An Exploration of the Environment, Composition, and Transmission of the Development of Local Theater and Music in the Natural Environment and Folklore Activities of Tea Picking.

The spread and urbanization of modern culture have led to a crisis in the development and inheritance of traditional culture, coupled with the limitations of traditional drama itself, and local opera has gradually disappeared from the daily life of the local people. Through the analysis of the tea opera cases and the development environment and inheritance of local operas, the paper tries to solve the inheritance dilemma it faces and provides a new perspective and demonstration for the development and inheritance research of Bobai Jinan tea Opera, which is of great significance to the development and propaganda of traditional Chinese culture.

Readers Theatre as an arts-based approach to education: A scoping review on experiences of adult learners and educators.

BACKGROUND: Arts-based educational methodologies have been implemented in nursing and other health disciplines to promote person-centered approaches to care. Readers Theatre has been applied as a tool to promote compassionate and holistic approaches to care. Readers Theatre is a form of drama that requires participants to read aloud a scripted narrative to the audience. OBJECTIVES: To examine the extant literature on experiences of adult learners and educators in utilizing Readers Theatre, and its potential suitability for nurse education. The review question was: "What are the learning experiences of adult students and the teaching experiences of educators in the uptake of Readers Theatre?" DESIGN AND DATA SOURCES: Scoping review guidelines proposed by Arksey and O'Malley were adopted. Academic databases searches were carried out in ProQuest, JSTOR, Scholars Portal, EBSCO, Web of Science, PubMed, Expanded Academic ASAP, and Scopus. REVIEW METHODS: The search and keyword strategy was developed by two reviewers and approved by the lead author, and a librarian. All titles and abstracts were individually examined by the two reviewers with discrepancies discussed and resolved by both parties. Data were extracted for thematic analysis. RESULTS: A total of 31 studies were selected for the final sample. Four themes were identified within the scoping review relevant to Readers Theatre teaching-learning experiences: 1) principles and characteristics; 2) awareness, understanding, caring and empathy; 3) cross-disciplinary collaboration, interdisciplinary education, and knowledge dissemination; and 4) promoting students' skills. CONCLUSIONS: Readers Theatre has the potential to be utilized within a nursing curriculum, and particularly in theory and substantive class-based courses, through active group learning, in the application phase of knowledge acquisition.

A Pilot Remote Drama Therapy Program Using the Co-active Therapeutic Theater Model in People with Serious Mental Illness.

The impact of drama therapy on mental health recovery remains poorly understood. We examined the effects of a pilot remote drama therapy program for community members living with serious mental illness. The entire intervention was delivered remotely. Participants with serious mental illness completed a 12-week drama therapy program which included an online performance open to the public. Four quantitative scales were administered pre- and post-program. A focus group was conducted 1 week after the performance. Six participants completed the program and crafted a public performance themed around hope. No significant differences were identified in the quantitative measures. Five themes were identified in the post-performance focus group. Drama therapy presents an opportunity for individuals with serious mental illness to process and share their journeys with their diagnoses and re-create a healthy sense of self with increased community awareness.

Musical rhythm effects on visual attention are non-rhythmical: evidence against metrical entrainment.

The idea that external rhythms synchronize attention cross-modally has attracted much interest and scientific inquiry. Yet, whether associated attentional modulations are indeed rhythmical in that they spring from and map onto an underlying meter has not been clearly established. Here we tested this idea while addressing the shortcomings of previous work associated with confounding (i) metricality and regularity, (ii) rhythmic and temporal expectations or (iii) global and local temporal effects. We designed sound sequences that varied orthogonally (high/low) in metricality and regularity and presented them as task-irrelevant auditory background in four separate blocks. The participants' task was to detect rare visual targets occurring at a silent metrically aligned or misaligned temporal position. We found that target timing was irrelevant for reaction times and visual event-related potentials. High background regularity and to a lesser extent metricality facilitated target processing across metrically aligned and misaligned positions. Additionally, high regularity modulated auditory background frequencies in the EEG recorded over occipital cortex. We conclude that external rhythms, rather than synchronizing attention cross-modally, confer general, nontemporal benefits. Their predictability conserves processing resources that then benefit stimulus representations in other modalities.

Musical emotions in the absence of music: A cross-cultural investigation of emotion communication in music by extra-musical cues.

