NATALIE REWA
Richard Knowles calls upon the academic community to interrogate pedagogical assumptions in drama and theatre programmes. He directs attention to teaching as cultural acts which have developed, in some cases, in critically dormant contexts. His remarks concerning the opposition of praxis and theory are particularly intriguing given the appropriation of the "performative" by cultural studies.
His call for fresh perspectives on teaching as cultural acts is of considerable significance. Any such self-examination by the academic community would imply, of course, a move toward an interdisciplinarity which takes into account not only what is being taught, but to whom, and by whom. Such examination would doubtless reveal the inadequacies of a tradition of training at the post-secondary level that grafted the amateur dramatic society onto academic programmes. The course structure which reflects this theatrical/academic practice might, to good effect, be reconfigured in the light of new theoretical and practical explorations of the teaching of drama and theatre.
Issues to be confronted arise from the diverse manifestations of contemporary Canadian culture and the rapidity of demographic cultural transformation, The consequences of this diversity and cultural change should be resonating in the teaching of drama and theatre. New academic programmes might explore some of the issues which are broached (often with controversy) by professional artists. Whose theatre is being taught? And how do teaching methods and evaluative standards privilege a particular definition of (some groups') theatre? Questions may be asked not only about where boundaries of inquiry are drawn but by whom. Is the theatre being taught derived primarily from very particular models of cultural activity? How has the profound movement of peoples globally within the last two decades and the impact that this has had on theatre practice internationally been integrated into the teaching of drama and theatre? Does the teaching amount to an exclusionary practice where danced or sung drama, for instance, are outside the parameters of immediate study? An intercultural approach to the physical circumstances of "performance" should make for a dynamic pedagogy. Perhaps, too, it is time to consider the multiplicity of texts possible for performance so that traditions of storytelling or dub poetry, for example, could be part of a curriculum. Is the richness of Caribana excluded because some might consider it neither drama nor theatre?Two other major areas needing further exploration and study concern the composition of drama departments. Enrolment in drama or theatre programmes has not been systematically analyzed but a cursory review of university classes leaves no doubt that the cultural demographics of Canadian society-especially urban society-are not reflected in the student composition of departments. Moreover, the male-female student ratios by class tend not to be treated as a present cultural reality to which an adequate response is required. Theatre is not gender-neutral, but much of the teaching of theatre appears to be based in that assumption. In theatre history, for instance, there is often very little acknowledgement of alternative dating of significant periods. Theatre history may only too easily reinforce in the classroom (however unwittingly) the exclusionary practices of the past. More generally, the dynamics in the drama and theatre studios and lecture rooms might be critically evaluated as they have been in secondary and primary education.
Continuing in this line of thinking, Knowles's seconding of Hélène Beauchamp's argument that "theatre research as practice: a practice in theatre" should be carefully considered is à propos. The profile of research and creative activity undertaken by the members of a department is crucial to developing critical, scholarly or artistic attitudes in the students. Insistence on a variety of approaches in "theatre practice" of faculty would immediately challenge certain hegemonic impositions and would reflect the interdisciplinarity of the subject matter and inquiry. More pragmatically, who are the faculty members? A quick review of university drama and theatre departments reveals a disturbing homogeneity in the faculty and a quantitative discorrespondence with the cultures and gender of their students. For the most part the tenured faculty are caucasian and mostly male. In some departments the ratio of male to female faculty can be as high as 7:1 (with a nod to such inequity made up by untenured female adjuncts). Professions of equity in hiring are rarely matched in action, no matter what the institutional or federal policies, and the "best" candidate for a job usually turns out to be best in relation to the existing-and often naively unreflective-power and value structures. Why is it that feminism's critiques of organizational and power structures are so adamantly resisted in drama and theatre departments? In other university departments and curricula as well as in the theatrical profession they have made much more headway, it appears. The changes that have taken place in Canada's professional theatre since Rina Fraticelli's study of The Status of Women in Canadian Theatre in 1982 might be used as a useful gauge for the encouragement of diversity among scholars and practitioners in the academy.
In order to proceed with the kind of reform that Knowles proposes the immediate circumstances of teaching within the arts must be acknowledged. A prime element to effect more than a cosmetic change is an appreciation of the status of the teaching of performing arts as more than "how to." The university or college programme cannot replicate the professional training programme, but can be admirably situated-given the will-to probe and express contemporary cultures.