Soukayna El Hassani Alaoui as Officer Escalus in Charlie Lovett’s “Romeo and Winnifred”;
Directed by Shannon Bruce Ramaka; December 2011.
The first poster I bought for my classroom was purchased from the Aerospace Museum in Washington, D.C. It was a large black and white poster of Albert Einstein’s head with shaggy grey hair and the writing, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” In 1992, before my training with Jeannette, and reading The Learning Revolution, it felt like a radical thought that I believed whole-heartedly, but couldn’t professionally justify or nurture. Now after ten years of implementing true learning methods in a wide range of classrooms (American public schools, International private schools, all subjects grades k-8, art and drama classrooms grades 6-12, and undergraduate/graduate courses), I personally understand and can testify to the profound wisdom of this statement. Albert Einstein wasn’t saying that knowledge wasn’t important; he was just saying that imagination is more important. He learned to develop his imagination as a scientist when drafting his most famous theories; I have learned to develop mine as an artist and teacher. It took me some time, but I think it is the most important concept to understanding ourselves and others. Here is just one example:
Soukayna, one of my grade ten theatre students in Casablanca, Morocco presented a lesson that I later referred to as “Imagination Location”. She was asked to study a theatrical theorist and make a presentation to the class in which she also created a “game” or activity that would explain to the class what the theorist thought about directing, acting, and theatre. The month prior she had written, directed and acted in her first play and in the fall had starred in two comedic character roles while also co-directing a scene with me. She was ready for this challenge of “teaching” others but I was still surprised at her depth of understanding. In fact, I would say over the two years that I worked with her, she had become one of the most talented, student director- in- training, that I have worked with in my twenty-year career. For this project, she had chosen to study the contemporary radical American director, Anne Bogart, who I think of as “Stanislavski on Steroids”. Both Anne Bogart and Constantin Stanislavski, the famous Russian theorist of the early 20th century, use personal visualization exercises to help actors craft characters from the “inside-out”. Thus, if the actor is to express joy, they would need to “imagine a time or situation where they personally felt joy”…and then magnify these feelings by ten, until the physical body expressed these emotions. What was exciting about this particular experience was that she stepped fully into a “teaching” role and I slid into her desk as”student”. It had been twenty five years since I participated in an acting class and really had not had the opportunity where my class had developed so much self- management that I could join them fully as a student! I eagerly and nervously followed her guiding questions:
• Imagine a certain location, any kind of location anywhere in the world and write it down.
• What do you see, feel, hear, touch, taste?
• Now, decide what time period you’re in, and again what you feel, touch, see taste, and hear?
• Imagine there is someone with you. Who is that someone, what is your relationship with them? Imagine a dilemma, or an emotion you feel towards them?
• What do you see in the future? Write an ending to what you see? But before you write anything, I want you to close your eyes, and imagine what the outcome is going to be like. Open your eyes, and without speaking write!
• Stand up, and act it out. Try and remember sometime that you felt like this, and magnify the feeling by 10. Act out your scene. Make it seem as real as possible
• Abruptly stop. What do you feel?
Images flooded my mind of “Cape Flats”—I had seen them from the highway near Cape Town in 2006 and it had left a strong impression. I imagined that I was a reporter wanting to know more about what was inside the flats and stumbled upon a young child who was starving and alone. It reminded me of my own daughter who is now 18 and living on her own (barely surviving as she pursues her dreams) in New York City.
Here is what I had written:
Now..Cape Town, South Africa…Brown…mud…cardboard box…soggy bread with flies…dark…sounds of hunger…children…it is dusk…cold and wet…alone but surrounded by many..painful back because I have to scrunch down for a long period of time under the roof…echoes of voices..stray dog that is a mucky brown.
Two students before me dared to act out their characters and images. The room waited in silence as I set up an area with chairs and a small white blanket to distiquish a flat. Then I began the improvisation and was greatly touched by my student’s response. “Miss, you made me cry”…”Miss, that was so amazing!”…”Miss, it seemed so real.”…and I said, “Yes, I could really relate to this situation. I was thinking about my daughter, you know. It is really hard for us as parents when you go off to college and there is so little we can do for you at a great distance.” A blanket of thoughtful quiet descended again.
Each student then shared aloud their rough draft of images as we guessed the location and feelings involved and discussed how the images could be developed further to create original monologues. I was moved mostly by the stretch in their emotional body and realized how important exercises like this are to teaching empathy—which is the first step in connecting with any human related topic of study.
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