Yili Fan, a distinguished theatre educator and filmmaker, presents a compelling plea for a transformative approach to education in the contemporary era. Under the banner of "Fill the Space," Fan's theatrical training method emerges as a potent tool for addressing the myriad challenges faced by students in the wake of the pandemic.
“Fill the Space.”
This is the very first sentence that I speak to my students to start my drama class. My students know exactly what I mean. They begin to walk in the space where they are gathered together. It appears to be effortless. Nothing special, just walking. However, this effortless action can be a very powerful tool for humans to unlock their innate creativity.
Since the pandemic started in 2020, some pre-existing trends have become more severe:
Disengagement of students: Virtual learning, wearing masks in person, social distancing, and quarantines have been the struggles in the past two years. Meanwhile, students have been increasingly instructed in the reward systems and social interaction designed by social media and the gaming world.
The identity of an educator is evolving from a figure of authority who understands and delivers educational standards, to that of a social worker who is responsible for, or can respond to, the human developmental and behavioral-needs of different kinds of students.
Feelings of uncertainty, powerlessness, and a sense of hopelessness have been growing all over the world due to global trends, such as climate change, domestic and international conflict, economic insecurity, mental health breakdowns, and fears of artificial intelligence taking jobs from humans.
To solve these problems, Fill the Space can be a solution, because it affords a shift in perspective about the role of education and educators.
Fill the Space is a theatrical method that I've been refining for ten years. I’ve found it to be a unique method of learning. It engages individuals fast, promotes action and creativity, accelerates learning, builds mental and emotional resilience, and generates positive motivation. It is unusual in that it allows for the acquisition of knowledge and skills beginning with the most basic of human bodily behaviors, "walking." While the body remains physically active, it engages the mind in intellectual training, ensuring that information is connected to action from the very first instant of learning.
In terms of drama training, Fill the Space helps beginners quickly learn how to perform or give a speech on stage or in front of a camera. In China, I worked as a theater director, playwright, actor, and film department instructor at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Art, and as an acting coach for television dramas and movies. I used Fill the Space to train professional actors, pop singers, college students, amateurs, and corporate personnel. Since beginning my teaching career in the United States in 2020, during the challenging period of the pandemic, I've discovered that this method works also well for children from pre-school through 8th grade.
Fill the Space is very simple to start. Just walk. However, depending on the training goal, it’s like a mathematical algorithm that can be iterated into very complex structures, until the training goal is completed. It starts with 3 basic commands:
First Command: “Fill the Space"
Second Command: "Freeze”
Third Command: “Melt”
The first command of "Fill the Space,” just like the name of the method, is interpreted or executed as simply “WALK.”
Fill the Space is a collective activity. It works best for people who gather in the same space in person. For example, an in-person class or club event. When you are doing it with a group of people, the command to “Walk” must meet three conditions simultaneously:
- Do-not-follow
- Keep-space-balance
- Keep-moving
The first condition, do-not-follow, means students need to walk according to their own directions and find their own paths in the working space of the class activity.
The second condition, keep-space-balance, means that each walking student has to make sure everyone has an equal share of space.
The third condition, keep-moving, requires students to maintain the 2nd condition continuously and dynamically.
Once the participants get familiar with these three commands, text can be integrated into the Fill the Space actions.
I'd like to share a funny story about how this method embeds valuable text and engages young people. One day two cheeky students went through a locker and found a lot of different grocery lists. They looked at the prices of each item as if they had found a treasure. At the same time, another student was having fun playing with a garbage bag. I did not stop him from doing so. I asked those two students to split up grocery lists among other students and read the lists in groups while "filling in the space". They had a great time. Price lists for everyday things were read out loud. In the next step, I gave each group two things: a garbage bag, and a small piece of paper with Emily Dickinson's poem on it. They were excited about the garbage bags, but they didn't know what to do with the poems. I said, “It's just like how you play and read with the grocery lists.” Students read Dickinson's poems with joy and creativity because they used garbage bags to make their costumes and instruments.
Of course, a training method alone will not be enough to keep students engaged. It is necessary to create a real-world reward system that combines moving images, social media, and gaming. I imagine an international video sharing platform like YouTube where all the videos are made by students during their school time as hands-on projects, in which they learn new skills and express their creativity. The platform would be a virtual library, applying the same rules as a regular children's library to categorize and value the videos. The Children’s Video Library would become an international educational social network for educators and learners. It would turn traditional school studies into an exciting performance and production game in the real world.
Fill the Space and the Children’s Video Library are two sides of the same coin. Fill the Space permits and empowers regeneration and iteration of human cognitive processes. It engages and trains students rapidly to combine knowledge and action in the present. The Children's Video Library helps kids learn by digitizing, interpreting, and performing texts. It’s the outcome of Fill the Space. It can engage and motivate young people to fill the world with their creativity, hope, and love.
From this point of view, Fill the Space and the Children’s Video Library can serve as a method of international communication for a greener, digitalized, and better connected future.
There is an old Chinese saying that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." Let’s fill the space together, by simply standing up and taking a walk towards the next generation’s future.