It has been repeatedly pointed out that teaching is closely related to theatre. In this special issue of ten articles on various topics, we search for a philosophy to link theatre and the art of teaching. This introductory paper offers a theoretical basis for discussion, starting with talking about an analogy between a modern theatre and the modern educational system. The attitude of the students, who are quietly and carefully listening to the teacher's talk, is similar to that of the theatre audience, especially in a modern theatre.

We, then, examine some of the physical aspects of the teacher-student relationship in terms of the rise of cyberspace education including internet educational tools. This aspect of education overlaps with the so-called workshop methodology. How to make a workshop successful must be investigated with regards to the “persona” or role-playing in modern society, which is similar to a theatrical performance. Also, the Brechtian concept of “gestus” must be revalued in terms of the art of teaching.

Education could be seen as two images; one is a mirror, where things to be learned are reflected and watched by learners, and the other is a window or door, through which learners go out in order to participate in the world unknown to them.

One-way communication from a teacher to pupils is closely related to the traditional method of learning through books. Paulo Freire, a Brazilian theorist of education, called it “banking style education”, and Augusto Boal saw it as a form of oppression analogous to what theatre audiences experience facing to the traditional picture-frame stage. Theatre should work as a tool to transform the pupil from the role of a receiver to a participant, or “actor” as conceptualized by Brecht.

The present paper reports the author's experiences as a drama therapist in a primary school in Setagaya, Tokyo, where two sessions of drama therapy were given for the second and fourth grade pupils.

In the session children were encouraged to freely show their frustration, anxiety or fear hidden in their ordinary school activities. In the session I called “tearing the textbook”, for example, a 10-year-old girl who seemingly has no personal problems suddenly begins to tear her textbook in a play, and the author instantly decided to play the role of a mirror to her actions. How could the reaction of the therapist toward a client be justified? In the present paper, the author tries to examine and explain each case by using concepts of mirroring, conflicting, and distancing.

Through these experiences, the author is convinced that drama therapy will play a significant role in education in the future.

Traditional theater that employs kata (traditional acting forms) and kotoba (traditional language) is said to be inaccessible for elementary school pupils. However, the author of the present paper had an opportunity to organize a kyogen workshop in an elementary school class and found that pupils were eager to watch the performer's kata and soon started to imitate them. They even enjoyed using kata in their games played outside the class. In so doing, they understood both the external and the internal qualities of the kyogen performance. In learning traditional kata, which has been rejected in modern school education, pupils seem to have found a means of expressing themselves.

A dialogue piece by Oriza Hirata, one of the most promising playwrights and directors in the present theatre scene in Japan, was utilized in a textbook for junior high school students.

The present paper examines characteristics and limitations of Hirata's text. It vividly demonstrates how a conversation of young Japanese people functions; they do not say what they really want to say, keeping a “proper” distance between themselves. However, Hirata urges pupils to be engaged in a more meaningful “dialogue”, and thus sets up a teacher-student relationship based on openness and evaluation.

If we want to develop the potentials of Hirata's text, it should be an object of free discussion by students to get an insight into the nature of their “ordinary” conversation.

The present paper is a result of the research work conducted regarding theatre sports activities in a senior high school in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Combining the features of sports and plays, theatre sports have educational effects on participants. The author was engaged in the activities as an instructor, and the research was carried out using the method of ethnography of describing an event he/she encounters as objectively as possible.

It was found that students made use of theatre sports as a shelter for liberating themselves from an oppressive world. This was further reinforced by the presence of several instructors, who focused on making positive feedback to the participants from different points of view. While participants were free to act out any situation as an improvisation, they were asked to follow the rules set by the instructors. The contradictory movements of freedom and restraint are considered to make theatre sports a place of unique educational experience.

EN (Education Now) is an educational system which emphasizes a learner's involvement in teaching process. It was conceived as an antithesis of traditional “chalk & talk” style teaching. I have been engaged in EN for 15 years in ICU (International Christian University) High School, where a number of the students have the experience of being educated in other countries.

In my class, EN consists of research work, discussion, and group presentation of a theme given in each semester. Last year (2001) we worked for the theme “It's all about the money” and the final presentation was made as a drama called “A Story of Ginko (a fake girl name suggesting money); how she managed to have the money”. The students participated in the final presentation by freely discussing and learned how to create concrete and meaningful messages by themselves.

Thus, EN demonstrates that learning through drama is effective for students to think about their roles in society.

Japanese traditional performance such as folkloric dance and music has points of interest in terms of the way in which they are taught. Compared to the modern system of education, they are learned in a rather ad hoc way, lacking systematic thought regarding education. However, it is precisely this aspect of teaching that Lave and Wenger called the “legitimate peripheral participation” where a novice first acquires seemingly insignificant aspects of the object of learning, reaching step by step to the core target as is seen in the traditional apprentice and disciplines in the West.

If it is true that Japanese traditional performances have also been preserved under the similar teaching concepts up to the present day, it is no longer possible today where even a folkloric performance must be taught for school boys and girls alien to a traditional way of thinking. Kurokawa Sansa Odori (folkloric dance) in the Iwate region, for example, is taught now in a complete systematic way as if it is a subject in the school curriculum. However, this change in the way of teaching affected the nature of traditional dance and we need to reflect upon this kind of “modernization” of the teaching method.

The author of the present paper, a Joruri and Kabuki scholar, once participated in a session of learning Gidayu-bushi (joruri chanting) under a professional master of Joruri. The master's teaching method was almost incomprehensible for new comers; he neither explained the structure of the Joruri text nor the meaning of words. All he wanted us to do is to imitate his phrase by phrase chanting as precisely as possible.

However, in the course of this monotonous repetition, the author happened to have a rare moment, where the whole meaning of the Gidayu story became clear.

The teaching style of Japanese traditional performance can be characterized by this sort of lack of objectiveness. However this does not mean that the discipline is bound to a rigid stylization. Teaching of traditional arts (Keiko) is not thought of as a step toward a higher goal; it stands on its own and should be practiced for its own sake. The teaching of traditional performance arts should be further investigated from this perspective.

The present paper examines how the original event is dramatically composed to maintain its festivity in a waki noh, Higami. For that purpose the author compares the composition of Higami with the typical composition pattern of mugen-noh and with the model pattern of waki-noh, which has been demonstrated by Professor Mikio Takemoto.