This paper will explore the use of Heathcote’s rolling role system in a series of drama teaching and research projects which aimed to connect different educational sites, participants and disciplines in shared drama processes. Using a geodramatic analytic framework this presentation will examine and frame drama as a ‘pedagogy of connection’ where the roll of the drama, modes of publication and the sharing of dramatic artefacts between participants in different contexts enabled complex learning exchanges to take place. These exchanges referenced local contexts, individuals and issues and they also provided unique opportunities for boundary encounters and crossings in terms of epistemology and relationship to each other and to local and global contexts. Now more than ever it seems we need a ‘pedagogy of connection’ and creative spaces to ‘stir our knowledge together’.
Dr Christine Hatton works in the School of Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where she researches and teaches in the field of drama and creative arts education. Her research explores the workings of gender and identity in the drama classroom, drama teacher artistry and expertise, artists in residence programs and the uses of digital technologies in drama. She was a member of the international project on repurposing Heathcote’s rolling role system using digital technologies (https://www.water-reckoning.net) and has published a range of papers resulting from the study of that project. She is the chief investigator, with Mary Mooney, in the Fresh AiR Initiative Research Study (2014 – 2016) funded by Arts NSW, a study which examined the impacts of sustained artists-in-schools residencies (https://freshairresearch.com).
