What do our Youth courses involve?
Our courses and clubs for Senior students allow them to experiment with different dramatic techniques by workshopping ideas, devising pieces in groups, doing improvisation, and creating short performances with a different skill focus each term.
You can read more about some of the courses we have offered so far...
Leading course: Forum Theatre
In this course, students experience the methods of Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal. Boal pioneered the method of Forum Theatre whilst in exile, a form of interactive theatre with social aims, intended to help audience members identify their internal oppressions in order to overcome them. It is a form of theatre that encourages audience interaction, exploring different options for dealing with a problem or issue.
Students participate in the original games and exercises of Boal intended for both actors and non-actors alike, and discuss what situations could be considered as oppressive in their daily lives as well as in the world as a whole. They learn how to produce a piece of Forum Theatre exploring a theme of their choice for an interactive audience of their peers, and hone their improvisation skills necessary to respond to audience suggestions.
What life skills do students gain?
Working with their coursemates on a piece of Forum, students learn key soft skills valued by 21st century employers such as emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, effective communication and collaboration.
A small cast of students in Forms 2-6 at Kensington School, Barcelona, took part in our Forum Theatre course in Spring 2023.
Mr. Voller, Head of Teaching & Learning, came to their first performance recently:
"Their work culminated in a showcase performance at the end of term, during which they had the chance to show off their brilliance in a thought-provoking piece on bullying, developed by the students themselves. They chose an absurdist style to highlight the isolation the victim can feel in a senseless world. Their performances were both delightful and shocking, and their peers in the audience got right into the spirit of things, calling out for sections to be re-acted, and stepping into the roles of the various participants. The atmosphere was both tense and electric."
"My experiences has been very good. I felt free and important"
"I enjoyed improvising and teamwork. Working with real life problems, seeing different solutions."
"I enjoyed the improv and the interaction between the actors and the spectators"
"New experience, happiness, interesting, fun, learning a lot of new things, acting, amazing"
"It was great! Learnt very new things! Super fun! I will definitely miss this!"
"There is no doubt that forum theatre, and students' wider skills development in this innovative club, can help transform them into better, more confident actors and more empathetic and caring individuals. They love their club and look forward to it each week. Thanks Pizzazz and Echo - keep up the great work."
Students spent a term exploring Verbatim Theatre, which is a type of theatre that focuses on naturalistic, word for word texts and often represents the voices of survivors from major historic and/or catastrophic events, or marginalised communities.
In this course, students studied how to observe a person in detail both physically and verbally; how to capture mannerisms, nuances and reproduce naturalistic monologues realistically amongst themselves- whilst being aware of the ethical implications involved.
For the final performance, COVID became our chosen topic of inquiry. They then researched, interviewed, and turned those interviews into individual monologue pieces, as well as worked with stylized pieces of movement to accompany the monologues.
"I loved the teamwork and different perspectives"
"Yay, it was great. I loved delivering monologues, even though it was much harder to do so onstage."
"That was cool even though we were a bit nervous"
"Loved it!! I'm looking forward to continue doing this next year!"
