The Play of Conflict.

I teach design at Toi Whakaari - The NZ National Drama school.  Recently I've questioned the definition of Drama.

My thinking is that drama is the play of tragedy or comedy. Both usually revolve around a climatic event or conflict. Conflict with self, others, the environment, politics or circumstance. Not real conflict. The play of conflict.

It seems to me that the world, our culture and ourselves spend far too much time in conflict already. Do we really need a school that teaches it!?  That is where the word play becomes key. Why do we play as children? To test our limits, to see how far we can go without committing to the real thing. 

Through play we learn.  The skills the students learn at Toi Whakaari give them the tools to play.  Ideally their play will teach us all.  The stronger we become at holding conflict in play the less likely we are to enact it for real.  

Performance, the arts and storytelling is our greatest gift to avoiding conflict,  dealing with it productively when it arises and healing the scars that conflict causes.  

I often hear the mantra 'let us take the drama out of drama school'. This has some merit in referring to taking ego out of the work but I prefer to say 'let us learn from the Drama in Drama school'.