Professor William Huizhu SUN
sunwm@hotmail.com
Vice-President
Shanghai Theatre Academy, China
Prof Sun is a playwright and vice president of Shanghai Theatre Academy. He holds an MA in Literature from Shanghai Theatre Academy (1981) and an MA in Humanities from State University of New York, Buffalo, USA(1985) and a PhD in Performance Studies from New York University (1990). He taught world theatre history, dramatic literature/theory, playwriting, acting, performance studies, etc. at Macalester College, Tufts University in the US, and York University in Toronto, Canada. He taught PhD students since 1993 at Tufts and was resident director. Sun returned to teach in Shanghai in 1999. His major research interests are social performance studies, intercultural theatre and theatre narratology. His research grants include NEH (US) grant and China’s national arts research project. His latest publications include The Fourth Wall: Theatre in Construction and Whose Madam Butterfly? Conflicts on Stage and Clash of Civilizations, and he published over 120 Chinese and English papers published in China, USA, Canada, UK, and Singapore. Sun’ s various plays such as The Old B Hanging on the Wall, China Dream and Yue opera Hedda Gabler have been staged in China, U.S., Japan, Singapore, and Norway.
Teaching for Creativity: from Monologue to Dialogue
In most Chinese schools the traditional pedagogical model is centered in monologue: the teacher lectures and pupils listen and try their best to memorize so they can take exams well. In Confucius times there were still some dialogues between the teacher and students, resulting in the Dialects. In modern schools’ large classrooms, dialogue is less likely. In the past few years when Chinese universities expanded and classes got even larger, teaching became even more monotonously monological. Hence the greatest problem of our education: lack of creativity and original work. Our students are oftentimes best exam takers but far from best communicators and workers, let alone team-workers. In the job market they pale compared to Western counterparts for their lack of experiences in working with their hands and mouth, and with partners.
The essence of theatre is dialogue, which can be used to transform the Chinese education system. The government has realized the value of theatre education in the general education, and has ordered some textbooks to be written for high schools. Yet they were written by inexperienced literature-centered scholars. And there are virtually no competent school teachers with experience in making theatre. My proposal is to start training programs for teachers in three types:
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Drama club teachers who can help students initiate and organize extracurricular theatre activities.
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Regular teachers who can help students in small classes to adapt written text into interactive dialogue or theatrical scenes. |
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Professional coaches who can guide professionals’ continuing education, starting with turning pastime retreat and holiday celebrations into theatre games and forum theatre, etc., gradually making theatre part of their lifelong education. |
孫惠柱教授
孫惠柱教授是上海戲劇學院副院長，也是劇作家和教授。他擁有紐約大學表演研究博士學位，曾任教各地大學。1999年他回國於上海教學。主要研究包括社會表演學、跨文化戲劇、戲劇敘事學。近著有《第四堵牆：戲劇的結構和解構》和《文明沖突與戲劇沖突》，中英文論文120餘篇，劇作《挂在牆上的老B》、《中國夢》、《神仙與好女人》等曾在中、美、日、新加坡演出。
「教授創意 － 從獨白到對白」
大部分中國學校的教學法都是獨白形式和單向的，於是培育出考試出色但溝通力不足的學生。劇作的精髓是對白，可助教育之演變。筆者提議多訓練話劇老師及專業教練，協助學生多參與話劇活動及在假期時多演話劇作樂。
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