Art teachers enhance skills in drama |17 July 2018

A group of art teachers on Mahé are now better equipped to teach drama to children after completing a workshop on basic techniques of teaching drama.

The workshop was held on June 27 at the International Conference Centre (ICCS).

The one-day workshop for primary and secondary school art teachers was organised by the Theatre Association of Seychelles (TAS) in collaboration with the National Arts Council (NAC) and the National Conservatoire of Performing Arts (NCPA).

It was facilitated by Kurt Lagrenade, drama teacher at NCPA.

The workshop focused on improvisation and devising where they learned to write and develop improvised drama scripts in their own ways through their own imagination.

They also learned how and ways to detect talents among children.

Mr Lagrenade said that other drama techniques, like acting, will be held in future workshops.  

The 33 arts teachers received their certificates in a small ceremony held at the NAC on Friday afternoon in the presence of the chief executive of NAC, Jimmy Savy, the chairperson of TAS, Angelin Marie and staff of NAC.

To show what they had learned from the workshop, four participants got together to improvise a comic theatrical sketch, on a husband being caught cheating by his wife, to the delight of all present.

Mr Savy thanked the participants for coming on the programme which he said will make children in particular more aware of the importance of theatre.

“If we want a generation who believe in culture and in theatre to a higher level, we have to start with the children,” he said and urged them to follow other workshops on the same genre to be conducted later.

Margaret Vel from Beau Vallon secondary school said she greatly benefited from the workshop as she has been provided with different techniques on how to start a piece of drama, the title, the introduction, the development of the theme and the conclusion, things she had some knowledge of but did not know how to go about implementing them.

“I’ve also learned about techniques on how to get children to be interested in theatre,” she added.

Expectations will be high in the drama segment of ‘Moman Kreativite’, which will be held during the Creole Festival in October.