The Postdramatic Turn – Recasting the Dramatic Curriculum

Abstract

The article presents a new educational design for the subject drama pedagogy in light of the paradigm shift in contemporary theatre towards a postdramatic theatre (Lehmann, 2006). Going out from a historical perspective a basic concept of aesthetic doubling based on dramatic fiction is successively identified as constitutive of the classic subject drama pedagogy. The historical exposition is followed by a brief introduction to the postdramatic theatre by means of the concepts postdrama, theatReality and f(r)iction, which is seen as a hybridization of the classic notion of fiction. Recent examples of postdramatic theatre performances are given, and the outlines of a new educational design for drama and theatre pedagogy inspired by this form of theatre is demonstrated by explanation and examples from educational practice at the Master’s Programme of Theatre Pedagogy at Metropolitan University College Copenhagen. Finally, it is argued with additional reference to Lawrence Grossberg’s (1992) forms of authentic inauthenticity that drama and theatre pedagogy must turn postdramatic in its curricular basis in order to stay relevant for future generations of young people and other target groups.