Drama-based Workshop (Drama Pedagogy)

“On my honour”, “stigmatised” – these are powerful expressions, still rarely used today, yet whose spread we owe, at least in part, to systems of punishment and enforcement. This illustrates how closely the themes of crime and punishment – and indeed the world of prisons – are interwoven with our everyday lives, even if we rarely acknowledge them. For, in truth, a society without punishment does not exist. Time and again, however, questions arise for which there may be no absolute answers, for the world is ever-changing. But what precisely are these questions? What answers have already been offered to them? And what answers might you give yourselves?

Questions such as Who is guilty? What do we perceive as a crime? How do we relate to wrongdoing and to wrongdoers? open up deep and complex themes, highly suited to exploration through the tools of drama pedagogy. They provide students with the opportunity to reflect on social norms, moral dilemmas, and the question of individual responsibility.

This workshop invites students to approach the subject of crime and punishment from their own perspective and lived experience, offering them deeper insight into the nature of crime and guilt, and prompting them to consider how complex and multifaceted society’s perception of crime truly is.

Learning Outcomes of the Drama Workshop

·         Emotional and empathetic development: students examine questions of crime and guilt from differing viewpoints, thereby strengthening their capacity for empathy.

·         Critical thinking: Through drama-pedagogical methods, participants reflect on the social, moral and legal aspects of crime, and consider how perceptions of crime shift across different contexts, periods, and cultures.

·         Social reflection: Encouraging a more profound understanding of attitudes towards both crime and the criminal.

Duration: 90 minutes