These are among the opening lines of the dystopian stories penned by Grade 8 students at the Canadian International School (CIS) of Singapore after sessions in the school’s Black Box Theater with Beyond the Page (BtP) in early March of this year. Throughout the week of March 10th, Craig Maravich (program director) and Shelley Fort (teaching artist) facilitated the play of student imaginations. They walked in sunshine and drought, ran from conquerors who entered the city astride giant beasts, and witnessed mass arrests of neighbors whose behavior had never seemed suspicious before. Throughout each session, BtP offered prompts for student creation and embodiment of dystopian scenarios to which BtP then offered scaffolding and guided reflection.

The project, titled “Refuturing Dystopia,” promoted the collaboration of BtP, 150 CIS students across all Grade 8 Language and Literature English (LLE) classrooms, the Grade 8 English Department team: Rabiah Khalil (an active member of the Bread Loaf Teacher Network), Mac Hagen, Mark Broeske, Nell Westermeier, and (learning specialist) Devin Kelly. Hannah Fletcher and Kendall Quisenberry generously contributed their input during the planning phase.

My inspiration for the Refuturing Dystopia project began shortly after receiving an invitation to teach at the Canadian International School of Singapore. The island of Singapore is located south of Malaysia, east of India, and north of Australia. It is a city-state that prides itself on its clean streets, efficient use of energy, academic rigor, and multiculturalism. CIS strives to encourage productive student engagement and understanding across ethno-religious, linguistic, and cultural identities. An independent secular school, CIS hosts a K-12 student body of approximately 3000 students and 78 nationalities, and develops curricula as per the guidelines of the International Baccalaureate (IB) organization. Before joining the CIS English Department faculty, I considered how I could establish a meaningful connection between the Bread Loaf Teacher Network and CIS. It was fortuitous that I had enrolled in Craig Maravich’s course (Creative Practice: Reimagining the Classroom) at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English for the summer preceding my appointment to CIS. The course was designed to equip teaching professionals with strategies for skillfully imbuing their work with creativity.

I learned throughout the summer that artistry in teaching involves both the teacher’s innate aesthetic talent and the teacher’s ability to elicit the inner artists of students. During the week of the final papers and culminating project presentations, one of my classmates invited us to the barn where she seated herself at the piano next to the smouldering fireplace, and sang a soulful song she had written. She distributed the lyrics and asked us to sing along. Another student prepared a meal as part of her presentation on how sharing food can facilitate community building in our schools. We nodded in agreement as we ate cheese, olives, bread, and fruit.

I considered the transformative impact of these culminating projects on my psyche and the psyche of my classmates, and I wondered: could Craig and Beyond the Page (BtP) actors bring creative strategies to CIS? I expressed this idea to Craig after an afternoon class meeting as we walked toward the parking lot. I remember him remarking, “How can we make it happen?” and smiling broadly. 

Discussions with highly supportive CIS administrators, including the Secondary Principal Dan Smith, Secondary Vice-Principal Nick Kolentse, and Subject Learning Lead Bronwen Hinton, confirmed that CIS could offer vast potential for intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration. The Grade 8 English Department team and I determined that the initiative was a perfect fit for the term 3 dystopia unit. We also chose to include 150 Grade 8 students across the eight classrooms of the Language and Literature English (LLE) program, rather than confining the endeavor to my individual classroom. When Craig and Shelley graciously agreed to take on a project of this scope, I was ecstatic! I applied for and received a BLTN Change Action Grant. 

CIS is an international school where teachers and students strive to look outward and to consider the ripple effect of word and action on a global scale. “Refuturing Dystopia” thematically resonated with us. We agreed that our exploration of dystopia would include performance, embodiment, and original story writing. We scheduled the unit to begin shortly after the return of students in the IB Middle Years Programme (Grades 7-10) from their excursions to Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, and France. 

Grade 8 LLE teachers introduced dystopian themes in early January. Students observed an iconic scene from The Hunger Games. They read short stories such as Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt” and Henry Slesar’s “Examination Day.” The signature ideas of dystopia fueled student discussions of the actual world. They considered questions such as: How do we distinguish what is real from what is not real? What are the prevailing structures of power? What is propaganda, and how does it function? How can the veneer of utopianism cause complacency and injustice? How does the narrative arc of a protagonist of dystopian fiction assist the reader in examination of the role of dissent?

After interrogating dystopian conventions and vocabulary they could use to portray them, students selected from among dystopian novels: Legend, Fahrenheit 451, Snow Globe, Cinder, and Unwind, and then participated in weekly literature circles. A few of the literature circles encompassed inter-class meetings such that each Grade 8 teacher could discuss the book/s they had chosen as their specialty, and all students reading that book from each class would gather in the inter-class-exclusive rooms. 

