Freeing the student voice

Feedback within the ensemble

In conservatoire training we are living through a time of reckoning. Patriarchal power structures, student mental-health and endemic racist practice are finally in the spotlight.[1] To redress this we must move away from student stultification and teacher deification. We need to develop practice and pedagogy through which students are freed to offer constructive critical responses. In this essay I explore training independent artists, honouring the student development of self, and ways to free the student voice. In theatre, we can approach this reckoning with positivity, harnessing what Mirochnikov articulated as the ‘festive mood’, where ‘the actor has a right to comment, a joy to comment’.[2]

Diana Laurillard’s ‘Conversational Framework’ argues for an ‘interdependence of content and process’ in Higher Education (1999: 114).[3] Her learning framework applies precisely to teaching actors. To facilitate ‘interdependence’ the ‘content’ of actor training is under renewal, and the ‘process’ of students forming their own artistic identity is vital. Neither thrives without the other. Additionally, an urgent review of teacher/student dynamics will move us toward a healthier creative community. Laurillard further suggests that ‘congruence between teacher and student’ is desirable, ‘wherein each may achieve a new or deeper understanding’ (1999: 114). What is meant by congruence? Defined by the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers as one of three conditions for therapeutic change – the others being empathy and unconditional positive regard – this relates to how we teach.[4]  A congruent teacher, and likewise student, ‘feels acceptant toward [their] own real feelings’ (Rogers, 1967: 287). Opinion, personal politics, and selfhood should be welcome, not diminished in order to survive in the space. 

Before congruence is possible, we must redress the proprietorship of knowledge, and therefore status. Ross W. Prior states ‘the ownership of knowledge is nurtured organically rather than merely being imparted’ (2012: 208).[5]Rather than ‘this is the lineage’, the question that empowers is: ‘where do you place yourself within this lineage?’.[6] A student’s right to contribute as co-practitioner aligns with Prior: ‘knowledge [can be] generative rather than didactic’ (2012: 208). This releases us from trying to change a hegemonic system from the top-down, and toward a more honest, circular egalitarian space, from the rehearsal room outward.[7]

The practice of student feedback offers a microcosm of this call to arms. The radical pedagogue, bell hooks[8], articulates this: 

[…] radical pedagogy must insist that everyone’s presence is acknowledged. […] These contributions are resources […] Before this process can begin there has to be some deconstruction of the traditional notion that only the professor is responsible for classroom dynamics (1994: 8).

With actors as ‘resource’, patriarchal teaching structures are prised open, and changed. Prior summarises, ‘the responsibility is collective and the process collaborative’ (2012: 208). Laurillard affirms that learning is two-way: ‘academic learning [the process] must involve at least two participants, operating […] on two levels – practice and discussion – and connecting those two levels by the activities of adaptation and reflection’ (1999: 114).

However, for some actor trainers, ‘academic learning’ is beside the point. Le Coq’s advice, still tangible in conservatoires today, ‘was understood in [the] embodying, the doing not the discussing. Experiencing not speculating’ (McBurney, 2020: xii). But to ‘experience’ is not enough. The way you ‘speculate’ is important for understanding the way the work has impacted you. Prior agrees: ‘the more the actor is encouraged to articulate their reasoning, the better’ (2012: 209). Moreover, trainers should articulate their own processes, modelling for the student. The danger, akin to Le Coq’s theory, is that actors become analytical spectators, lost in the theoretical rather than the practical. We crave a meeting point between academic and experiential learning, as suggested by the Greek praxis. 

With congruent, praxis-based students as parallel players to the pedagogue in artistic investigation, we need an appreciation of the self-belief, courage and internal process required, both before and after sharing an opinion in the space. ‘Speaking is vulnerable’ (Brown, 2018: xi).[9] To appreciate this vulnerability, it’s helpful to keep in mind that the student is in a delicate process of forming their creative self. I would argue that so should be the teacher. Existentialist van Deurzen offers a definition of the self, suggesting: ‘the person is in a constant process of becoming. I create myself as I exist and have to reinvent myself daily’ (2013).[10] If we replace the word self with actor, this idea of ‘daily renewal’ is helpful in training curiosity. 

In teaching ensembles of young actors at Guildhall, I have sensed their fear in being defined by what they say: freedom to speak is inhibited. If we can critically respond to stimulus without fear of judgement, we enter a new realm of freedom. Process becomes about the work not the person; our response is to the work in the moment, in the knowledge that this can change. I am drawn to an excerpt from Dialogue by Adrienne Rich:

I do not know

who I was when I did those things

or who I said I was

or whether I willed to feel

what I had read about

or who in fact was there with me

or whether I knew, even then

that there was doubt about these things

Rogers writes that ‘freedom to be oneself is a frighteningly responsible freedom’ (1967: 171). This ‘frightening’ is common within a robust rehearsal room culture, where competing positionalities may fight for space. A room can suffocate when the need to please is greater than the need to speak. Stultification thrives in a culture where there is a perceived correct way to behave and respond. I experienced this as an acting student, where curriculum feedback was deemed entitled, and compliance led to better final-year casting prospects. The question vital to ask is: what is impacting students before they even enter the space, and will this get in the way of their creative voice?[11] The moral philosopher Neiman puts this in the context of governance, which is applicable to the modern institution:

Most governments do not have an interest in people thinking for themselves […] Enlightenment is a process of growing up […] not as a process of resignation, but as a process of resistance (Radio 4, 2020). 

