The Play’s the Thing—Connecting through Theatre

Format

Individual Presentation

Presenters

Gina H. Moore, Crosswalk Ministries USA, Inc.Follow

First Presenter's Institution

ARTreach 180 and Crosswalk USA

First Presenter’s Email Address

crosswalk03@bellsouth.net

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Gina Moore, LMSW: Having spent 24 years directing a successful high school theatre program, Gina Moore chose to leave the traditional classroom in 2007 to focus full-time on curriculum writing and program development for ARTreach 180, a therapeutic after-school visual and performing arts program primarily focused on youth at risk and juvenile offenders. Throughout her career in education, social work, and expressive therapy, Gina has seen firsthand the efficacy of using the arts to support adolescents as they navigate difficult emotions, process pain, and figure out their place in the world. As social-emotional learning is prioritized during the recovery phase of the pandemic, she remains committed to training other educators and youth development professionals how to implement creative strategies to assure that every student is heard and validated.

Location

Session Six Breakouts

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

The purpose of this proposal is to explore creative activities that educators and youth development professionals can add to their SEL repertoire along with current research that endorses this approach. This informative and interactive workshop will highlight creative expression as a tool for building deeper self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship skills, three of CASEL’s core competencies. As MentalHealth.gov utilizes a broad definition of mental health that includes “our emotional, psychological, and social well-being,” there is unquestionably an overlap between SEL and mental health. As the world recovers from the pandemic’s toll on social, emotional, and mental health, theatre methods can ensure that healing takes place through storytelling, even if they are told from the voice of fictional characters.

Brief Program Description

Want to learn some creative ways to connect with students by allowing them to tell their stories through the voices of fictional characters? This interactive session will explore practical steps to help students rebound from the isolation of the pandemic using applied theatre methods, group discussion circles, and team-building activities, and you’ll leave with everything to need to facilitate the activities yourself.

Summary

This workshop is directed toward participants with experience and/or interest in using creative exploration and therapeutic self-discovery with adolescents to strengthen social-emotional learning and facilitate resilience in the aftermath of the pandemic. The objectives of the session are as follows:

During this workshop participants will

• Garner theatre exercises to provide students a creative way to find their voice.
• Gain skills to promote a sense of belonging through team-building activities.
• Glean therapeutic insights for working with underserved or disengaged students.
• Grasp the correlation between role playing and participating in group discussions.
• Gather ideas to adapt and implement the activities in their own programs.

The central concepts to be covered in the session are a) the importance of community and strategies to strengthen social capital; b) how theatre can provide a non-threatening format for youth to find their voice and share their stories; c) team-building exercises to make connections and forge relationships with youth, and d) opportunities for reflection inherent in the creative process. The session will combine the presentation of current research with large and small group activities, a facilitated discussion circle, participation in four small group theatre exercises to encourage storytelling and problem solving, and a time for reflection and evaluation. The content of the workshop is applicable for all middle and high school programs and may also be adapted for older elementary students. Since participants will not only receive a written guide for each of the activities but also engage in the activities themselves throughout the session, they will leave fully equipped to implement the activities in their own programs should they choose to do so.

Evidence

This workshop proposal seeks to demonstrate the overall message from a two-year study by The Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development: Artistic endeavors — whether performing, creating or responding to others’ work — are likely to involve even more social-emotional skills and opportunities for students to practice them than do their academic endeavors.¹ The arts provide a nonthreatening, engaging way for children and adolescents to express their feelings, manage emotional and behavioral problems, cope with trauma and victimization, develop artistic talents and skills, and improve strengths and assets they already possess.² A recent literature review by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention concluded that theatre exercises and role-playing allow youth to practice moral reasoning, empathy, and prosocial and conflict resolution skills.³

Whether the applied theatre method is playback theatre, sociodrama, or simple improvisation or role-playing, the effect is almost universal: One storyteller’s story attracts the next storyteller to share, and “one story brings healing to another story’s grief." ⁴ When adolescents are encouraged to use the voices of fictional characters on stage, the fear of vulnerability is reduced. A teenager who might be hesitant to speak his own story in first-person language can then tell it through the voice of a character with the assurance that the audience does not know how much of the story is fact and how much is fiction. The power of the exercise, however, is that the story is told, the emotions are real, and the subsequent discussion validates the storyteller and perhaps offers alternative choices with different consequences.

Clearly creative expression through the arts can offer alternative ways of processing negative feelings, insecurities, and vulnerabilities rather than acting out in destructive ways.⁵ Art therapies also have the ability to increase an individual’s awareness of self and others and to cope with stress and traumatic experiences.⁶ In our first year as National Youth Advocacy and Resilience, it is even more incumbent on us to consider how we can better advocate for the youth in our circles and how we can foster resilience in them, especially in light of the challenges and struggles caused by the pandemic. This session will help us all to focus on advocacy, resilience, SEL, and mental health from a creative perspective.

SOURCES:

¹ Linda Jacobson. Education Dive. 11 June, 2019.

² Coholic, D., Schwabe, N., and Lander, K. 2020. A scoping review of arts-based mindfulness interventions for children and youth. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 37: 511-26.

³ Arts-Based Programs and Art Therapies for At-Risk, Justice-Involved, and Traumatized Youths. 2021. Washington, DC: US Dept of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

⁴ Kintigh, Monica. 1998. Building Community Through Playback Theatre Action Methods. New Paltz, New York: Center for Playback Theatre.

⁵ Vice, C. 2012. Building Resiliency in At-Risk Youth Using Art Therapy. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin.

⁶ Jackson, K. 2015. Beyond talk—creative arts therapies in social work. Social Work Today 15(3): 22-25.

Learning Objective 1

Participants will be able to facilitate all activities from the session in their own programs.

Learning Objective 2

Participants will be able to foster deeper relationships with students through therapeutic insights and creative methods gained in the session.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will be able to form a correlation between the group discussion topics and role-playing exercises.

Keyword Descriptors

SEL, social-emotional learning, drama therapy, team building, playback theatre, resiliency, creative expression, mental health, expressive therapy

Presentation Year

2022

Start Date

3-8-2022 1:00 PM

End Date

3-8-2022 2:15 PM

Recommended Citation

Moore, Gina H., "The Play’s the Thing—Connecting through Theatre" (2022). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 63.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2022/2022/63