Drama Makes Meaning

Abstract

Drama is an artform highly accessible to young people. In education, it is a mode of learning that challenges and supports students to make meaning of their world and enables them to express and communicate ideas in the artform. ΅ ΅ Drama is the enactment of real and imagined events through roles and situations. ΅ ΅ Drama enables individuals and groups to explore, shape and symbolically represent ideas and feelings and their consequences. ΅ ΅ Drama has the capacity to move and transform participants and audiences. It can affirm and challenge values, cultures and identities. ΅ ΅ Drama includes a wide range of experiences, such as dramatic play, improvisation, role-play, text interpretation, theatrical performance and multi-modal/hybrid texts. It includes the processes of making, presenting and responding. ΅ ΅ Drama draws on many different contexts, from past and present societies and cultures. Drama is one of the five arts subjects that make up the Australian Curriculum: The Arts. View website » Drama Australia uses the term drama broadly to represent related fields of artistic activity including theatre and performance. Drama encompasses a range of activities that both share conceptual similarities as well as specific differences relating to form and purpose. Drama is recognised and celebrated as a relevant and significant art form that both reflects and contributes to culture.