I was chatting to my fab friend last night, the lady responsible for my foray into blogging. She suggested that each week I include a highlight of the week from my drama sessions, so here goes!
I think the honour this week has to go to my students at Harewood Primary. In terms of sheer dynamics, energy and positive attitude, they are an awesome group, and this week had me laughing until I cried.
We talked about how different cultures have different ways of greeting one another, e.g. kisses on both cheeks, rubbing of noses, fists touching etc. so I asked them to get in pairs and imagine they were from a culture, never seen before perhaps from a far flung galaxy, and create a unique, never before seen way for the people of that culture to greet one another. When they had completed the task, they got to show back their new ‘greeting’ to the rest of the group. What I didn’t tell them (which was probably a very good decision!) was that after each group, I would then come over and try and replicate the greeting with them (no matter how ridiculous). Coupled with the fact that they had just discovered that I was nearly 40 (“no way! We thought you were only, like, 21″…this comment overlooking the fact that I had brought my teenage daughter to a session with me at the end of last year!) I think I scored a few Brownie points for my efforts!
Greetings prepared, I then asked the groups to pair up with another group and create a short scene where their 2 cultures were coming together for the first time. They could use their new greetings, but must communicate in any way other than using spoken English! The results were hilarious. I couldn’t have rented a film that would have made me laugh as much as I did during their showbacks, it was priceless!!!
Fun workshop or a lesson learnt?! Fortunately both! What they saw was obvious, when you take away what you think of as being the primary tool for communication, the rest of your body and your face comes to life! Over exaggerated? Absolutely! Naturalistic acting? Not a chance! An important lesson in how the whole body must be involved when acting, i.e., it’s not just the words you say but how your body and expression backs it up (or not in the case of opposing subtext!), Oh Yeh!
So thank you Harewood Primary for my mid week belly laugh, hats off to you all, you’re awesome!
Fantastic idea Janet. Our creative curriculum on placement is looking at Our World, I am going to use your ideas.
Go for your life!
Hey you!
Love the idea chick! xx