Deeper dives
A few tips and helpful hints for working in this space.
Tips and Hints
- The greatest challenges came in the design phase: artists used to working collaboratively in teams found themselves too often working solo. Take the theatre creativity cycle seriously and consciously build in time for synchronous collaboration, even if that has to be done remotely, as it is crucial for ideation.
- Translating the synchronous nature of educational and artistic programming to ansynchronistic frames is a productive challenge, but producing asynchronously is not. Without an opportunity to work collaboratively your artistic team might have difficulty “staying in their role” and build too many overlapping and overdesigned engagements.
- The findings of our larger study may equally apply to the wellbeing of artistic teams – building time for “playing together” especially in contexts of “distance theatre” may be essential for the wellbeing of the team.
- Theatre artists engaging in live theatre workshops tend to focus on pedagogical frames (i.e., “teaching theatre arts”). This project compelled a focus instead on sensory engagements and embodied expression that in turn can guide future work more intentionally.
- Much of this work traditionally involves a collaboration framework that focuses on a teaching artist working directly with a child or adult participant. Working at a distance expands the “collaboration frame" outward from the teaching artist to include the parents and families playing together by design, allowing for rich and complex interactivity in multiple spaces and timeframes.
- We noticed how our very language in the ongoing planning necessarily had to adjust to remain inclusive of this larger collaborative framework. “We” began to mean not just the artistic team.
- Additionally, provide opportunities for participants to share their work with you through video, posts, images or texts.
- Even better is if the participants can share across the families or other participant groups.
- For families dealing with medical fragility, or complexities of any nature, the kinds of activities represented by “drama in a box” may have worked because they were able to prioritize participant control of time and location (when and where the activities happened) regardless of age and ability.
- We used children's books as grounding prompts to develop theatre-informed activities, which suggests natural adaptation for other contexts, such as educational settings and after-school programs.
- In general, we suggest that less is more when designing creativity kits. Providing too many materials can be overwhelming to both participants and the creative team.
- Focusing on materials that provide sensory engagement allows for involvement across a broad spectrum of ability and age.
- Theming the kits can also be quite useful. Again, the best themes are those that allow for multi-sensory engagements.
- NEA support was generous and allowed us to supply all the necessary materials in our kits and rich, multi-sensory experiences. Similar effects might be achieved through a more "DIY" approach via written or verbal guidance and found objects.
The opinions expressed in materials on this website are those of the author(s) and do not represent the views of the National Endowment for the Arts Office of Research & Analysis or the National Endowment for the Arts. The Arts Endowment does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information included in these materials and is not responsible for any consequences of its use. This NEA Research Lab is supported in part by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (Awards: 1862894-38-C-20, 1906811-38-22 and 1936483-38-24).