Drama Classes
Our drama courses are designed for students of all ages, starting from 3 years to adults, from beginners to experienced actors.
The benefits of a drama education are well known and many researches prove the positive impacts on physical, emotional, social and cognitive development. Drama classes are not only for aspiring actors, but for anyone who likes to work on their relation with their body and voice, learn how to recognise and express their emotions and feelings, to release their creativity. Click here for more information about the benefits of a Drama education.
All our courses are KHDA licensed and all our teachers/instructors are trained actors and qualified teachers with plenty of experience in both teaching and performing.
Our Drama Courses
All our courses are KHDA registered.
Our teachers/instructors are all trained actors and qualified teachers with plenty of experience in both teaching and performing.
What we offer:
Drama Classes for children and teen-angers
Our classes are designed to help students to develop their social skills while learning drama techniques and improving their self-confidence. We believe that the drama experience is a far-reaching educational journey where the students will have the chance to work on multiple levels and learn important life skills. And this is what makes our classes unique and distinctive.
We organize the class in 4 parts, each focused on different skills and techniques (Drama, Movement, Voice, Imagination). At the end of each session, we encourage the students to reflects and discuss about the daily work, what they liked most, what they found more challenging or fascinating, and how it can be useful in their daily life.
DRAMA CLASSES FOR ADULTS
There are many good reason to join a drama class for adults, whether the dream of a professional future as a performer or the will to improve your public speaking skills. Performing arts can give (or boost) the tools to be creative, confident and collaborative while improving our general wellbeing providing a great balance of learning, development, freedom and fun.
Our courses are structured to cover the main drama topics: body and movement, voice, staging (or speaking in front of an audience).
While working on the body and the gesture, we understand how their spontaneity becomes performative intention either on stage or in our everyday life. We focus on knocking down the automatism in our movements and use all the meaningful possibilities of our bodies with self-awareness, either for a more conscious mise-en-scene or for a new awareness of our communicative skills and abilities.
The same type of investigation guides our work on the voice and the expressive dynamics related to it. We explore all the areas that sound can reach and the ways in which it can be expanded, redefined, developed in order to reach a greater vocal expansion, a better vocal spontaneity and a more effective vocal emission for a clear and interesting voice.
The final step is to use all those techniques to create trustworthy characters, understand them in their objectives and intentions, and finally bring them alive in a coherent and sincere way.
These classes are held in English and in Italian.
ITALIAN DRAMA CLASSES for children and teen-agers
Itaca is the first and only company operating in Dubai that offers Italian cultural programs. Our teachers/instructors are all trained actors and qualified teachers with plenty of experience in teaching and performing.
Our classes are designed to help the students to develop their social skills while learning drama techniques and improving their knowledge of Italian language. We do believe, and experience has proven us right, that working in a playful, dynamic and self-motivating environment like a drama class, besides the well-known benefits of the theatrical education, has a huge impact on the ability of the students to improve their communication skills and boost the knowledge of the language they are in the process of learning.
Benefits of Drama
ITALIANO IN AZIONE (Italian in action)
‘Italiano in azione’ is our own unique and original course that combines two major learning topics: drama techniques and Italian language. The class is in Italian (with linguistic support given when needed). The word “in azione” (in act) describes well the lively and dynamic way through which Italian language is taught.
Each class goes for 90 minutes, divided in 2 parts of 45 minutes each. During the first part, through drama games, we work on building a specific drama skill (movement, rhythm, vocal projection, body awareness, physical expression, space awareness, breathing techniques, improvisation, character building).
The second part starts with a storytelling session that covers a different topic every week (know your emotions, the art of being gentle, explore your super powers, …) followed by a linguistic and textual exploration of the story, during which the students are guided to reflect on the major events, characters or plot twistings and to learn the meaning of new words.
After that, we encourage the students to deepen their thoughts and put them “in act” through a guided dramatization, a drawing (for the youngest) or by sharing their personal opinion and ideas among the “circle of trust”.
We love to make clear the principles that guide our job and are the foundations of our drama curriculum:
Drama builds confidence
Our first aim is to guarantee a friendly and safe environment, where even the shyest of children will feel free and confident to take a full and active part in sessions. Taking “risks” in class will teach students to trust their ideas and abilities and use the confidence they gained in class in life, school and career.
Drama helps concentration
In every session, children are encouraged to listen to each other’s ideas and thoughts and to take turns. These activities develop a sustained focus of mind, body, and voice and allow children to recognise the value of the concentration, a major skill in school’s subjects and in the everyday life.
Drama helps to develop language's and communication's skills
Drama enhances verbal and non-verbal expression of ideas. Children are encouraged to express themselves both verbally and through facial expression and body language. It improves voice projection, articulation of words, fluency with language, and persuasive speech, all vital skills for making them better communicators.
Drama encourages children to cooperate and collaborate
All our activities, from playing drama games to improvisation, requires cooperation. By discussing, rehearsing, negotiating and performing children learn how vital is to cooperate with the other members of the “circle of trust” because it’s only through cooperation that the creative ideas and the different abilities of all can be combined in a group work.
Drama helps children to understand the world around them
Every week we introduce children to different situations through stories, poems, legends and myths, cultivating their interest in the world in which they live and making them more inquisitive, curious and engaged.
Drama develops emotional intelligence
Each session has a part that focuses specifically on movement. Children increase the awareness of their growing bodies and they improve their flexibility, coordination, balance, control and, most of all, they learn to love their own body and its peculiar possibilities.
Drama develops creativity and imagination
In each session, we encourage children to make creative choices by thinking of new ideas or by interpreting familiar material in new ways. Pretend play and improvisation support and stimulate the development of creativity as children are required to come up with quick-thinking solutions and respond imaginatively to a variety of pretend situations, which leads to a greater adaptability in life.
Drama nurtures friendships and the love for beauty
Drama is fun
Drama brings play, humor, and laughter in the learning process and this improves motivation, teaches the value of practice and perseverance, reduces stress and helps children growing happier and cheerier, because as the Italian writer Italo Calvino once said “having fun is a serious matter”.