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Advice for teachers -
Drama

Unit 1 – Area of Study 1: Creating a devised performance​

Outcome 1

Devise and document solo and/or ensemble drama works based on experiences and/or stories.

Examples of lear​ning activities

  • Through workshops, drama games etc., explore elements of ritual such as:
    • earliest forms of drama
    • location and place
    • participants and watchers
    • identity, transition, change, sacrifice, catharsis
    • costumes, mask, make-up
    • repeated actions, movement, dancing
    • song, chanting, sounds
    • use of symbol or abstraction of reality.
  • Example icon for advice for teachers
    ​​Use ritual, storytelling and other theatrical styles (such as Greek Theatre or Butoh) to explore the dramatic possibilities from a poem such as:
    • 'The Identification' by Roger McGough
    • 'Dumb Insolence' by Adrian Mitchell
    • 'We Real Cool' by Gwendoline Brooks.
  • Interpret the text from one of the poems through the use of dramatic imagery. This may include heightened or stylised movement, such as synchronisation, symbolic gesture, repetition, isolated movement. This may also include the use of stillness and silence. The interpretation of the text should be poetic, not literal. This can be used to explore application of symbol.
  • Create a Greek chorus to comment on the ideas raised by the themes in one of the poems. (Use this to explore working as an ensemble, collaboration, synchronisation and use of 'one' voice.)
  • Select a character from the poem and develop their back-story. Use storytelling techniques to present their point of view. Consider the use of narration, the actor-audience relationship and the dramatic elements used in the telling of the story. (Soliloquy, commentary, direct audience address and the use of the 'aside' could be introduced.)
  • Discuss the social and cultural ideas explored in one of the poems. Use personal experiences to transfer the ideas explored in the poem into a familiar culture and society.
  • Using the theme of peer pressure, explore a rite of passage for teenagers in your culture/society and explore how this has changed over time. Present this rite of passage through ritual. Masks, mime and ceremony might be used. The work should be abstracted and should not seek to re-create real life as it is lived.
Example icon for advice for teachers 

​​Detailed example

Play-making techniques

This example uses the poem The Identification by Roger McGough as a stimulus; however, other stimulus material could be used. In this task students are taken through a series of workshop-style activities before they are given time to create and devise an ensemble performance. The activities and the subsequent performance task take place over approximately six weeks of classes. Students document the process in preparation for the analysis of their performance in Outcome 3.

First, the play-making techniques of brainstorming and improvising are used.

Brainstorming

Students read the poem and, in order to understand the dramatic potential of the stimulus material, they make a list under the following headings:

  • What do you know?
  • What do you think you know?
  • What do you want to know?
  • Who are the main stakeholders?

Improvising using tableaux

To explore how Steven has journeyed through his school life and changed according to who he was with, students create:

  • four tableaux of Steven's journey through primary and high school
  • four tableaux of Stephen with N​an, Stephen with his dad, Stephen with his friends, Stephen alone.

Developing expressive skills and performance skills using character transformation (solo work)

Students select either Stephen and Nan, or Stephen and Dad, or Stephen and a friend. They use the ideas explored in their tableaux above as a starting point to experiment with contrasting expressive skills for the two characters. They explore transformation techniques to transform between the two characters. Then they create a short scene where they play both roles, focusing on developing the performance skill of energy for each of the two characters.

Next, the play-making techniques of researching, brainstorming and improvising are used.

Researching and brainstorming

Students research teenage rites of passage (cultural, personal and societal) and brainstorm ideas about how the explosion could have occurred as a result of a rite of passage – a planned, sacred event with ceremony and procedures (e.g. gang initiation, a birthday ritual, a significant place, etc.).

Improvising through hot-seating

At a press conference after the explosion, the media interview: Stephen's father, a teacher, a friend, a witness. The purpose of this is to discover backstories for these characters and to further explore the narrative.

Exploring ritual through mime

Students use mime to explore the moment before, during and after the ritual of the rite of passage that led to the explosion. They develop a mime incorporating stylised movement and repetition. They further experiment with application of symbol to create a ritualised depiction of the event in the poem. This is rounded off by adding sounds but not text.

Exploring conventions: direct audience address

Students develop the following characters through the use of direct audience address:

  • a police officer speaking their thoughts and observations at the scene of the explosion
  • a friend of Stephen's who was involved in the explosion speaking immediately after the event 
  • an innocent bystander speaking as they watch the explosion occur.

Exploring and manipulating dramatic elements

Students add text from the direct audience address exercise to the mime/ritual explosion work (like a voice over). They discuss and consider the effects of this in terms of the dramatic elements of contrast, climax and tension. Then they rework the scene so that these dramatic elements are manipulated to their full potential.

Exploring performance styles

  1. Storytelling/improvisation
    Students select one of the following characters: Dad, Stephen's sibling, teacher, friend
    They use storytelling to outline the events leading up to and after the explosion, from their perspective. They consider what the intended actor/audience relationship is with each character.
    Students choose three moments from one story and develop these moments into short re-enactments; then they edit the re-enactments through the storytelling.
  2. Greek Chorus
    Students develop a chorus that works in unison to comment on the tragedy of the events leading to the young boy's death. (Mask can be used.)