Join us for Rough Winds: drama under changing social distancing practices

Prospero, C&T and National Drama would like to invite you to an event. Please read this and think about joining us.

Everyone is having to rethink just about everything. COVID-19 has reframed our daily lives, including teaching. Now, just as we start to acclimatise to this ‘new-normal’ we are told soon things will change again. Lockdowns will ease and social distancing measures will be adjusted. It won’t be back to the old way, it will be another ‘new normal.’

It feels like these changes are the most problematic for activities that demand human contact: getting your hair cut, watching live sport, eating out and going to the theatre. Whilst teaching as a whole has made huge strides in its transition online, subjects that require practical activity - like Drama - are the ones that probably found this shift the hardest, because of their dependency on interactions with others.

Now we are being told that as restrictions ease schools will re-open, but maybe only partially and for certain cohorts and at certain times. And alternating. And these arrangements will change, either forwards, or backwards, if there is a second spike.

Understandably its all very complicated and unpredictable.

At Prospero we have been thinking about this, along with our friends at National Drama. How do you plan for the unplanable? How can you create drama resources that are as valid and as valuable under both home learning conditions and in the drama classroom, along with all the possibilities in-between?

So, we have started work on developing a technology and a pedagogy within Prospero which we think can help address this very real need that’s going to be with us for a long time. Its a solution that will allow you to move between parallel streams of teaching and creative practices, facilitating students under a variety of conditions to respond effectively, regardless of their fluctuating circumstances.

We also have an exciting project idea: a global theatre collaboration that uses Prospero and this new system. It will enable us to build a new type of theatre practice for schools and young people, wherever they are, or what state of social conditioning they are living under. We will tell you more about this project soon.

Before we go any further with any of this, we need your help. To get this right, we think we need a bigger conversation, so we understand what teachers current experience is and what they anticipate happening in the future. If we root our new system in what schools need and do we are more likely to make something that’s valuable. In any case, we think the conversation will be a valuable one, regardless of our plans for Prospero.

So we’re hosting two free, open events on Zoom to facilitate these conversations, called ‘Rough Winds’. It’s from Shakespeare’s 18th sonnet: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.” It seems appropriate. And we’re sorry to have to do these in Zoom: after a day teaching online, you’re probably sick of this bit of tech, but needs must. You don’t need to come to both. One will do. You can be a teacher (primary, secondary or SEN), a theatre practitioner, researcher or policy maker. Anywhere in the world. The more diverse our participants the better the conversation.

We’ve scheduled them at two different times so hopefully we can cross as many time zones as we can. We want it to be an international conversation.

Rough Winds happens on the 13 May at 16.30 GMT and 18 May at 20.00 GMT.

You can sign up on Eventbrite right now , but spaces are limited. Please join us. We want to hear from as many different people as we can about what the most productive ways forward are for drama teachers, theatre educators and community practitioners.

Rough Winds is organised by C&T, Prospero with the support of National Drama.

If you have not yet explored the free online resources in Prospero check out our Library.