“Collective Creation”: A Multidisciplinary Drama Program

Abstract

Anew middle-years arts education pilot project gets underway this year in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada, the result of several years of research by the Saskatchewan Education curriculum writers and the Advisory Committee to the Minister of Education. New curriculum policy requires that middle-years students receive instruction in each of the four arts areas: dance, drama, music, and visual arts. Within this new curriculum are many innovative instructional techniques that have been tested and refined by arts education teachers throughout the province and by the faculty and students of the Arts Education Program, University of Regina, Saskatchewan. One such technique is creation, part of the drama section of the new curriculum. According to the Saskatchewan Arts Education Curriculum, the collective creation is a play or collection of episodes or scenes which is developed by group and intended for an audience. Each collective creation is unique to the group who creates it. There may be as many ways of developing collective creation as there are collective creations themselves (Saskatchewan Education 1994, 18). The play itself focuses on particular topic chosen by the students. For instance, students may address social issues such as drug and alcohol abuse or racial discrimination. A topic might be historical-students could research the settlement of their community and present this information from various perspectives.