Physical Theatre Year 8 Drama

What are we watching? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wK_v9koL3Y Is this a performance or a way of celebration as the name suggests?

What is physical theatre? Physical Theatre uses techniques such as movement, mime, gesture and dance to create a performance often with the inclusion of sound and music. The emphasis however is on movement rather than dialogue and you use your body to tell a story, explore a theme or issue. Highly physical, it allows the audience to interpret a story through an entertaining and engaging theatre style.

Legs On The Wall An Australian company that began as a group of performers busking in the streets of Sydney in 1984. Since then they have grown to become one of the leaders of innovation in Physical Theatre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfsdIO25naI

Activities Using everyone in the class take up as much floor space as you can, remaining connected to at least one other person. Now do the same thing except take up the least amount of space possible. As a group, everyone jump at the same time and see if you can land at the same time. Create the letters of the alphabet called out to you by your teacher (individual, pairs, small groups) As a whole class create someone's name Now as a whole class create an emoticon

Activities Cont In groups of 6-8 create an object that moves (one person can operate it) Switch groups to work with 5 people you haven't worked with and create a chair (these will be tested by someone else in the class) Think about how your chair can be supportive and comfortable. What special features does it have that another groups chair might not? ‘A Day In The Life Of’ students in small groups are to recreate one person in the groups everyday ritual. Everyone else must become the furniture/objects used as the person moves from room to room before they leave for school.

Mirror, Copy, Extend, Attach Get into groups of 4. After you have been given a theme or topic one person will make a pose about the topic. Each person in the group can then choose one at a time to copy the exact pose, extend the tableau, attach in a way to another member in the group or mirror to create a freeze frame about the topic. This is a great way to create interesting tableaus (freeze frames) Examples of themes: Bullying Family Sports School

Cutting out dialogue In small groups of 4 each of you is to take on the role of one of the following characters: -Mum & Dad (two parental figures) -Son or daughter -Friend of the son or daughter -Brother or sister (if there’s a group of 5) Create a short scene about introducing the new friend to the family. The parents don’t like this person as they think they’re a bad influence. Now redo the scene with each person saying one line about what they are thinking. Now do it with one word describing how they’re feeling about the situation Now do the same thing with just a facial expression, gesture or sound. Could you get a feeling from the last activity what was going on? Or what it was about? If the groups are uneven you can add in a sibling

Clowning Around Exaggeration and mime play an important part in Physical Theatre and its often used to connect to the audience. Clocking the audience activity Walk fast or run round the stage as if it were a clock-face. The second time round ‘clock’ (look/connect with) the audience briefly at 3 Trip and fall at 9 The next time round, you approach 9 more cautiously, you clock the audience to make them aware of your thought process then jump over or evade the ‘obstacle’. Smile triumphantly at the audience. Reach 3 and trip and fall. Clock the audience in disbelief.

Counter balances and Lifts Discuss as a class the safety issues when taking each others weight or doing lifts in groups. Find a partner who is a similar height as you. How many different ways can you counter balance each others weight safely? In small groups have a go at the lifts demonstrated to you by your teacher. Make sure you discuss who is spotting and communicate with each other at all times. Give students an example of a counter balance Before doing lifts do some trust falls forwards, backwards in small groups Discuss safety issues for lifts and put emphasis on communication eg person flying says ready before they’re lifted always have spotters. Demonstrate each lift before each group does it, explaining where spotters should stand, where hands and feet should be placed, locking in elbows etc.

Time to be creative Think about the activities you have just done and the various ways you can use your body to create a performance. Get into groups of 3 Each group is to read through their short scene from ‘Runners Up’ (a story about an ‘armchair athlete’ Kerry KY and his two friends Telford T and Kirk K) Now create a performance using the script (this can be altered however you like) and any of the tools you’ve been given eg use of tableau, using the body to create objects, involvement of the audience, lifts/counterbalances, use less dialogue, add music/sound effects. Remember Physical Theatre is about creating a performance using your body to tell the story rather than using lots of dialogue.