Seven-year-old Ellicya Naidoo enjoys setting up all her teddy bears in a row, teaching them how to read and serving them cups of tea.
Some children grow out of this kind of imaginary play when they’re about Ellicya’s age. But her mum, Shamila, was keen for Ellicya not to lose that ability to immerse herself in a fantasy world. Two years ago, she enrolled Ellicya in drama classes with Drama Scene in Dubai. In today’s class, Ellicya is devouring imaginary ice cream in a beach scene created as part of an improvisation game. A little boy leans over her on tiptoes with his arms raised – he’s her umbrella.
Children’s drama is booming in the UAE. Since September, two new performing-arts companies are offering drama-related classes, and three existing companies have expanded their schedules to offer new drama-themed classes. One of these is Drama Scene, which has been offering courses at Dubai Community Theatre & Arts Centre (Ductac) since 2008 and has just started sessions in Abu Dhabi.
Instilling confidence
According to Ferne Reynolds Lategan, the founder of Drama Scene, most parents initially enrol their kids in her classes to help nurture their self-confidence. “It’s beautiful to see some of the kids who wouldn’t say boo to a goose making eye contact, putting their hands up in class, and getting up on stage,” she says.
Shamila can see the effect the classes have had on her daughter. “Before Ellicya started, she was painfully shy and always clinging on to me. I can see the way she has come out of her shell now. She’s really expressive, and it stretches her imagination.”
When 10-year-old Diya Marwah first joined Drama Scene fours years ago, she was so struck with stage fright that she burst into tears and refused to go up on stage. “These classes have been a good influence on me,” she says. “Now I’m able to perform in shows.”
Blurring roles defined by gender
Before you conjure up the stereotypical drama-class image of a room full of prima donnas, think again – Lategan often has more boys in her advanced classes than girls.
“Teenagers have changed,” she says. “Boys can choose jobs that they want to do rather than that they have to do, so more of them are choosing to learn drama.”
Lategan cites the influence of Glee, High School Musical and Disney's spin-off programmes for popularising performance classes. "And my teenagers absolutely love Frozen – even the boys. They sing songs from Frozen in our musical theatre course."
Expressions in Abu Dhabi and its sister company Cello in Dubai held Frozen-themed winter camps in December to give wannabe Elsas and Annas an outlet for their thespianism (and an opportunity to make use of those Frozen costumes).
The Expressions manager Diane Nobles says: "Movies like Frozen really inspire children to get more involved in drama. Children have a different way of looking at things to us. They can act out how they feel, using their imagination. And that's what the drama class is all about – allowing them to be themselves."
But performing on stage isn’t just about having fun belting out Disney songs. The 10-year-old students of Drama Scene’s musical theatre course are also learning acting techniques, staging, character development, movement and choreography, and they can opt to take the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art’s accredited solo musical theatre exam.
Lessons in life
For older students, acting workshops can also provide coping strategies for problems they might face.
“We have students with eating disorders, and some who are being bullied – there’s loads going on,” says Lategan. “It’s so competitive and stressful these days. Role playing can help. It’s not going to stop something like bullying from happening necessarily, but it can help them cope with it better.”
According to Lategan, another reason for parents to enrol their kids in drama classes is to improve their English-language skills. This means that your average drama class is made up of kids from all over the world.
The children of Euralia Cases, Rin, 12, Dana, 7, and Gibran, 5, are all students at Drama Scene. The Spanish mum says: “The French school they attend is very academic, so I wanted them to do something more artistic and expressive that would also improve their English.
“My children spend a lot of time on computers and iPads. When they’re acting, they put their feet on the floor and they’re back in the real world, but also they’re using their imaginations – they are doing what they are looking for in the games, but it doesn’t involve looking at a screen. They are forced to interact. I like that a lot.”
A creative outlet
At Hayley’s Comet in Dubai, imagination is also stretched in another way – as students get to perform in plays as well as write them. The director Hayley Doyle explains: “The kids give me ideas that are fresh and magical, I decide on songs from a musical and we blend it all together to create a new story with unique choreography.
“Last year, they decided to make the theme of our show about being trapped inside a game – because gaming is so current for them. So the classes help them explore issues they can relate to. I always like to have a moral in there, and they all love that. The little ones were really into the fact you should never cheat, and the older ones were about how antisocial behaviour can make you lose your friends.”
Hayley’s Comet has musical theatre classes where some children have made new friends outside of school. Alizee Schakaal, 16, has been one of Doyle’s students since she was 10. “Hayley’s classes help me with my English, and I think it’s one of those activities where you just make friends easily. I know they will help me, no matter what.”
artslife@thenational.ae
