Scenic game
Scenic play is a theater-pedagogical concept developed by Ingo Scheller , in which social processes and interpersonal interaction are in the foreground. He draws on the theatrical theories of Konstantin Stanislawski , Lee Strasberg , Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud as well as on the educational approaches of Augusto Boal , Jacob L. Moreno and Keith Johnstone .
Scenic play as a form of learning
According to Scheller's approach, a confrontation with a strange figure, which happens with recourse to one's own experiences and feelings, is intended to gain an external view of oneself and thus refine perceptual processes. This should also reflect socialized categories and experience them as changeable. "In this way, in the interplay of ego and role, demarcations and polarizations can be questioned and the view can be opened to the diverse shades and ambivalences in us and our relationships to our social environment."
“The learners should be able to say goodbye to the role of consumers and become participants in which their experiences, experiences and emotions serve as the basis for researching the teaching content. Scheller's aim is not to develop suitable methods to impart acting know-how, but to initiate learning and cognitive processes in which the learner's physical and linguistic expressions and behaviors are viewed as the basis for the cognitive process and not only the material to be taught must be internalized through abstraction and coagulate to affect-neutral substance. "
Scheller differentiates the scenic play into four intentions: scenic exploration, scenic empathy, scenic reflection and scenic change.
Scenic exploration
The scenic exploration precedes the scenic representation as a kind of preparation and should serve to refine one's own perception and to recognize the environment more carefully. Scheller names a total of 18 areas to be explored:
- Spaces, objects, noises, musical forms of expression, time, postures, gestures and facial expressions, speech postures, actions, interactions, situations, ideas, attitudes, feelings, desires, status behavior and habitus.
He names several practical exercises for each area. An example of exploring gestures and facial expressions is imitating them based on a picture of a certain group, e.g. B .: politicians, teachers. Afterwards, the group discusses the commonalities that have been discovered and the gestures / facial expressions are then presented to an observer group. This should guess which group of people is shown. Scheller calls this exercise “trying out collective gestures”.
Scenic empathy
In this part, Scheller draws heavily on the acting theories of Stanislawski and Strasberg. Scenic empathy is about discovering your own elements in the unfamiliar role in order to better understand the role. As with Stanislawski and Strasberg, however, it is not about portraying a role in a particularly authentic manner and becoming “one” with it, but rather about discovering the unfamiliar.
Scheller deals with empathy with roles and empathy with situations. The former is about developing the most accurate picture possible of a person to be represented. This can happen, for example, by writing a role biography or by developing characteristic postures. It can also be helpful to look for recurring thoughts and feelings of the person or to address and treat central areas and problems in life. Conducting an interview with the player in the role is also an option mentioned by Scheller. In order to empathize with situations, he mentions, among other things, the exercise of determining the intentions and motives of the person in advance, which amounts to treating the so-called subtext. The point is to perceive what has actually been said and to expose disguising language.
Scenic reflection
The scenic reflection serves to examine what is shown or what is seen. It is about looking at the social situations, actions, attitudes and relationships in their development, their course and their effect and reflecting on them together. Scheller divides the reflection into three areas, which of course are related to each other.
- Role reflection: From the role, players should deal with the situation being played, the other players and their own actions. Exercises can be helpful here, such as acting out suppressed feelings of the role in play or evaluating one's own behavior from a third-party perspective.
- Observer reflection: The observer group is given the opportunity to reproduce, interpret and, if necessary, also discuss what they have seen. For example, central moments of the scene can be shown with still images or relationship structures made visible. In the latter exercise, characteristic postures are adopted for the respective roles and marked with a sentence.
- Player reflection: The players now step out of their roles and speak as private individuals about their experience of the game. For example, highlighting differences between player and role can be important in order to set yourself apart, but it is not about justifying yourself.
Changing the scene
This is where Ingo Scheller's preoccupation with Augusto Boal and the “Theater of the Oppressed” comes into play.
Changing scenes often works closely with the players themselves; Scheller therefore also warns against having "high hopes" for real situations due to a positive change in the game situation, since this "usually depends on so many subjective and objective factors" that a change can take place differently and more slowly. One exercise for this area is, for example, "Representing and trying out desired attitudes", in which observers adopt various own desired attitudes and sentences, so the player can observe himself from the outside and finally decide on the most effective method and try it out himself. Another exercise is acting out repressed feelings.
reception
“The representation itself is integrated into the intentions and in this respect has neither its own aesthetic value nor statement. Also, no artistic product is being worked on and aesthetic impulses are subordinate. [...] The educational process alone is the focus of scenic learning. Regarding his target group, Scheller formulates that the scenic play, precisely through the physical-emotional expressive behavior on which there is a focus, is also able to reach students from uneducated levels. However, he goes far beyond this when he introduces the scenic play as a form of learning that could find a place in schools and universities as well as in social work, further education, supervision and other fields. "
literature
- Tanja Bidlo: Theater Education. Introduction. Oldib Published by Essen 2006.
- Scheller, Ingo: Scenic game. Handbook for educational practice. Cornelsen: Berlin 1998.
- Scheller, Ingo: Experience-based teaching. Theory, practice, planning. Librarian: Frankfurt 1981.
- Scheller, Ingo: Scenic interpretation of dramatic texts. Materials for empathizing with roles and scenes. Schneider Verlag Hohengehren: Baltmannsweiler 2008.
- Scheller, Ingo, Angelika I. Müller: The own and the foreign. Refugees, asylum seekers, people from other cultures and us. The scenic play as a form of learning. BIS publishing house of C. v. Ossietzky University of Oldenburg: ibid 1993.
- Uta Oelke, Gisela Ruwe , Ingo Scheller: Taboo topics as an object of scenic learning in nursing. Theory and practice of a new nursing didactic approach. Hans Huber: Bern / Göttingen / Toronto / Seattle 2000.