Some workshop ideas we found online:
Nursery Rhyme Exercise
One Brechtian exercise, taught by Drama Works in England, pairs up the class into partners who stand at the opposite ends of the room facing each other. Each person thinks of a well-known nursery rhyme, and, on a signal from the teacher, tries to communicate his rhyme to his partner, requiring each student to talk and listen at the same time. The result is chaos. Then students are told it is a life-or-death matter that they communicate their message. Usually, students increasingly incorporate gesture and pantomime into their attempts to be understood.
Statue Exercise
Students pair up and move around a grid at a fast pace. When the instructor claps his hands, each pair tries to make instant statues of the following: Romeo and Juliet; summer and winter; cat and mouse; hero and coward; song and dance; rich and poor; war and peace. Unconsciously, a student is likely to display an attitude, such as the rich being uncaring and the poor being figures of sympathy. Such poses represents "gest," the conveying of attitude or point of view through gesture.
Communicating Emotions
Students pair up to assume body positions and facial expressions that communicate love, respect, disbelief, regret, admiration and intimidation. One person in the pair exhibits the giving of the emotion and the other, the receiving of it. The rest of the class acts as an audience to determine if the emotions are clearly given and received.
Body Communication
1. In small groups create 2 tableaus that demonstrates the differences between School formal dinner table for a group of close friends
School formal dinner table for a group of friends after a recent conflict
Family at the airport leaving on a holiday Family at the airport fleeing from persecution
Factory workers on a busy day
Factory workers on a busy day after management have given themselves, but not the workers, a large pay rise.
“The War on Terrorism” “The War of Terror”
2. Discuss how the two tableaus use gestus to display different meanings.
The Actor as Demonstrator
1. Present the students with the following newspaper titles.
Nursery Rhyme Exercise
One Brechtian exercise, taught by Drama Works in England, pairs up the class into partners who stand at the opposite ends of the room facing each other. Each person thinks of a well-known nursery rhyme, and, on a signal from the teacher, tries to communicate his rhyme to his partner, requiring each student to talk and listen at the same time. The result is chaos. Then students are told it is a life-or-death matter that they communicate their message. Usually, students increasingly incorporate gesture and pantomime into their attempts to be understood.
Statue Exercise
Students pair up and move around a grid at a fast pace. When the instructor claps his hands, each pair tries to make instant statues of the following: Romeo and Juliet; summer and winter; cat and mouse; hero and coward; song and dance; rich and poor; war and peace. Unconsciously, a student is likely to display an attitude, such as the rich being uncaring and the poor being figures of sympathy. Such poses represents "gest," the conveying of attitude or point of view through gesture.
Communicating Emotions
Students pair up to assume body positions and facial expressions that communicate love, respect, disbelief, regret, admiration and intimidation. One person in the pair exhibits the giving of the emotion and the other, the receiving of it. The rest of the class acts as an audience to determine if the emotions are clearly given and received.
Body Communication
- Working in pairs or small groups have students create the following objects or ideas with
their bodies - Knife and Fork, Romeo and Juliet, summer and winter, cat and mouse, hero
and coward, song and dance, war and peace, rich and poor. - Explain that a true gestus is about showing an opinion or attitude. Why does rich and poor
show more sense of gestus than the other images?
- In groups of 3 students are given an emotion: Love, Respect, Disbelief, Regret, Admiration,
Intimidation. - They are to come up with 6 stills that demonstrate the emotion.
- Link them together.
- Now add appropriate narration.
- Discuss the messages or stories which became apparent.
1. In small groups create 2 tableaus that demonstrates the differences between School formal dinner table for a group of close friends
School formal dinner table for a group of friends after a recent conflict
Family at the airport leaving on a holiday Family at the airport fleeing from persecution
Factory workers on a busy day
Factory workers on a busy day after management have given themselves, but not the workers, a large pay rise.
“The War on Terrorism” “The War of Terror”
2. Discuss how the two tableaus use gestus to display different meanings.
The Actor as Demonstrator
1. Present the students with the following newspaper titles.
- UFO seen over small town
- Lifesavers place man under‘beach arrest’.
- Attempts to save koalas thwarted by developers
- Pageant in chaos as Miss Universe disappears
- Having selected a title, in small groups students are to improvise a short scene.
- Once the scene and characters are established have one student act as the investigative
journalist. (Ideally they should not participate in the first scene). - The investigative journalist will request a showing of the events from the perspective of
all of the participants. This must involve showing as well as telling. Emphasis should be
placed on demonstration rather than realistic reenactment. - The participants should begin sentences with I said / did and He, She said / did. They will
each in turn use the other actors to present their viewpoint. - The journalist presents to the class their understanding of what actually happened.
- Class discussion – What does demonstration allow the audience to see and understand?