By early March, students were ready to explore the genre in the theater. In preparation for the arrival of BtP teaching artists, students watched a video of Craig and Shelley introducing themselves. Bundled up for winter in much of the video, Craig described his life in Vermont, his passion for acting, and his eagerness to work with CIS. The video transitioned to Shelley under a starry Los Angeles sky, discussing her life in California. Then the actors, in advance of their arrival to Singapore on the weekend of the CIS STEAM Fair, asked students to consider a few ideas about dystopian fiction.

Above: Shelley and Craig introduce themselves via Zoom.

The Black Box Theater had been reserved for the use of the Grade 8 LLE students during the BtP visit. The bleachers were pushed back, the screen was pulled up, and students entered the space in groups of between 40-60 at a time (depending on the meeting block). These were the same inter-class groups that had become familiar with one another during the coordinated shared book circles. BtP conducted warm-up exercises in which students had to show certain emotions on their faces and with their gestures.

Students were asked to form groups and express a dystopian situation in a tableau using prior knowledge of the genre. Craig and Shelley administered prompts that encouraged the evolving complexity of student tableaux. Students had to choose a protagonist and an antagonist; then someone had to stand on the outside as a witness. Groups then reversed the dystopia to the utopian ideal. Students constructed, deconstructed, reflected, and reconstructed their tableaux. CIS teachers promoted cooperation among the students and supported student exploration of their embodiment work. Each classroom received BtP instruction for 80 minutes twice during the week.

The perspective of Mark Broeske, a participating G8 teacher:

“The creativity brought by Craig and Shelley was reflected back by the student groups. For example, after the student groups were asked to create tableaux demonstrating utopia and dystopia, they were tasked with creating a scene which would show how one led to the other. One group of students used a framing device in which two people see the dystopia tableau in a museum, and wonder aloud how that world came to be; the group then ‘time traveled’ to the utopia tableau and played out their scene that eventually ended on the dystopia. The museum framing device gave the story purpose and also implied that the dystopia could eventually be overcome since they were viewing it in a more distant future.” 

The perspective of Nell Westermeier, a participating G8 teacher:

“Craig and Shelley were able to create an environment for the students to feel free with their thinking and movements, to trust what they felt, and to embrace embodiment. A highlight was observing our students interact with peers outside their usual classroom dynamics. Witnessing how these exchanges revealed new aspects of their personalities—and what they brought out in their peers—was magical. Their improvisation resulted in powerful scenes. For example, one group used the bleachers as a wall. In their utopia, students helped each other climb it to reach their full potential. In the dystopia, they pulled each other over the wall to escape to freedom.”

The perspective of Devin Kelly, a participating Learning Specialist:

“The BtP sessions here at CIS offered a unique multisensory approach for all students to engage with language and story-telling. For our English Language Learners, they were able to pair body language (and the non-verbal communication of acting) with the vocabulary of their own dystopian worlds. By collaborating in groups, they found ways to physically embody the themes of those worlds; the approach gave our students a physical and emotional link to the stories they were creating.”

The perspective of Mac Hagen, a participating G8 teacher:

“One way my overall teaching methods shifted in the teaching of dystopian themes in literature through BtP was greater awareness of how paralinguistic communicative competencies can foster both engagement and textual understanding from my students”

Although BtP came to CIS to facilitate the Grade 8 Refuturing Dystopia project, they offered additional time for all CIS students in the Middle Years Program (Grades 7-10) and in the Diploma Years Programme (11-12) to participate in 30-minute workshops shortly after lunch in a segment of the CIS school day referred to as SMART time. Students with an interest in theatre, writing, leadership, and public speaking, came to learn from BtP.

Video workshop of students participating in an embodiment exercise–to music.

Raya (Grade 10), who appears in this video, consistently attended the BtP workshops. She is serving as Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper, The Print, from 2025 to 2027. Her article on BtP’s visit is slated to run in the fall 2025 edition. Raya conducted an extensive interview of Craig and Shelley before their departure from CIS. She notes, “I believe in the transformative power of creative expression, and I hope my article about BtP’s work at CIS will inspire other students to embrace their inner artist.”

In the following photos, students responded to BtP’s question of how they engage in creative expression on a daily basis.

Professional Development Workshop for English Teachers

BtP introduced embodiment, theatre, and personal storytelling as modes for creating access and building community in the classroom, yielding practices educators can implement in their classrooms. The professional development exercises also encouraged members of the English Department to consider their respective teaching practices and the artistry they each bring to the profession. Lastly, BtP invited faculty to consider applying to the Bread Loaf School of English.

* * *

The closing lines of Grade 8 students’ dystopias reflect the imaginative impact of the Refuturing Dystopia collaboration.