In search of creativity

Press, 26 February 1986, Page 18

In search of creativity

Francis Batten had to choose five years ago between Sydney and Auckland for his Drama Action Centre.

He opted for Sydney because that city “had more energy.” He believes now that another centre in Auckland would only be complementary to the Sydney organisation.

Back in New Zealand this month for the Festival of Fringe Theatre, Francis Batten admitted to a nostalgia for New Zealand. He left here in 1969 to study on New Zealand Arts Council and French Government awards in Paris at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq. After working in Europe and at Harvard University he came back to New Zealand in 1971 to found and direct Theatre Action, a group which worked in street performance, workshops, prisons, hospitals, and toured theatres.

He began the Drama Action centre, which offers courses in creativity, after completing a course himself in psychodrama. That course convinced him that the drama which encouraged

people to play out their own drama rather than interpret someone else’s script was more real. “People , experienced much more. It was a more participatory drama than conventional threatre.”

In 1980, together with Bridget Brandon, he started the Sydney Centre. It has grown to giving courses for 50 people.

For the first time this year the centre offers a two year course that covers masks, participatory theatre, mime, clown, dance, chorus, the bouffon and commedia masks.

The people who attend courses at the centre come from diverse backgrounds and range in age. For many it is a turning point in their life, a time when they have reached a point in their professions when they have doubts. Francis Batten says the course can prove an emotional experience for people. It can also be very demanding on the five tutors.

“We have to be careful to reflect things back to the students. To not set ourselves up so that the students come to depend

on us. The centre is not a cult We have to direct things back to the participants.”

The course is intended for anyone who wants to explore their own creativity. It is not restricted to theatre people. Several of those who have done the course are New Zealanders.

Some of these people are working now in New Zealand. One, in Auckland, is offering workshops similar in content to the course.

Francis Batten feels this is a good thing. He does not think the establishment of courses in New Zealand will adversely affect the Sydney Centre. “We always seem to have more people wanting to come to the centre.”

Having already established in Sydney, he doubted that he would move to Auckland but a centre there would compleihent the Sydney centre, he said.

If he was to leave the centre, even for a short time, he would like to follow psychodrama. He is a qualified psychodrama teacher.