friday for two weeks, and I used to think of it as glorified educational babysitting. However, several years ago, I realized that the secret was to have some delicious fun. Obviously, if I have fun, I will be a better teacher, but more importantly, it’s the KIND of fun I want to have.  Read More

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Between the Rattle and the Ease: Art’s Role in Teacher Education | Debora Broderick

A few years ago one of my students, Ally, said something to me that sticks with me to this day. As she was trying to explain why making art is so important to her, she paused thoughtfully and said, “Art forces people to think and feel.  It rattles and eases the mind.”  Ally described her art making process as one where she’s constantly thinking, working things out while her fingers push the pencil or the paintbrush.  As she gets deeper into the work, her movements become meditative and peaceful, creating a space that eases her mind.  For Ally, having this experience regularly available in school made all the difference.  Art offered her, as writer John Updike reminds us, “…a certain breathing room for the spirit.” Read More

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Color Theory for Writing Teachers | Anna Plemons By grace and serendipity I recently had the chance to visit the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, Germany.  In looking through some of the color studies by Johannes Itten and Paul Klee I was shocked to discover something new to me—albeit embarrassingly elementary—about how colors work in conversation with each other.  I realize that in sharing my discovery here, I showcase how little I really know about visual arts in general and color theory more specifically; but the discovery was important to me as a writing teacher nonetheless.  Read More

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 Best Seat in the Islands | Daniel A. Kelin, II

As I sat in in the center of the newly-dedicated, freshly painted outdoor cement basketball court, surrounded by a couple of hundred local folks watching youth I had worked with perform, it dawned on me that these local audiences are truly the best audiences in the world.  At 7:00 pm on a Saturday night at the ‘Laura’ end of Majuro island in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, people sat on rocks, the cement court, wooden side benches, make-shift chairs made from implements found around the nearby houses, their cars (parked at the far end of the court), or just stood-for the entire three hours of our performance. Read More

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[teachingartists]

When Art Meets Life | Jeff Redman

Back in February, I was part of a unique experiment in collaboration with the students in my drama class.  Partnering with the eighth grade humanities classes, under the direction of their teacher, Fady Tabbara, we attempted to create an original theater piece that dealt with the heavy subject of Modern Day Slavery.

Fady and I shared the same students and the timing between our two classes was perfect; he had never used social action theater as an assessment tool, however, and the process of theater creation was new to the students.  We would be asking them to put themselves out there in a way they were not accustomed. They were hesitant:

How will I know what my character is? Are we going to remember what to say? We’re going to perform this in front of the entire middle school?

As a teaching artist, it was exciting to watch the students experience new exercises, connect the dots, play with symbolism, adapt, interpret and refine.  Listening to them dissect the choices they were making and giving each other direction took their learning in a direction that a PowerPoint presentation couldn't.

First person accounts gave way to narrative pantomime.  The cycle of slavery became a symbolic Machine exercise. Facts and numbers turned into a living newspaper. Interpretive movements and choreography morphed into an image collage.

There is rarely enough rehearsal time on any theater piece and this was no exception. March 24th and we had to be ready for an audience. The students were nervous before the performance. The extra two hours we had in the theater before the show was barely enough to ease their tension.

Did we rehearse enough? Will they understand what we are trying to say? What happens if one of our friends makes us laugh? Should I pick the pole back up if I drop it in the performance?

After the final image of the play, the line of students standing and repeating “Slavery is everywhere!” with their voices escalating from a simple, factual statement to a dire warning left an impression both on the performers and the audience. But what struck me as their teacher was that they created that moment.  It was theirs.

Maybe we could start shouting at the audience? Or maybe we could make it seem like a horror movie, like they can’t escape it. Can we run off the stage after our final line? And then a blackout?

After the applause, the students came to the edge of the stage to answer questions from the audience.  They had asked a thousand questions of Fady and me throughout the process and they were ready for a few from their peers. I could see the euphoria on their faces as they took their seats.  That expression of excitement mixed with relief and exhaustion.

How did you come up with your ideas? When you guys were the slavery machine, was Riks someone buying all the products? I like the statements you had projected on the back of the stage. 

None of us could have imagined how relevant the final piece would become.

On month later, on April 24, a multi-story garment factory in the Savar district of Bangladesh collapsed taking the lives of over 1,000 workers. 

While the garment workers in the tragedy did not technically qualify as Modern Day Slaves, their stories were familiar to the actors who had done their research: unsafe working conditions, long hours with no breaks, little pay, young girls and boys sacrificing education for work, no rights or protections, and few alternatives to finance their survival.

After the news of the collapse and the scope of it became clear, almost one month after their performance, I met with several of the students to make connections between their piece and the real world. They struggled to accept that their performance was greater than just an assignment, but once they began to make connections the ideas kept flowing.

What struck them most about the intersection of art and life was the eerie similarities between their fictional story of ‘Maria’, performed as a narrative pantomime in the final production, and the first person accounts coming from victims of the garment factory collapse.  Created months before the tragedy in Savar, the students had written an account of survival that would be echoed by hundreds of workers in Bangladesh.

“Should we do it again? “ one of them asked, “Since the building collapsed maybe it will mean more to the audience.”

Sadly, there wasn’t enough time in the schedule; they had all moved on to other classes since the performance. But the realization that something they made was connected to the real world will stay with them for a lifetime.

It will stay with me as well.

This coming school year there will be another group of students eager to create theater. Fady will do the research with them and I will help them interpret it for the stage. We’ll work together on that intersection between life and art, finding ways to help students understand that their art, their creations have meaning. And hopefully we will not have another tragedy to make the connection easy to find.

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Jeff Redman is the middle school drama teacher at American International School Dhaka, Bangladesh. He founded the Ivey Award winning Workhouse Theatre Company in Minneapolis where he served as Artistic Director for six years. Jeff leads workshops for educators and was invited to present his workshop, Injecting Drama! at the NESA conference in Athens, Greece. He holds a B.S in Theater and M.A. in teaching.  Jeff is currently working on connecting ex-pat students to local Bangladeshi artists. [email protected] 

Also by Jeff Redman in ALT/space: Bamboo: Tools of Storytelling Making Sense of Modern Day Slavery through Theater What If? Making Way for Collaboration