ON SOME ASPECTS OF MODERNIZING THE TEACHING OF THEATRE HISTORY AT ARTS HIGHER SCHOOLS

Abstract

During the years of Ukraine’s independence no new approaches to teaching history in general and the history of world and Ukrainian history in particular. History teaching at higher schools remains, to a considerable extent, within the framework of old Soviet-time approaches.   

The aim of this article is to present the new approaches to teaching Theatre History which have been tested and approved at the Kyiv Municipal Academy of Circus and Variety Arts and some other Arts higher schools in Ukraine.

The article focuses on the analysis of the system of the theatre history teaching at Arts higher schools and presents the innovation principles in this course. These principles include phenomenological, «vertical-horisontal» (the review of the general picture of a given time period is supplemented with the information of the functioning of theatre texts, ideas and styles in further periods, up to the present time) and inductive approaches depending on the students' specialization.

Owing to the application of these principles history arises as the process the most significant events of which have effect on the contemporary theatre, variety and circus arts, rather than as a mere collection of facts.

The article also substantiates the effectiveness of integrating the history of the Ukrainian theatre into the general course of world theatre history. As a result, the national history is presented in the close connection with the general European artistic process – not in isolation, as it used to be.

The author of the article asserts that the system of teaching Theatre History at higher schools has to be drastically changed.

The principal inference of the article is that the Ukrainian theatre is an inseparable part of the European theatre. It has had the same trajectory of development as the national theatres of such countries as France, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and others. Disruptions and decelerations in its development are exclusively connected with the repressive colonizing actions on the part of the governments of the countries Ukraine was incorporated with from the 17^th century up to the year 1991.

Key words:  world theater, Ukrainian theater, history, teaching, educational course, phenomenology, integration.