Classroom-Theater: New Contemporary Didactics for the Production of Scenic-Educational Events

Abstract

This article rethinks the artistic-aesthetic practices of contemporary scenic languages and introduces a didactic-artistic device called Classroom-Theater. As an interface between the Scenic Event and the Educational Event, the Classroom-Theater fractures borders between the classroom and the theater by integrating conventions, methodologies, and scenic/pedagogical languages. This didactic-artistic device is applicable to all levels of secondary education. By investigating the performing arts alongside pedagogy, the scenic-educational phenomenon reconfigures the processes, functions, and applications of the stage and the classroom as well as its contexts, practices, and agents. The integration of disciplinary boundaries, states, and resources transforms the following: (1) the role of the teacher-artist and the student-spectator (receiver); (2) the format, context, and atmosphere of the classroom-theater (spatiality and environment); (3) languages, codes, techniques, strategies, and didactic-artistic resources; (4) the artistic-aesthetic discourse vs. the curricular content; and (5) the dramaturgy of the play and structure of the pedagogical encounter. Ultimately, this device allows teachers, students, and artists to research, experiment, and generate knowledge from curricular and non-curricular content, transforming educational spaces, resources, and didactics by using artistic aesthetics, languages, and canons.