As a teacher, I question how the process of resistance can be granted, when the granting of it is a paradox. I prefer the definition ‘creative resistance’, to fuel anarchic impulses within the rehearsal studio. This is only possible in a safe space; ‘when students feel safe their boundaries expand’ (Dunn, 2020). hooks, however, cautions against the commoditisation of the word ‘safe’, and suggests our focus should be our ‘shared commitment’ to community, which results from valuing ‘each individual voice’ (1994: 40).

To value each voice, we must value their time. I have found that most reflection exists post-exercise. This takes many forms: including journaling (Prior, 2012: 209), one-to-one notes sessions, debrief amongst peers, or the refrain from my own training at Guildhall in the last minutes of session: ‘Rest. How was that?’ All are problematic, and perpetuate the idea that student voice (or process) is less a priority than content. As a student and teacher, I have seen actors (post-exercise) re-set, adjust, and edit themselves out of an artistic mode and back to comfort, which for most is less creative. To progress, there must be an immediacy of feedback within the practice, defined by Prior as ‘reflection-in-action’ (2012: 209). As Frankcom[12] states in The Stage: ‘training is not us giving you something. Your training is how you apply yourself to the processes we have set up and we will learn together’ (Gardner, 2020). Working with actors, I have experimented with no ‘rest’, flowing directly into a theatrical mode of feedback, often mirroring the shape of the exercise itself. I have also encouraged students to input mid-exercise, honing sensitivity to the space and the ensemble. In both cases, I’ve found the response to be less inhibited, more honest, and about their process as artists, rather than students. Without this, what is learnt cannot be translated to the crucial context of self-led professional work in the industry.

The work is the priority; we join forces to wrestle with the work, not with each other. Or if with each other, then about the work, with feedback living at the heart of practice. The teacher should strive to say ‘simply for himself, “I don’t like that,” and the student with equal freedom could say, “But I do”’ (Rogers, 1967: 289). If we lead students to the self-belief that they are independent artists in their own right, our arguments are enhanced, our curiosity heightened, our pedagogy enlightened. This principle provokes institutions to be in a constant state of renewal, serving not the practice, but the artists who will go on to form the creative industry. ‘Excitement is generated through collective effort’ (hooks, 1994: 8).

References

Alsubaie, M.A. (2015) Hidden Curriculum as One of Current Issues of Curriculum.

IISTE, Journal of Education and Practice, Vol. 6, No. 33, pg. 125.

Brown, B. (2018) Dare to Lead. London: Vermillon, Ebury Publishing.

Dunn, K. (2020) ‘In conversation on racism’. Interviewed by Dr. Jessica Hartley, Central, November.

Frankcom, S. (2020) ‘Change doesn’t happen through talking, it happens by doing’. Interviewed by Lyn Gardner, The Stage, 23rdSeptember

Hartley, J. (2020) Vulnerability in a crisis: Pedagogy, critical reflection and positionality in actor training. Fusion Journal, Issue 17, pp. 6­–18

hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. 

New York: Routledge.

Laurillard, D. (1999) ‘A Conversational Framework for Individual Learning Applied to the “Learning Organisation” and the “Learning Society”’. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 

Systems Research and Behavioural Science, Volume 16, pp. 113–122. 

McBurney, S. (foreword) Le Coq, J. (2020) The Moving Body (Le Corps Poétique): Teaching Creative Theatre. London: Bloomsbury, Methuen Drama.

Neiman, S. (2020) The Death of Nuance. Radio 4, 30th December.

Prior, R.W. (2012) Teaching Actors: Knowledge Transfer in Acting. Bristol: Intellect.

Rich, A. (1973) Diving into the Wreck. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Rogers, C. (1967) On Becoming a Person. London: Constable.

Steiger, A. (2019) Patriarchy, and Resistance in Actor Training Texts. 

Available at: https://howlround.com/whiteness-patriarchy-and-resistance-actor-training-texts. (Accessed: 25.9.20).

Van Deurzen, E. (2013) Existential Therapy: The Handbook of Individual Therapy. 

Dryden, W. and Reeves A. (ed.) The Handbook of Individual Therapy. 6th Edition. London: Sage. Available at: https://www.emmyvandeurzen.com/?page_id=25 (Accessed: 12.12.20).

Wickramasekera, I.E. (2004) The Kalyanamitra and the Client-Centered Psychotherapist. 

The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol.44, pp.485–493

Williams, H. (2013) bell hooks Speaks Up. The Sandspur Journal, Vol. 112, Issue 17, pg 1.

[1] See Hartley, 2020; Steiger, 2019. 

[2] Mirochnikov is an expert on Vakhtangov technique. These quotations derive from a workshop (Central: November, 2020).

[3] Laurillard is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies at UCL.

[4] Rogers’ positive regard derives from Buddhist teaching (Wickramasekera, 2004).

[5] Prior is Professor of Learning and Teaching in the Arts at WLV.

[6] I am influenced by James Palm, and his workshop on ‘A very, very brief history of actor training in the west’ (Central: October, 2020).

[7] Paolo Freire defines this process as the ‘banking system of education’ (hooks, 1994: 40).

[8] hooks refuses to capitalise her name, stating that what matters is ‘the substance of books, not who I am’ (Williams, 2013: 1). 

[9] By ‘opinion’ and ‘speaking’ I do not necessarily mean with words. There is the potential alienation in linguistic vocabulary as status, blocking students’ ability to find their own self-expression. Effective feedback may be more about inner-sensation than articulation in language. 

[10] Van Deurzen’s chapter ‘Existential Therapy’ is sourced from her website and is without page numbers.

[11] Known as ‘the hidden curriculum’ (Alsubaie, 2015).

[12] Frankcom is Director of LAMDA.