Online Learning in the Arts
Zoom Master Class with Taylor Okey, an actor from the national tour of Bandstand, in a session titled “Life of a Working Actor.”
When it became clear that in-person conservatory classes would have to be suspended for a while due to COVID-19, the question was not if classes would continue, but how they would continue. Our education team quickly developed a plan of action for moving to an online learning model and, within one week, all conservatory classes were up and running on Zoom, an industry leader in online video conferencing platforms. “We knew that so many of our students would be counting on their classes for some sense of normalcy, not to mention the community that comes with taking part in a conservatory class,” said Meghan Montaner, director of education at the theatre and conservatory. “It was important to us to maintain that community for our students and faculty, regardless of distance.” Prior to classes going live online, conservatory faculty received extensive training on the Zoom platform and conducted rehearsal classes to ensure that students would receive the highest quality of instruction possible. Faculty members also participated in researching best practices for effectively teaching performing arts curriculum online and leveraged their professional networks to gather ideas. According to John Minigan, who teaches Adult Acting and Adult Acting: Performance at the conservatory, “Like most teachers, I was worried at first about finding ways to teach classes online. The education staff has been amazing, getting us training and bringing us together for department meetings to share best practices, and other conservatory teachers have page 6
reached out with resources to make the going smoother. It’s also been great to connect with friends and colleagues facing the same questions in their classes and sharing ideas amongst a broader network.” While the task of reworking classes so heavily dependent on physical presence was daunting at first, many teachers have found that the virtual environment offers unique opportunities that are not typically available to them in the classroom. For example, students in drama classes have had the opportunity to test out their on-camera acting skills and work on scenes in pairs or small groups using Zoom’s breakout room feature rather than just selecting a corner of the studio to work in. The new medium has also pushed students and teachers to think about acting in different ways. “It’s been an opportunity for creative thinking,” says Minigan, “How does the prop move from one person to another in a scene? When does the camera see your face as opposed to your profile? How do you handle an entrance when it’s on screen?” For dance classes, special consideration was taken when restructuring curriculum to ensure that all instruction is safe for dancers to execute at home in whatever space they are working with. This means that while students may not be doing elaborate jumping or turning combinations at home, they are working through other exercises that will maintain their strength so that they will be prepared to revisit those combinations once they return to the studio. One particular benefit of conducting live,
TheHanoverTheatre.org • 877.571.SHOW(7469)