Research in music and emotion has long acknowledged the importance of extra-musical cues, yet has been unable to measure their effect on emotion communication in music. The aim of this research was to understand how extra-musical cues affect emotion responses to music in two distinguishable cultures. Australian and Cuban participants (N = 276) were instructed to name an emotion in response to written lyric excerpts from eight distinct music genres, using genre labels as cues. Lyrics were presented primed with genre labels (original priming and a false, lured genre label) or unprimed. For some genres, emotion responses to the same lyrics changed based on the primed genre label. We explain these results as emotion expectations induced by extra-musical cues. This suggests that prior knowledge elicited by lyrics and music genre labels are able to affect the musical emotion responses that music can communicate, independent of the emotion contribution made by psychoacoustic features. For example, the results show a lyric excerpt that is believed to belong to the Heavy Metal genre triggers high valence/high arousal emotions compared to the same excerpt primed as Japanese Gagaku, without the need of playing any music. The present study provides novel empirical evidence of extra-musical effects on emotion and music, and supports this interpretation from a multi-genre, cross-cultural perspective. Further findings were noted in relation to fandom that also supported the emotion expectation account. Participants with high levels of fandom for a genre reported a wider range of emotions in response to the lyrics labelled as being a song from that same specific genre, compared to lower levels of fandom. Both within and across culture differences were observed, and the importance of a culture effect discussed.

A Space to Speak: Therapeutic Theater to Address Gender-Based Violence.

This article examines the experience of eight graduate students in the drama therapy program at Lesley University when creating and performing a theater piece centered around gender-based violence. The performance piece, A Space to Speak, used the performers' real-life stories to highlight their vastly different, yet strikingly similar, experiences and invited the audience to examine their own relationship to those stories. A description of the process used to create and perform the piece is followed by a discussion of the impact the process had on the performers and audience members.

Performing Pimâtisiwin: The Expression of Indigenous Wellness Identities through Community-based Theater.

The performing arts can be a powerful means of wellness, identity exploration, and positive social representation for Indigenous young people. In this article, we outline the results of a year-long collaborative study that explored Indigenous young peoples' relationships between the performing arts, wellness, and resilience. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 Cree and Métis youth about their participation in the Circle of Voices theater program at the Gordon Tootoosis Nik̄an̄iw̄in Theatre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. A strength-based analysis focused on performing pimâtisiwin, that is, how young people learn to enact, protest, and play with a wide range of social identities, while also challenging racially stereotyped identities often imposed on them within inner-city environments. This research critically engages performative theory to more readily understand aspects of Indigenous youth identity and wellness and offers new empirical and methodological directions for advancing Indigenous youth wellness in urban settings.

A Robot-Based Play-Drama Intervention May Improve the Joint Attention and Functional Play Behaviors of Chinese-Speaking Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have deficits in joint attention and play behaviors. We examined whether a robot-based play-drama intervention would promote these skills. Chinese-speaking preschool children were randomly assigned to an intervention group (N = 12) and a waitlist control group (N = 11). Children in the intervention group watched three robot dramas and engaged in role-plays with both robots and human experimenters over the course of 9 weeks. There were significant improvements in joint attention initiations and functional play behaviors in the intervention group. Parents of this group of children also reported less severe social impairments. It was therefore concluded that a robot-based play-drama intervention can enhance the joint attention and play behaviors of children with ASD.

Robot-based play-drama intervention may improve the narrative abilities of Chinese-speaking preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder.

BACKGROUND: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have deficits in their narrative skills and gestural communication. Very few intervention studies have been conducted with the aim of improving these skills. AIMS: We examined whether children with ASD who received the robot-based drama intervention had better narrative abilities and gestured more often than their peers who did not receive the intervention. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Preschool children were randomly assigned to the intervention group (N = 13) and waitlist control group (N = 13). Children in the intervention group watched three robot dramas and engaged in roleplays with both robots and human experimenters. Children in both groups took the pre-tests, immediate post-tests, and, two week later, delayed post-tests, in which they narrated three stories. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: There were significant improvements in various narrative measures, including narrative length, syntactic complexity, narrative structure, and cognitive inferences, in the intervention group. There was also an improvement in the average number of overall gestures per clause in this condition. These learning outcomes were maintained in the delayed post-test. These patterns were not found in the waitlist control group. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: A robot-based play-drama intervention can enhance the narrative abilities and gestural communication of children with ASD.

