The processes and pedagogies for promoting creativity and creative thinking are often described as problem-based and inquiry learning. ‘Generic’ design processes such as ‘design thinking’ (IDEO2011) are also proposed as being somehow common to creative processes. However most of these models arose from graphic design and visual arts traditions, so do these models actually take account of the specific strengths and opportunities for cultivating creativity through drama? What does it mean to engage in a creative process as a dramatist or a dramatic pedagogue? How does a consideration of dramatic form and process shape experience and impact on the visioning and imagining processes? This presentation investigates the concerns and considerations of the creative process in drama processes, play building and writing to propose embracing the concept of ‘dramatic thinking’. This is a version of a presentation shared at the Drama Australia 'Creative Capital' National Symposium, hosted at the Canberra Theatre, Centre, Canberra Sept 29, 2017.

1. Susan Davis
CQUniversity, Australia
s.davis@cqu.edu.au
Keynote presentation for Drama Australia
National Symposium
Canberra 29 Sept 2017
Dramatic thinking
Owning our process!
Images taken in and outside of the Museum of Australian Democracy, Canberra

2. DESIGN THINKING
Along with STEM, Design Thinking seems to be everywhere at present.
Promoted as a generic creative and problem-solving process, sometimes
as the means to teach STEM.

3. Design thinking – over 17,500,000 results
they have some good graphics!

4. IDEO Design thinking for educators
Design thinking – makes some pretty big claims!

5. Design thinking models….
There are a range of
models, promoted by
some major companies
and organisations
• Stanford d.school
• IDEO
• Cooper Hewitt
Smithsonian

6. THINK ABOUT KEY ASPECTS OF THE
WAY YOU THINK AND WORK WITH A
NEW PROJECT… WHAT DO THESE
MODELS CAPTURE/NOT CAPTURE?
Participants suggested: creating, people, embodiment

7. Design Minds – State Library of Queensland
http://designonline.org.au/toolkit-getting-started-with-design-thinking/

9. WHILE SOME MODELS INCLUDE
EMPATHY, DOES THAT DO JUSTICE TO
THE HUMAN PARTICIPANTS, ROLES,
PROCESSES OF OUR ART FORM, WHERE
WE MAKE WITH AND FOR (NOT FOR
‘USERS’)?
Also note… how we are convieving of thinking here.
The mind and thinking extends beyond what is held in one person’s ‘brain’,
and in creative processes such as those in drama, bodies and minds jointly
interact to construct and create.

10. Kathryn Dolan – drama with Early Childhood
Children

11. However, design thinking models arose from
graphic design and visual arts traditions, so does
that matter?
And as Somerson, Hermano & Maeda (2013)
identify these are ‘object-based’ learning and
thinking traditions.
Design thinking models were created to describe
processes concerned with making a ‘thing’ that
sits outside of the makers.

12. Dramatic thinking – around 20,000 results, no coherent
framework
What’s with the images of contemplative men?

13. Davis 2017 (created using Easel.ly)

14. LET’S EXPLORE… BEING IN CANBERRA,
WORKING AS A ‘DRAMATIST’

15. The house on the hill, the centre of
power

16. The white house below… old
parliament house

17. The ‘not- white’ people across the
road, with whom no treaty has ever
been signed

18. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy…
A premise… looking for the black
history in the white house!

19. Museum of Australian Democracy display

20. Museum of Australian Democracy display

21. in the MOAD Display

22. The people and the stories behind the
1967 referendum –
Faith Bandler, Pearl Gibbs

23. And with Jessie Street… a woman of colour who was not Aboriginal, an Aboriginal
woman, and a pioneering (white) feminist.
Wonderful women – great characters and stories to work with … where could you take
that through dramatic thinking
Scriptwriting, playbuilding, process drama, performance???

24. http://jute.com.au/2015/whats-on/proppa-solid/
A possible text to use with a class as a pre-text and premise… it’s 2044 and
Australia has it’s first Aboriginal President ….
What happened in the 100 years leading up to that time?

25. Dramatic thinking
Verbs to activate the process
• Ideate
• Relate
• Create
• Shape and translate
• Communicate

26. Davis 2017 (created using Easel.ly)

27. Why a human focussed thinking process might be relevant beyond the world of
drama?
We live in a world not only populated by things, but people! Knowing how to work
with them, problem-solve and create with them still matters… probably matters
more than ever!