This week we got straight back into the swing of dance and drama. The first workshop was drama and this week we were focusing on a story called the tunnel. We looked at different conventions that we could use for drama in the classroom. The first convention we looked at was, role on the wall. This is where there is an outline of a person on a sheet of paper on the wall and you are told a small section of the characters story. Then you write down words or phrases about the character, on the outside of the outline you describe how others see the character and on the inside of the outline you describe how the character feels about themselves. Once you’ve done this you learn more about the character and you then write what has now changed about their own perception of themselves and others perceptions too. we used this techniques to describe the brother and sister from the book. Next each group was to nominate two people who were to act out the scene where the brother was trying to persuade his sister to go through the tunnel with him. When they had acted out the scenario they used the convention called thought tracking where the character steps out of a freeze frame and talks about themselves. In this sense the brother and sister were to talk about how they felt towards their sibling and about themselves. After this activity we read the rest of the book and we were to use this new information to add to our role on the wall sheets. The last activity was a whole group drama, we were to act out a five minute long scene based on what we thought happened after the book ended. My group chose to act out that Jack and Rose returned home for lunch and after eating, Jack’s friends came to the house to see if he was allowed to go out and play. Jack said yes and headed out the door, before he left however he asked his sister if she wanted to play with him and his friends. We chose to act this out as it showed that after the incident through the tunnel Jack realised how much his sister cared for him and how much he took her for granted. The conventions that we looked at today are as follows:
- Vox-Pop = When someone (usually the teacher) improvises as a reporter or journalist and goes around the room asking questions about what’s going on.
- Role on the wall = The outline of a character is drawn on a piece of paper and either given to groups or stuck on the wall, then the pupils write what they think of the character on the outside of the figure and what the character thinks of themselves inside the outline of the figure.
- Mime = Acting out a scenario without any speaking, with just actions and facial expressions conveying the story-line.
- Thought tracking = A form of freeze-frame where the character steps out and talks about themselves and what it feels like in that situation
- Voice in head = This is an improvised monologue between characters where they acts out a scenario, e.g. an argument.
This weeks dance session had a Halloween theme and was full on from start to finish. We started off with some warm-up activities; splat, the bean game and zombie tig, which were good fun and would be greatly enjoyed by children. Next we were to perfect our dances from the previous week, for our group we had 3 new members who had been absent the week before and had to be taught the dance in full. This was difficult as most of the original group hadn’t practised and couldn’t remember parts of the dance so it felt like we kept going round in circles. Eventually, we managed to pull it together and we performed the routine to the class. Then each group was given a sheet of paper that had a Halloween themed picture on it and each group was to come up with a dance move that represented the picture. Our group received a haunted house and we decided that put move would imitate knocking on and opening the door of the house. After each group had come up with a dance move they had to teach it to the class, then all the moves were put to the music and a new stage of a routine was created. Next was a whole class activity where we stood in a circle and had to come up with a dance move for the numbers 0-9. At first we struggled with this as people weren’t confident enough to voice their ideas, but eventuallty people warmed up and sharing their ideas. These are the dance moves we came up with:
0- Thriller
1- Magic wans twirling
2- Moonwalk
3- Stabbing motion
4- Dracula turn
5- Jelly man (from Hotel Transylvania)
6- Superman
7- Bat
8- Skeleton
9- Robot
After we had learned these moves each group was given a sheet with some maths questions on them. We were to work out the answers which were between 0 and 9 and then we were to use the list of numbers to create a dance using the steps we had just learned. This was a fun activity and I will definitely use in in the future, I also didn’t realise how you could incorporate maths into dance using an idea like this. The final thing we did was Zara taught us a very short part of a dance routine that was to be adjoined to our other dances. We then put everything together and practised the dance in full, this is the sequence:
- Everyone starts crouching down in a semi-circle
- When the music starts we do a Mexican wave style standing up and we freeze in a tree stance
- Then everyone zombie walks to their place in one of three lines
- Now we do the dance inspired by the Halloween pictures
- Then we backwards shuffle back into our places in the semi-circle and retake the tree stance
- Now each group performs their individual dances in the centre of the semi-circle
- Each group has a different way of entering and exiting the dancing area
- When all the groups have finished we zombie walk back into our places in the lines and perform the pictured inspired dance again.
- Finally we all zombie walk into a tight ball in the centre of the room and on the count of 3 everyone drops and lies on their backs
Everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves but it was hard work and everyone was rather hot and sweaty by the end. This routine will be filmed in a few weeks time.
Most of the activities carried out throughout both the drama and dance workshops would be great to use in a classroom. They can be changed to suit the age group and personalised for seasons and a particular topic.
