Drama Showcase at POWIIS
“TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET. SHOW ME AND I WILL REMEMBER. INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND.”
- CHINESE PROVERB
The above-mentioned proverb best explains why Drama is an essential subject in schools.
Dramatic Arts education is an important means of stimulating creativity in problem solving. It can challenge students’ perceptions about their world and about themselves. Dramatic exploration can provide students with an outlet for emotions, thoughts, and dreams that they might not otherwise have means to express. A student can, if only for a few moments, become another, explore a new role, try out and experiment with various personal choices and solutions to very real problems from his own life, or problems faced by characters in literature or historical figures. This can happen in a safe atmosphere, where actions and consequences can be examined, discussed, and in a very real sense experienced without the dangers and pitfalls that such experimentation would obviously lead to in the "real" world. This is perhaps the most important reason for Dramatic Arts in schools.
In addition to its intrinsic educational value, Drama can reinforce the rest of the school curriculum. Since communication and empathy are central to Drama, a student who has explored in the Drama classroom will be better able to understand ideas in History and Current Events. The link between Dramatic Arts and subjects such as English, History, Social Studies, and related areas is obvious. The study of literature would be impossible without Drama. More importantly, Drama can be used to promote active learning in any subject - to give students a kinesthetic and empathetic understanding as well as an intellectual understanding of a topic.
All students in Years 7 to 9 at the Prince of Wales Island International School (POWIIS) do drama as a subject. In Year 10 Drama is offered as an IGCSE subject and can then lead on to A-levels in Years 12 and 13. Drama is also offered as an extra-mural activity. Musicals are very popular within the POWIIS community. This year will be no exception when the Drama and Music Departments in collaboration will put on the Disney version of Beauty and The Beast. Another first for POWIIS and Penang was when they offered an immersion program; working together with the Penang Players, a school from Singapore and local schools.
This past weekend, the Drama Department hosted a Drama showcase of exam pieces from the IGCSE and A-level students. It was a delightful afternoon with pieces of a very high standard. The A-level students performed a varied of monologues from well-known authors. The IGCSE students presented some one-act plays by playwrights such as Edward Albee and Eugene Ionesco. The audience was also entertained by a group of Czech exchange students. The most dramatic moment of the afternoon was when The Young Man played by De Hu Lim revealed his real status as the angel of death – indeed a very touching moment when Grandma (played by Alvin Lu) was “fetched” by this character.
“The truth is not found in books, but in life itself,” was the main message conveyed in the no-sense absurd piece The Bald Prima Donna.
The acting by all students was crisp and entertaining and added to the variety offered by POWIIS!
For more information, visit www.powiis.edu.my