Envelhecimento Ativo em Questão - Reflexões a partir de uma Oficina de Teatro com Pessoas Idosas / Active Aging in Question - Reflections from a Theater Workshop with Older People / Envejecimiento Activo en Questión: Reflexiones de un Taller de Teatro con Personas Mayores

O conceito de Envelhecimento Ativo, preconizado pela Organização Mundial de Saúde e propagado pelos discursos midiáticos e acadêmicos, carrega certa subjetividade sobre o envelhecer que, a nosso ver, precisa ser reavaliado. Com prescrições sobre o que seria um envelhecimento bem-sucedido, idealiza-se a pessoa idosa-modelo e descarta-se o dissenso e as singularidades. Neste trabalho, apresentamos uma vivência de teatro voltada a pessoas de mais idade, que pretende contribuir com reflexões acerca deste conceito e sugerir formas originais de pensar e viver a velhice.

The concept of Active Aging, advocated by the World Health Organization and propagated by media and academic discourses, carries a certain subjectivity about aging that, in our view, needs to be reevaluated. With prescriptions on what would be a successful aging, idealize the elderly model and discard dissent and singularities. In this paper, we present a theater experience aimed at older people who want to contribute reflections on this concept and suggest original ways of thinking and living old age.

El concepto de Envejecimiento Activo, defendido por la Organización Mundial de la Salud y propagado por los medios de comunicación y los discursos académicos, conlleva una cierta subjetividad sobre el envejecimiento que, en nuestra opinión, debe ser reevaluada. Con recetas sobre lo que sería un envejecimiento exitoso, idealice el modelo de ancianos y descarte la disidencia y las singularidades. En este artículo, presentamos una experiencia teatral dirigida a personas mayores que desean aportar reflexiones sobre este concepto y sugerir formas originales de pensar y vivir la vejez.

Common Ground: Frameworks for Teaching Improvisational Ability in Medical Education.

Issue: The practice of medicine is intrinsically unpredictable. Clinicians must respond skillfully to this uncertainty; therefore, medical educators are using improvisational theater training methods to teach improvisational ability in areas such as communication and professionalism. This teaching approach is called "medical improv." Although early reports of medical improv suggest promise, the collective descriptions of curricular content lack consistency. This ambiguity creates impediments for further implementation and research of this new educational technique. To address this challenge, the author presents two unifying conceptual frameworks for medical improv curricula. Evidence: Medical improv evolved from previous work done in improvisational (improv) theater and "applied improv," which is the broader category of improv-based training in nontheater environments. The author synthesized curricular elements from all three fields of improv into two conceptual frameworks: core curricular components (skills, principles, and exercises) and core skill groups (attunement, affirmation, and advancement). The curricular component framework simplifies terminology and clarifies a previously vague distinction between skills and principles. The skill group framework harnesses a redundant and wide-ranging list of improv skills into three categories. Together, the frameworks provide a simple structure that encompasses and organizes the core concepts of medical improv. Implications: These curricular frameworks enable educators and learners to more easily understand the scope and depth of medical improv concepts and to identify areas where medical improv could enhance existing medical education strategies. For example, there is substantial overlap between improvisation skills and current curricular objectives for communication skills, as outlined by Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education benchmarks (e.g., Milestones, Competencies, Entrustable Professional Activities). Medical improv courses could be an efficient way to achieve many of these objectives. In addition, improv-based exercises represent an experiential learning modality that is underutilized in communication skills training; therefore, exercises could be integrated into existing coursework to bridge the learning pathway between texts and simulation. Furthermore, the deliberate cultivation of affirmation skills could enhance resilience and wellness in clinical and learning environments. In summary, through their conceptual simplicity, these curricular frameworks for medical improv can help educators understand, study, and optimize teaching of improvisation in medical education.

The use of drama within midwifery education to facilitate the understanding of professional behaviour and values.

OBJECTIVE: to develop student midwife understanding of professional values and the application of these in clinical practice, prior to commencing their first clinical placement. DESIGN: an action research project. SETTING: a Simulation Suite environment within a University setting. PARTICIPANTS: 6 year 3 drama students and a cohort of 36 midwifery students. FINDINGS: the students were supportive of the idea of collaborative projects as this permitted the facilitation of student understanding of key professional values and their application in the clinical setting. KEY CONCLUSIONS: the students felt that the move away from a didactic approach to learning and teaching towards a more experiential model of teaching, enabled a more in depth reflection on the importance of professional standards and behaviour when providing care to pregnant women.

