@The Arts Unit Creative Classes – I like to move it, move it!

@The Arts Unit Creative Classes

I like to move it, move it!

Engage the body to tell stories and entertain audiences

Student drama resource developed by The Arts Unit

Years 7 to 10 drama

What will I learn?

You will:

explore the techniques of expressive physical movement to communicate ideas and create dramatic meaning
devise a story using mime, movement and gesture
perform your story using production elements such as music and costume
reflect on the role of the performer to engage an audience using physical movement and expressive skills.

Welcome to the class

Duration: 00:48

Video full screen – Welcome to the class
Video transcript – Welcome to the class

Before you begin

You'll need:

a clear space to move safely
your logbook to record ideas and take notes
music, preferably without lyrics, such as the soundtrack to a movie.

Warming up

Explore your range of physical movement by warming up your body.

Watch the following video and follow the instructions, remembering to work within your physical limits at all times.

Warm up your body

Duration: 07:12

Walk around your space for 30 seconds as each of the following roles:

Teacher, artist, chef or cook, parent, infant, scientist and sportsperson.

You might like to use this timer to help you keep track.

30-second timer with 10-second intervals

Duration: 10:00

Image of a teacher, artist, chef, parent, infant, scientist and sportsperson.

2. Explore

Now you are warmed up, you are ready to use your body to communicate meaning and ideas.

Explore the space around you and use your whole body, not just your face, to express these emotions:

Happiness

Sadness

Excitement

Anger

Love

In your logbook, reflect on what you noticed about the way your head, your face, your hands, your walk and your body changed for each of these emotions.

Using the same emotions, we are now going to exaggerate them.

Exaggeration is an important part of expressive movement as this engages the audience and makes your message clear.

Create 3 frozen moments or statues for each emotion, each one bigger than the other.

Think of each moment as a number on scale of 1-10, with the first as a 1, the second increasing to a 5 and the final moment as a 10 on the scale.

Emotions:

Happy, happier, happiest
Sad, sadder, saddest
Angry, angrier, angriest
In love, more in love, the most in love
Excited, more excited, the most excited.

Take a photo of your 3 levels for each emotion and see if you can see the difference between a 1, a 5 and a 10.

Here are some examples to get you started.

Happy

Happier

Happiest

Angry

Angrier

Angriest

In love

3. Express

OnSTAGE 2019Photo credit: Anna Warr

As well as emotions, we can also create objects, places and animals through the imaginative use of the body and physical skills.

Watch the following clip and see how the performers have used mime to create places, objects, emotions and animals.

Multicultural Playwright Program 2019 - I hate cockroaches!

Duration: 02:05

Video full screen – Multicultural Playwright Program 2019 – I hate cockroaches!
Video transcript – Multicultural Playwright Program 2019 – I hate cockroaches!

Write the answers to the following questions in your logbook:

What places, objects, emotions and animals were created using physical movement?
Why was exaggeration important in this performance?

4. Devise

Devise and perform a short story using physical movement, gesture and emotions.

Complete the following steps to create your performance:

Choose 1 of the characters from activity 1 – parent, small child, cook, teacher, artist or sportsperson.
Practise moving around your space as that character.
In your logbook, write down 3 scenarios that would make your character happy and 3 scenarios that would make your character annoyed or angry.
Mime the 6 moments from your logbook, making sure you go from big, to bigger to biggest like we did in activity 2. Your final mime moment should be a 10!

Watch the following clip and see how this mime artist communicates what they are doing and how they are feeling.

Notice how much humour is created when things go wrong!

Rowan Atkinson – invisible drum

Duration: 05:14

OnSTAGE 2019Photo credit: Anna Warr

Create your own physical movement story by joining your 6 mimed moments together in any order you choose.

Before starting your story, decide what your setting is. For example, are you in the kitchen, in the gym, or painting a picture?

How will you show where you are at the start of your mime story?

For example, you might be a science teacher in the science lab performing some important experiments, pouring things into test tubes and mixing ingredients.

This might be your favourite thing to do so you are happy.

Then you are interrupted by something that annoys you, maybe the phone rings and you take your eyes off your experiment and something starts to go wrong and so on.

Each one of these moments should be big, bigger and biggest. Your final moment is the biggest and it ends your performance.

Perform your movement story for an audience.

Ask your audience if they knew who you were, where you were and what was happening to make you happy and angry.

Ask them if there were any parts of the story that were unclear or confusing and what they might suggest would have made this clearer for them.

In your logbook:

List 3 things for a performer to remember when using physical and expressive skills in performance.
Describe what you did well in your final mime story.
Reflect on how you could improve your mime story.