For the Drama TDT, I have decided to choose the writing in role. I will be taking on the role of a book.

The cover of the book is red with intriguing green eyes and full lips. The book is a gentle character, longing to be picked up by a student and taken away from the dark, dusty depths of the library shelves. The book never moves from its spot on the shelf and stays silent, waiting for their opportunity.

I’ve lived here for a long time. In the depths of the library shelves. It was dark and dusty. All the books around me had been long abandoned, spending years waiting to see daylight again. I hoped my fate was not the same as there’s.

The lights rarely came on in this section, as no one ever seemed to walk past. Any time someone came by, I’d hold my breath hoping it was my turn to be picked. Usually it was just a library worker putting other books back. Every time, I would feel just as disappointed. 

Another day sat on the shelves, longing to be picked. I heard foot steps coming closer to where I was sat. I presumed it was a worker as usual, coming to put some books back. However, this time, it was different. I had a peek to see if I could see who was coming. I recognised all the workers now, from all the time spent in here, yet I didn’t recognise this person . It looked as if they were heading towards me! I kept very still and quiet. I could feel my heart pounding inside me. Was this finally going to be my chance? I closed my eyes as I didn’t want to be disappointed once again.

The next thing I knew, I was being lifted from the shelf. I felt the dust being blown off me. I opened my eyes and looked back at this stranger. “Ah this is the one!” they exclaimed. Finally, I had been picked out from the thousands of other books surrounding me. It was now my chance to experience the world outside!

I have decided to look at Steeple Church/St. Mary’s Church, located in the centre of Dundee. The construction of this Church would have taken a lot of careful planning, as it has some very intricate details. The exterior of the building shows great detail, especially in the windows. The building is very large, which would allow it to hold many people. This is good for its purpose, as events such as weddings, communions and mass will be held here. These events often involve large amounts of people; therefore, the Church would need to be big enough to accommodate these reasons.

The church looks as if it is made of stone, with glass windows and a large tower. It appears that the windows are not stained glass, as no colour or designs can be seen from looking at the building externally. This is unusual to me as most churches that I have visited had some form of stained-glass windows. The budget when the church was originally built may not been large enough to accommodate stained glass windows. Another reason could be that it simply did not go with the aesthetic of the church at the time.

Another interesting feature about this church is that it actually has two congregations within the same structure. On the left side is Steeple Church and on the right side is St. Mary’s Church. It is interesting that one building is used for two separate churches, instead of a different church being built. This is effective and did not waste any time or money from planning and building a new church.

The church is a contrast to its surrounding, as they are mostly modern. The centre of Dundee has changed many times over the years, with many buildings coming and going, but the church has always remained. It can be seen that The Overgate was built to accommodate the church, visibly curving around it. This allows the church to stand out from its surroundings, making it the focal point of the area, especially with its beautifully designed exterior.

For the Dance TDT, I have decided to create a dance lesson based on the book “The Hungry Caterpillar”.

The outcome for this lesson is:

EXA 0-08a – I have the opportunity and freedom to choose and explore ways that I can move rhythmically, expressively and playfully.

We will start with a ‘copy me’ warm up. Inserted above is the music to be played during this. Standing in a circle, I will begin by doing different moves to the music (stamping feet, swinging arms, jumping etc.) before allowing the children to get involved by choosing people around the circle to be the leader.

Once the class is warmed up, we will move onto the story. Explain to the class that we are going to be acting out a story through dance. In this specific story, we are going to be the Hungry Caterpillar, acting out its actions from the book.

[Above music will be playing for this part] Start off on the floor, curled up in a ball as if we are in our egg. When the caterpillar bursts out of the egg, when stand up stretching and yawning as if we have just woken up. When our stomach rumbles, we rub our stomachs.

[Above music will be playing for this part] Now that we are hungry, we will go on the search for some food. Walking around the room looking as if we are searching for something, until we find a big apple! Music stops and we pretend to munch on our newly found food. Music comes back on and we search around for more food as we are still hungry. Repeat this for each day of the week.

[Above music will be playing for this part] When the food is being listed off, we will continuously pretend to eat, making sure to loudly say “mmmm”. Once the list is finished, rub our stomachs and have a pained expression on our faces, due to the stomach ache from eating so much. Walk around pretending to be a large caterpillar, seeing how big we can make ourselves look.

[Above music will be playing for this part] Slowing our walk down, before crouching down small (not lying down). Pretend to wrap ourselves up tightly before going back to sleep. Keep the music playing as we sleep for a minute.

[Music for this Section] We begin to feel our bodies vibrating and bursting with energy. Music will start playing and we burst out of our cocoons and jump into the air. Begin to run around, flapping our arms as if we are butterflies, experiencing the world for the first time.

Bring the kids back in and begin a cool down.

Begin the cool down with slow marching on the spot. Watch out for any kids trying to do it too fast or too energetically and explain to them it is to start bringing your heart rate back down to normal. Next move onto a body shake; starting at legs, shake each one before moving up the body and finishing at head. Finally, a big stretch over our head, moving our arms in a circle.

Before finishing the lesson off, end with a discussion. Recap on the story and what action was for each part of the story. Ask the class some questions to do with the lesson: which was their favourite part of the story/dance?; did they think the music made dancing along to the song easier?; if they could come up with a different move for one part of the story, what would it be?

For this task we picked out the theme tune from “Halloween” as we felt that it fit the concept of our movie and helped to build suspense as the movie went on.