Effects of Playback Theatre on cognitive function and quality of life in older adults in Singapore: A preliminary study.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the effects of Playback Theatre on older adults' cognitive function and well-being, specifically in the Singapore context. METHODS: Eighteen healthy older adults, older than 50 years of age, participated in the study. Due to practical limitations, a single-group pre-post study design was adopted. Participants completed the outcome measures before and after the training program. There were six weekly sessions in total (about 1.5 hours, once weekly). RESULTS: Participants experienced a significant improvement in their emotional well-being after training. However, there were no significant changes in participants' cognitive function or health-related quality of life. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that Playback Theatre as a community program has potential to improve the mental and emotional well-being of older people.

Participatory theatre and mental health recovery: a narrative inquiry.

AIMS: To identify the potential relationship between participation in theatre and mental health recovery. To give voice to the stories told by participants of Teater Vildenvei, a theatre company that has been part of the rehabilitation programme for mental health service users in Oslo since 1995. METHODS: Twelve narrative interviews were conducted among participants of Teater Vildenvei, and the data were subject to a narrative analysis process following the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur and the specific methods of thematic, event and relational analysis as identified by Riessman. RESULTS: The narratives are considered in the theoretical light of the mental health recovery framework as identified by Leamy et al. Each participant had experienced a transformation in identity; the sense of belonging within the group was perceived as highly important to their mental health; engagement with the theatre company gives people something meaningful to do, a sense of hope and individuals feel empowered. CONCLUSIONS: This narrative inquiry gave opportunity for participants to elaborate on their stories of their engagement with Teater Vildenvei. It is through the richness of the data that the depth of the significance of meaning that people ascribe to their stories demonstrates the potential power of participatory theatre for mental health recovery. Because of its effects, people make life-changing and life-saving claims.

The performing arts and psychological well-being.

Although psychotropic drugs have been hailed as, 'One of the success stories of modern psychiatry' the prescribing of these medicines has not been without commotion, concern and controversy. Moreover, the President of the World Psychiatry Association Professor Dinesh Bhugra and colleagues, after conducting a recent large-scale study (n=25,522) on psychiatric morbidity in the UK, collectively issued the clarion call that, 'The mental health of the nation was unlikely to be improved by treatment with psychotropic medication alone'. The provision of mental healthcare services may likely benefit from a holistic approach that includes a variety of treatment options that prioritizes patient safety and preference. The performing arts is gaining popularity among service users as an adjunctive form of treatment for mental illness. There is a growing body of evidence that provisionally supports the claim that art therapy, 'Possesses the power to heal psychological wounds'. The North American Drama Therapy Association defines drama therapy as, 'The intentional use of drama and/or theatre processes to achieve therapeutic goals' and that it is 'active and experiential'. This review article discusses and describes the merits of dramatherapy and how this treatment modality can contribute to a patient's recovery from psychological distress.

Transforming identity through participation in music and theatre: exploring narratives of people with mental health problems.

BACKGROUND: There is a growing understanding that mental health problems and prolonged contact with mental healthcare systems can affect people's identities. Working with identity is an important element in mental health recovery. PURPOSE: In this article, we explore the significance of participation in a music and theatre workshop in terms of people`s experiences of identity. DESIGN AND METHODS: This is a qualitative study based on a hermeneutical phenomenological epistemology. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 11 participants at a music and theater workshop, analysed through a narrative analysis and presented in an ideographical "long" narrative form. The music and theater workshop is not overtly therapeutic although the activity takes place in a Norwegian mental health hospital for adults living with long-term mental health problems. RESULTS: We identified three crosscutting themes: (1) becoming a whole person, (2) being allowed to hold multiple identities and (3) exploring diverse perspectives. CONCLUSION: Findings show that participation in the music and theatre workshop transformed the participants' experiences of identity on two levels: individually and collectively. The participants developed a broader picture of themselves through their creative work with others. When they developed new identities, the narratives of themselves expanded.

Alternative Medicine: Contagion and Cure in Karel Capek's The White Plague.

Though written amid an atmosphere of unprecedented medical advance in both diagnosis and therapeutics, Karel Capek's The White Plague takes a starkly critical stance against overconfidence in medical science and its dubious ethical orbit. This article explores Capek's censure of those who would privilege scientific interest in disease over the holistic plight of the sufferer. Provocatively, Capek achieves this not only via the play's content, but also-prefiguring aspects of contemporary live art practice by several decades-by placing audience members in worrying proximity to abject ill bodies. Capek proposes a sort of theatrical homeopathy, suggesting that limited exposure to the threat of disease might spur spectators toward empathy for those who suffer and promote a healthier, more compassionate society.