Fitness for the Muscles and the Mind : Incorporating Nia (Neuromuscular Integrative Action) into a Drama-Pedagogical Teaching Unit on Thomas Brussig’s Novel Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee

This paper describes the incorporation of a mind-body (fitness) technique called Nia into a drama-pedagogical teaching unit of Thomas Brussig’s novel Am kurzeren Ende der Sonnenallee. The participants were third year university students of German at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. The focus is on the description of the preparation and execution of a seven-hour weekend workshop on Brussig’s Sonnenallee. The ‘prerequisites’ for that workshop included research on life and resistance in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) as well as a summary of the book and the production of character profiles for the main characters. The description of the workshop includes the portrayal of various activities such as the building of Standbilder (frozen frames), perception exercises und improvisations and, of course, the one-hour Nia session. According to the opinions of the students and my own experience and perception, drama-pedagogical elements and the inclusion of Nia have a great impact on the students’ understanding of various texts and themes and make for a truly holistic experience. 1 The Teaching Context Theaction-orientedprojectdescribedherecombinesNeuromuscular Integrative Action (henceforth Nia) and drama to get to the heart of Thomas Brussig’s novel Am kurzeren Ende der Sonnenallee. This book was one of the texts I had chosen for a third-year university course in German (ten students ranging in their proficiency from Intermediate German II to Advanced German I) in the fall/winter term 2007 at McMaster University Hamilton, Canada. The course reader also included short stories such as Ilse Aichinger’s Das Fenster-Theater, Reiner Kunze’s Schiesbefehl and Wolfgang Borchert’s Nachts schlafen die Ratten doch as well as two short theatre plays (Ruhe (un)sanft by Wolfgang Binder and Das Kartenhaus by Gabriele Seba), several poems, newspaper headlines, photographs and paintings by Renoir and Edward Hopper (among others). The Copyright © 2015 Scenario · All rights reserved · Alle Rechte vorbehalten Steffi Retzlaff Fitness for the Muscles and the Mind Scenario Volume 2008 · Issue 1 idea was to introduce the students to a variety of texts and provide them with ‘stimuli’ that would spark their interest and trigger interaction. The whole course was based on an ‘experiment’, that is, it was explicitly advertised as ‘learning German with all senses’, as a course that would use the idea of Dramapadagogik as its underlying methodology. This meant, we would not use some drama activities ‘here and there’ but that the students would learn and apply new and ‘old’ methods each and every week (we met three hours each week and had one seven-hour workshop on a Saturday). Thus, the students were not only expected to ‘be’ creative and ‘dramatic’ but also to develop a thorough knowledge of various drama techniques. This knowledge would then be ‘tested’ in terms of the selection, application, justification and reflection of various methods in class as well as for the students’ final presentation and through their Lerntagebucher (learning diaries). The evaluation criteria for this course reflected these requirements (see Appendix A). Most of the students had been taking classes with me since September 2006 and had thus been already introduced to role play, improvisations and drama-pedagogical methods. They were used to group work and communicated mostly in German during class, which was taught in German. Furthermore, this course was enhanced by WebCT, the e-learning system used at McMaster University, and financially supported by the Centre for Leadership in Learning (CLL) at McMaster. CLL granted me $4000 for the teaching project ‘German with minds, hearts, hands and feet’, which comprises two third-year courses. The first was taught from September 2007 to December 2007, and the second is running from January 2008 to April 2008. While the 2007 fall/winter term introduced a variety of texts and served as an introduction to drama-pedagogical didactics, the 2008 winter term introduces theatre movements and prepares the students for the public performance of a play in German. The final performance will take place at McMaster University and, with a view to strengthening the liaison between the university and other institutions and creating an interest in German, a possible second performance is planned at the Goethe-Institute Toronto. In addition to the general objectives of improving and broadening the four language skills, students in these courses will develop and improve: • body language, e.g. awareness of the body and of gestures and facial expressions; • relaxation techniques and holistic fitness (combining well-being and physical activity with cognitive activity, e.g. through the incorporation of Nia and various relaxation techniques; • acting, directing and improvisation skills;

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