Webinar #22 | Victoria Campbell & Zoe Hogan - Connecting Through Drama: Sydney Theatre Company's 'Connected' Program

Connected is a Sydney Theatre Company program for adults learning an additional language. It focuses on the power of drama and storytelling to improve literacy, confidence and social connection. Connected uses traditional myths and folktales as a basis for learning, to explore character, place and meaning.

Ancient stories such as myths and folktales provide a sense of the ‘timeless present’. When people encounter a story together in a collaborative space, for instance in a Connected drama workshop, there is a certain type of alchemy that takes place – imaginations are mixed together as new narrative territory is discovered.

In this presentation, Zoe and Victoria, from Sydney Theatre Company, will reflect on how working with these types of ancient tales provides imaginative foundations for drama work, and how participants, who may not share a common language, lean on the universal language of story for support in their own learning.

Presenters: Zoe Hogan is Director of Education & Community Partnerships at Sydney Theatre Company. Victoria Campbell is a lecturer in the Creative Arts at The University of Sydney. They are both Teaching Artists for Sydney Theatre Company’s Connected and School Drama programs.

Book: Connecting Through Drama, recently published by Currency Press, is a practical, comprehensive text for educators and theatre practitioners who want to develop engaging drama learning experiences and present them confidently, especially with adults from refugee and migrant communities.