Gzaat students are learning everything online. Not only do we have academic classes via zoom, but also clubs, electives, sports, and various activities. Switching to online classes was very strange and new for everyone, especially for Drama Club students. As they state, it has been a hard process, yet it still brings them the joy of acting. Acting is all about emotions; connecting and communicating with oneself or a partner. Via zoom, it has been tough. In addition, everyone is way shyer through the screen, so holding acting classes is harder than it was in school.
Although holding drama lessons online brings a lot of disadvantages, there are some new interesting activities that students are involved in. First, the teacher, Mr. Nikoladze started telling more stories about theaters, filmmakers, and various interesting facts about acting. Second, students started reading new material and tried putting it into action as if they were the producers of the play or a movie. And third, they started reading and learning fables by heart, so then they can perform them online, or make a video and share it with a class.
“Considering the fact that this year, the format of the drama class changed and because of the restrictions it had to focus only on literature and theatrical readings, we still managed to work on communication, acting skills. It’s definitely hard to follow up each lesson since not every student is always present in zoom class, so we often switch the subject which is sometimes frustrating, but the classes are still fun. We’re currently reading “Darispanis Gasachiri”, one of the plays by Davit Kldiashvili, so I hope the classes will be more oriented on one subject for a while” - states Mariam Begiashvili a third-year student of The Drama Club.
Clearly, attending online drama classes has been a challenge for the students, however, they still have fun with it. It’s cool to see how passionate they are about acting and how much work they put into it even though it's an online format. During this period of time, they would be preparing a performance for the school. Unfortunately, it is impossible to prepare it online, therefore they are waiting and hoping to go back to school soon and start working on their roles and plays.
I talked to the Drama club teacher, David Nikoladze, about the changes and here is his response: “Hi everyone! I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy! First, I want to thank all students who take the time to attend drama classes. At first, I didn’t think anyone would join this club online, however, I got plenty of responses and now there are approximately 5 to 8 students who attend classes regularly. Of course, online classes limited our abilities in general, but there is always something positive about it, for example, now I can spend more time with a student individually. It’s logical that now we can’t work on plays, however, we tried not to take this time for granted, and we started discussing important topics related to theater, actors, and the industry in general. We start our weekly meeting with simple questions like “what is genre? What is the duty of a producer? How does art influence people?” etc. Then, our discussions flow to the literary analysis, ideas and their implementations, themes of different genres, components of movies/plays/theaters, and so on. We try as much as we can not to have boring or monotonous lessons and for now, I think, we are doing pretty well. I am happy to be working with such an amazing group of students and I hope we are going to be back soon, so that we start working on plays again!”
“Thank you!”
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