As part of DFTS, students must attend a live theatre show and evaluate it. DFTS students took advantage of the fact that many international theatre companies were in Dublin during the Dublin Theatre Festival and thoroughly researched the DTF programme, and decided upon an Irish-Belgian co-production, 'Zinc' by Dead Centre, which was staged in the O'Reilly Theatre, Belvedere College.
On Thursday evening 1st October, Ms Talbot and the 5th and 6th Year Drama, Film and Theatre Studies students went to see ZINC as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
The central message of the play 'Zinc', actually revolved around a metatheatrical concept: how actors create stories upon the incredibly potent vacant space of the theatre stage. When we take a seat in the auditorium, we signal we are ready to be transported to another world; but the clever self-awareness of the actors and the stage design in 'Zinc', always reminded us that we were co-creating the performance with them. This collaboration was central to Dead Centre's exploration of the concept of the European Union, and the actors' fluency across multiple languages articulating the barriers to such a union, and the impact that speaking someone else's language can have on a person's identity.
Dead Centre are known for their exceptional use of projection mapping, creating many worlds on stage through lighting design and technical prowess. Students also identified many more of their innovative theatrical techniques, like breaking the fourth wall, blending reality and fiction, audience participation and self-reflexivity in performance. This show gave students much to think about, and these aspects will be developed further and given more context with their next module on Bertolt Brecht, after the mid-term break, as part of their non-prescribed area of learning.
Ms Talbot
Stratford kicked off it's Science Week activities at the whole school assembly on Monday with the first of many daily quizzes! So far 1st years have had a Young Environmentalist Awards Ideas Factory Workshop, TYs had an engineer from SSE Eirtricity explaining how to build off-shore wind turbines and there's more to come for the rest of the week ...
Read more →
Well done to the U19 Boys basketball team who reached the semi-finals against Rockbrook on Tuesday 10th November. In a closely fought match, Stratford lost 41-39 - so, so close!
Major congratulations to the U16 Boys basketball team who won 52-36 against Firhouse on Monday 9th November!
Read more →
On Monday, 9th November all the 1st Year Computer Studies students gathered in the Computer Lab to take part in the Young Environmentalist Awards kick-off workshop - an Ideas Factory workshop in fact! Sarah from ECO-UNESCO visited the class to explain the steps to enter this competition and to start brainstorming ideas.
Read more →
