Act SEX! project and the English guest lecturer

Text: Rita Vahalcsik - international trainee in Pangaia

Guest lecturer from England

I have been talking with Anna Helena McLean from England – an actress, musician and director – guest lecturer, in the company of Wenche Torrissen, the drama teacher in charge of the course, and Delia Tomei, an Erasmus exchange drama student, about the ongoing workshop for one of the drama courses at Volda University College.

It is organized by the Drama department and inspired by the international experiences. As Anna Helena McLean says:

- My world-wide connections that I gained throughout a job for 7 years in Poland, inspired my present work a lot. As I see, The United Kingdom and the Western European countries are quite opened towards the Eastern `production`. However the language could have been a drawback but with the help of exploring the text deeply, the performance can manage to transfer the message.

The workshop focuses on a better, more expressing physical act that can communicate well with the audience. To improve the students stand on stage, while on the same time, serving them with an idea of how to learn about yourself; your identity; your characteristics was the main intention.  As Anna Helena continues “it is a (self-) therapeutic idea through communication” that is beneficial both for student and audience.

A performance open for everybody

The leader teacher, Wenche Torrissen, takes over to talk a little more about the project:

“The performance will be held on Saturday (2^nd of April), in Kaarstad building, in the Theater hall. In spite of the fact that the project goes on only for 3 days, the students are doing good so far. We use drama methods, theater methods to explore the text. It is very challenging for everyone, but mainly for the international students and Anna Helena because the texts come from the Norwegian (literature) heritage and none of the students knows these texts.”

She says they work with the character; they expect the students to give clear ideas about the roles. This would lead to an almost perfect dramatic play. But as they both agree, for a perfect act you should practice at least 3 years. Wenche is very optimistic though: “Whatever will happen on Saturday, it is very exciting.”

The course includes smaller plays and these are considered as essay, but not as an exam play. With this act the students can show the bases of their course, what they study, what had been created so far. On the other hand they can practice English and get more confident with it.

Wenche tells us that:

“It is very interesting to see the class when the half of it is Norwegian and the other half is international student. Based on my experiences the Norwegian students have less experience in analyzing texts but had been more on the stage. However the international students have better analytical skills in text and are less comfortable on stage and during performance. It is a massive challenge and exciting how much you can `push` people.  Luckily our students take it well.”

International students with no drama background integrated in the course

Delia Tomei turns the discussion into the student perspective. She says that at the beginning she had no idea about what will happen with the Norwegian text. However the topic about gender issues, feminism, sexuality, love or relationship problems attracted her a lot. They had to cooperate with each other and the brainstorming about how to turn the topic into a performance brought them closer. She says:

“We became a better team, it is wonderful to see how the Norwegian students got used to us, and to speak English. “ Then she continues with more about the Act Sex! project “It is a very tricky task and adventure how to perform.  We found this title that everybody was satisfied with, because it can be connected to many different things. It does not necessarily mean to show-in sexual act but issues with gender and how the society thinks about these.”

As they all agree they made a strong statement with the title that attracts a lot of people for various reasons. But there is already a huge interest towards the event. They say they do not know what will be the result of the hard work for 3 days but it was already worth it because everybody enjoyed the training. It is a trial for all participants, but both they and the organizers think that there is a big chance for repeating the workshop in the next year.

If you are interested in drama at VUC, please do not hesitate to contact Wenche Torrissen (www.hivolda.no.)

Or if you are interested in Anna Helena McLean`s work, visit www.moonfool.com .