An Evaluation of the Use of Online Technologies in Acting Courses after the Pandemic
Emre YalçınAs we progress toward a release from the global pandemic conditions and a normalization process, this study aims to mount arguments about the possibility of benefiting from an online learning model for training actors aside from extraordinary conditions and to engender headlines and data that present the requirement of more advanced academic discussions in this situation. As will be seen, the main obstacle to the opportunities online education provides for acting training, which leads to flexible time, independence from space and instructor-student physical togetherness, autodidactic learning with the distortion of the instructor’s hegemonic function in learning processes, is the tendency to take refuge in solid and preconceived ideas about the matter. It is of great significance to bring up for discussion the perception that pins acting training to theatre education, explains theatre only via its performance, and, accordingly, regards online technologies as functionless and degenerative. There is need to revise these mainstream notions.
Pandemi Sonrası Oyunculuk Eğitiminde Online Teknolojilerin Kullanımı Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme
Emre YalçınBu çalışma küresel pandemi koşullarından çıkıp normalleşme sürecine geçtiğimiz bugünlerde, olağanüstü koşulların dışında da oyunculuk eğitiminde online ders içeriklerinden faydalanabileceğine dair argümanlar oluşturmayı, konuyla ilişkili yapılacak daha gelişkin akademik tartışmaların gerekliliğini ortaya koyan veriler ve başlıklar oluşturmayı hedeflemektedir. Görüleceği üzere oyunculuk eğitiminde online eğitimin sunduğu, esnek zamanlı, mekana ve öğretmen-öğrencinin fiziksel birlikteliğine bağımlı olmayan, öğretmenin öğrenme süreçlerindeki hegemonik işlevini kırıp otodidaktik öğrenmeye yol açan olanakların önündeki en büyük engel, konuyla ilişkili katı ve kalıplaşmış düşüncelere sığınma eğilimidir. Oyunculuk eğitimini tiyatro eğitimine sabitleyen, tiyatroyu da yalnızca onun performatifliğiyle açıklayan ve bu doğrultuda online teknolojileri işlevsiz ve yozlaştırıcı olarak gören algının tartışmaya açılması, genel geçer düşüncelerin yeniden gözden geçirilmesi kritik derecede önem arz etmektedir.
Could it be possible for acting training to benefit from online class content aside from extraordinary conditions such as those experienced in the recent pandemic? There is a fundamental and rigid perception about acting training and, by predicating on theatre’s ontological foundation, this perception shows the attitude of rejecting online technologies at first value regarding them as functionless or even degenerative. Considering that departments providing training for acting are mostly those of performing arts and theatre, this is an understandable situation to some extent. Theatre is a performing art. It possesses a realm of existence that is living, occurring in the here and now, and is based on the physical togetherness of the performers and the spectator. As Peggy Phelan emphasizes in her observations about performance, when being copied and reproduced or transformed to digital content, its “ontological engagement decreases” and it turns into something else. Acting training has a performative aspect. The “feedback” cycle that Erika Fischer-Lichte identifies in performance, comes to light in acting training, too. In acting classes, the roles of the students and instructors perpetually interchange. Together they compose an ensemble and, in just the same way as that which occurs in theatrical performances, this ensemble experiences different manners of physical encounter. The relationship between distance and closeness, the societal and the personal, a glance and a touch…
In the manner that Phelan and Lichte’s notions support it, can the idea be argued that online education cannot be engaged for acting training regarding these ontological foundations of theatre? Or do the ontological foundations of theatre only consist of its performance? Moreover, does the fact that acting is embedded traditionally in theatre departments require us to consider theatre and acting training as being identical and interdependent to this degree? How much longer can we seek shelter in the stereotyped notions by sticking to traditional theatrical education that rejects the possibilities that online education offers, while it is obvious that today acting graduates practice their profession more in the cinema, TV, and on digital or social media platforms than on stage arts and that they require educational content for these areas?
Departing from these questions, this study aims to draw up scientific data, arguments, and points of discussion that will provide us with away to revise our mainstream ideas about the application of online educational content for acting training. Accordingly, it suggests considering the mimetic aspect of theatre as well against the stereotyped notion that rejects online education at first hand by predicating on its performative bases. Primarily, it discusses the mimetic learning processes that function with compositions such as mimicking, representation, reflection, establishing empathy, and identification, which Plato and Aristotle discussed around 2400 years ago. Thereafter, it interrogates why we do not consider online education by basing on mimesis, which is another foundation of theatre, but missed online education by taking only its performative aspect into account, while our biological device permits it in the manner the discovery of mirror neurons support it. Afterwards, autodidactic processes are discussed in detail, which have a significant role in acting training as in every educational field, and opportunities presented in this direction by online education are pointed out. In this regard, there is a focus on what kind of alternatives online education offers against traditional education, which cannot work beyond the physical togetherness of the student and instructor, all subject to the educational processes of the hegemonic relationship determined by the instructor and prepares the students only for stage acting after graduation. As for the last chapter, the content and practices of online acting training created in various platforms, establishments or programs are discussed. A considerable amount, quality, and variety of online practices carried out, constitute data and experiences that enable it to approach the subject with further thought.
