A practical and international approach
Coming from the public French educational system, my experience with drama was very limited until I joined, in 2001, the local improv' group of Strasbourg, my French home town.
What started out of curiosity and as a personal challenge quickly became a passion, a continuous personal project and, eventually, a professional asset. As I learned, improved and developed my skills pretty much exclusively through practice, I found myself extremely lucky and thankful to have been working and exchanging with such talented, disciplined and committed people along those years, especially in France, Germany and Vietnam, but also during my studies in Norway. I owe these fellow coaches, directors, producers and actors my current vision of drama, that I now try to share with my students. |
Turning a gym into a theatre - The Little Shop of Horrors, ISHCMC, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2012
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To me, drama is, before anything else, work, focus, organisation and discipline. Those are the conditions of a proper show, those are what makes the difference between sloppy and entertaining, between 'cute' and thought provoking, between amateurish and professional. Only when those foundations are established, can talent and creativity come into play and turn something pleasant into something exceptional.
Greek Theatre unit - Shanghai, China, 2021
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Commitment and work first, and the fun and the recognition will follow - a vision obviously equally influenced by my job as a French teacher, or by learning foreign languages myself: two areas requiring particularly high patience and discipline in order to have satisfying results. A perspective that could only be confirmed by my experiences of working with various cultures, environments and ages: success is primarily work and dedication, and is independent of considerations like generations, budgets or cultural background.
More than a hobby, drama literally changed my personality and my vision of the world (and of myself) for the better, teaching me more than better artistic sensitivity and self-confidence: a sense of effort, collaboration, efficiency, initiative and responsibilities. |
Collaboration with a musician friend - creating a storytelling show for kids,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2013 |
A professional achievement
Before becoming a teacher, I would have never thought that my experience in theatre could become a professional asset. However, it quickly appeared to be so with my first teaching position abroad, in Hungary. Not only did this experience make a difference when being hired, but it was immediately confirmed as a handy communicating tool: Among my several classes and subjects, I had to teach drama (in French) to Hungarian students. They barely understood me at first, as we did not have any proper common tongue. The challenge turned into a great experience, influencing my teaching methods for French tremendously, and eventually leading to the writing and creation of a very nice 15mn play in French, "La Révolution des Mannequins" that we presented to a small Hungarian French-speaking theater festival. A direct consequence of this was that three out of the five involved students integrated the next year into a French immersion program in high school.
Beyond the linguistic opportunities it offered, teaching drama not only quickly became an enjoyment in itself, but also an excellent complement to teaching French. They do not require the same type of energy, nor reward teachers and students in the same way. Foreign languages are a subject I find amazingly brain stimulating, as they are obviously conversationally oriented. They demand a lot of preparation and intellectual finesse, for instance with mnemonic tricks, parallels between languages, metaphors, debates, etc. On the other end of the pedagogic spectrum, regular drama classes usually take less preparation, but one single one hour long class demands an incredible quantity of physical energy, and the productions represent an amount of challenges, planning and stress to overcome impossible to seize to anyone who has never been involved in one.
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Various pictures of my work as a drama teacher, from the early days in Hungary and Germany, to direction, production and stage managing in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Nairobi, Kenya. Hoover over for details.
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To me, this creates an excellent dynamic, as teaching drama balances out teaching languages, and vice versa. They provide different outcomes and need different teaching mechanisms and energies. It took several teaching years before having full responsibilities for major school productions, but directing and producing plays is something so rewarding, I really hope to be able to keep doing for many more years, hopefully both as a teacher and outside from school.
Arsenic et Vieilles Dentelles - acting and direction - Shanghai, China, 2021 - personal project
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An ongoing journey
With a background mostly based on practical experience, a true passion for the stage, and the principle that it is good practice to keep doing personally what you teach professionally, I obviously keep participating to as many productions as possible: Acting for two different groups in Ho Chi Minh City, collaborating with professionals in Germany, supporting local scene in Louisiana, joining student theatre groups in Norway, etc. (details in my CV).
Various pictures of my activity in Germany, Vietnam and China - mostly acting on those. Hoover over for details.
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Again, I feel extremely thankful for what I learned from the fantastic drama teachers I met and collaborated with, especially in Munich and Ho Chi Minh City, and also to all people I worked with outside school, for the invaluable lessons they taught me and for the chances they gave me. Here are links and logos to some of these groups.
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« Rien de plus futile, de plus faux, de plus vain, rien de plus nécessaire que le théâtre. »
"There is nothing more trivial, or fake, or vain, or indeed more necessary than theatre."
Louis Jouvet
"There is nothing more trivial, or fake, or vain, or indeed more necessary than theatre."
Louis Jouvet