This term our Year 11 Drama students are exploring the topic ‘Theatrical Traditions and Performance Styles’ where they were to unpack the vast history of Theatre. The driving quote has been “Theatre does not change in a vacuum. Every major shift is a response to the world that produced it” and this has resulted in students to explore the different contexts that theatre has changed within. They have also pondered the correlation between God’s Biblical narrative and the enduring human connection to storytelling and exploration of meaning.
Though storytelling existed in ancient and traditional cultures, most scholars regard Ancient Greece as the birthplace of Western theatre. This is where concepts such as staged performances, actors (originally known as ‘hypokrites’) and epic storytelling grew from, and we developed genres such as tragedy and comedy.
Our Year 11 students donned their togas and worked together as a ‘Greek chorus’ to develop an adaption of the famous work by Euripides: ‘The Bacchae’.
