Experiential learning theory as a pedagogical frame for devising in the D12Dreaming project

Teaching theatre students is a unique opportunity to work with the next generation of storytellers and theatre artists. Teaching devising means enabling these storytellers with the skills and experience to create original performances without relying on a pre-written script. Devising provides opportunities for students to ‘develop artistically satisfying ways of working by stretching the limits of established practices’ (Govan et al. 2007: 3), while also allowing the ‘body and persona’ of the student artists to inform ‘both the measure of the imagery and the content of the performance’ (Heddon and Milling 2006: 62). When devising, we are learning to work and think dramaturgically about how meaning is communicated in performance through different combinations of dramatic and theatrical languages. This experimentation with the building blocks of performance (role, relationship, movement, mood, story, sound, design, etc.) enables a deep and embodied understanding of storytelling, which can inform and enhance students learning and ability in theatre studies more broadly. This chapter outlines two of the methods I applied in the devised D12Dreaming project facilitated at Flinders University (Adelaide, South Australia) with second-year undergraduate students in the Drama Workshop programme in 2018.