by Jess Plewe
Objective: Students will physically experiment with different qualities of movement by engaging in Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints of Time (Tempo, Duration).
Standard L1.T.CR.5: Explore physical, vocal, and emotional choices to develop a performance that is believable, authentic, and relevant to a drama/theatre work.
Essential Questions
- How does the way we move convey meaning?
- Where does meaning in performance come from?
Enduring Understanding(s)
- Movement conveys meaning
- Artistic differences between symbolic and didactic movement
- The way we interact with time tells a story
Materials:
- 2 Hi-Chew candies
- The Student Spotlight Response Sheet
- Whiteboard and markers
Spotlight
- Pull up the Student Spotlight Responses Sheet and choose a student who has not been spotlighted yet.
- Without reading their name, go through all of their answers. After reading all their answers, have students guess which student is the spotlight for today. Once correctly guessed, give the guesser and the student spotlight one Hi-Chew each.
- Allow the class to ask a few questions of the student spotlight to get to know them better.
Hook: Soft Focus, 1-10 Walk
- Ask the students: What is soft focus? Why is it important?
- Play 1-10 walk with the students, asking them to maintain a soft focus or an awareness of everything around them without focusing on any one thing.
- In this activity, instruct the students to walk around the room, giving them a number for how fast they should walk, where 1 = the slowest that they can possibly walk, and 10 = the fastest they can run. Remind them to be safe and aware of each other and their surroundings, or they will be asked to sit out the activity.
Call out numbers 1-10, giving students time to change to each different level of movement, side-coaching as you go
- How is 4 different from 5?
- Don’t just run in a circle
- Use the whole room
- Keep your soft focus, be aware of the space, not focused on one thing
Discussion:
Call the students back together, and discuss the activity together, asking the following questions:
- Were you able to keep a soft focus?
- When was it easy? When was it hard?
- Can you think of times you’ve been in soft focus?
- What is the benefit of soft focus?
- Why do we use it in life? Why do we use it in theatre?
Transition:
Ask the students: What makes a play good?
- As the students answer, write them down on the board
- Focus on Movement: Why is movement important? How can it tell a story?
Realistic/Abstract movement
Instruction
- Explain: In theatre, we use our bodies to tell stories. There are two different ways we can tell stories with our bodies. Realistically and abstractly.
Ask the students the following questions: (potential answers are below each question)
What does it mean to move realistically?
- Natural, every day
What does it mean to move abstractly?
- Unnatural, artistic, unique
Why is it important to learn how to move in each way?
- Realistic: be confident, perform a character well,
- Abstract: can show heightened emotion, experimental theatre, learning how to move abstractly and take risks can help the natural choices you make
- How do these skills connect to other areas of your life?
Videos:
- “Now we’re going to watch a video to look at the kinds of movement”
Watch each video, then ask the questions below. For the abstract movement example, you will watch it three times, and ask different questions for each time you watch it
Example for Real Movement https://youtu.be/OEUF7SuGzdE (All My Sons)
- How is this realistic?
- What story is being told?
Example for Abstract https://youtu.be/NUIRyM8g9-0 (DV8)
- First time watching, ask: What are your reactions to this? Initial thoughts? What made it abstract?
- Second time watching, ask: Now that you knew what to expect, what are your thoughts? How dis it make you feel? How is her movement and words together telling a story?
- Third time watching, ask: How is internal emotional being shown externally? Why did this performer choose to use this movement rather than realistic movement?
Transition
“We are going to practice moving realistically and abstractly”
- “BE SAFE! You should never be touching another student in this activity, and you should not be talking at all through this activity. Note: if you can’t be safe with your body, I will ask you to sit on the side and watch until you can”
Exploration - Walking across the room
Instruct all students to stand in a line on one side of the room (if you have a smaller class, you can have students simply walk around the class with these activities, but with a large class, I found that walking all in a line streamlines the activity). For this activity, explain that you will give the students a prompt, and they will need to cross the room to the opposite wall using that prompt, while staying safe and not touching other students. Explain that you will start calling out prompts for realistic movement, then switch to calling out abstract movement.
Realistic Movement Prompts. For each one, say “Walk across the room like…”
- An Old lady
- A Little kid
- It’s Snowing
- You’re walking under water
You’re walking across hot coals
- Side-coaching: Show me with only your body! How is this different from the last one? Be specific! Commit to your choice, don’t change it just because someone else is doing it differently
Abstract Movement Prompts. For each one, say “Walk across the room like…”
- Rain
- Fire
- Hope
- River
- Wind
Branches
- Side-coaching: Show me with only your body! How is this different from realistic movement? There are no wrong interpretations. Can you move on a different level? Would this move fast or slow? Be specific! Commit to your choice, don’t change it just because someone else is doing it differently
Discussion
Call the students back together and discuss, asking:
- What were you successful in?
- What was challenging?
- What did you discover about real and abstract movement?
Transition
- Final question to ask the students: Why did some words make you move faster/slower?
Viewpoint #1
Instruction
Introduce Anne Bogart and Viewpoints:
- The Viewpoints theory was adapted for stage acting by Anne Bogart. Bogart's Viewpoints are considered practical in creating staging with actors
- The technique of soft focus (our warm-up) is used in each of the Viewpoints to open up our sense of awareness. Viewpoints can be used in 1) training performers; 2) building an ensemble; and 3) creating movement for the stage.
Introduce Tempo viewpoint:
- Write it on the board with simple definition: Tempo- Speed, How fast or slow something happens
- Ask the students: How does changing this change a story? (Connect back to their answers to the walking movement activity)
Modeling
Show a movement with different tempos: putting on shoes (first time normal, second time as fast as possible, third time super slowly)
Ask: How did my story change based on my tempo? (Potential answers below)
- Faster = rushed, stressed, etc.
- Normal = going to school/work, doing something monotonous
- Slower = sad, tired, in pain
Exploration
Have students choose a simple movement to explore while sitting/standing in place (brushing teeth, hair, using phone, eating food)
- Ask them to play with the viewpoint of tempo while completing that action (go really fast, normal, slow, in-between)
- After a few minutes of exploration, ask the students to come up with a story as to why they were completing their action at each speed. HAve them share with a partner.
Group Work
- Put students into groups by counting them off 1-6
Give each student a given circumstance (potentials written below) and tell them to create a 1-minute non-verbal performance that uses the viewpoint of tempo to show the story/place/etc.
- Where: professional kitchen, aquarium, school, carnival, bank
- Who: Doctors, lifeguards, explorers, robbers
- Event: Zombie apocalypse, robbing a museum,
- Give students 10-15 minutes to create and practice a performance
- Give the students around 5-10 minutes to create their performances, encourage them to practice it and rehearse it multiple times, so it is smooth
Perform
- Call the groups back together, and create an order for the groups to perform.
- One at a time, each group will perform their short scene.
After each performance, ask audience members to give feedback on where the group used the viewpoint, asking questions such as:
- Where did you see tempo being used? Why do you think they chose to use that tempo? What story did their use of tempo tell? How would changing their tempo have changed their story?