by Jess Plewe
Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of different qualities of movement by engaging in activities and discussions focused around Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints of Time.
Standard L1.T.P.4: Use body to communicate meaning through space, shape, energy, and gesture.
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
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.
Warm-Up: Abstract Movement Walk
- Instruct all students to begin walking around the room. Explain that we are going to explore abstract movement while we walk today, so they should respond to the prompts I give them, and play around with moving while continuing to walk around the room. Also encourage them to play with tempo as they walk.
Potential prompts to give them inspiration: Time, Sadness, Ice cream, Square, Heat, Rock, Betrayal
- Side-coaching: Don’t just walk in a circle, use the whole room. How does your tempo change with this prompt? How can you explore different levels?
Review:
Quickly review with the students the material from last class, asking:
What is abstract movement? What is realistic movement?
- Why would you choose to use abstract? Realistic?
- Why should we care/learn about this?
What is Tempo? (how fast/slow something moves),
- Why should we care/learn about this?
What is soft focus (to a partner)
- Why is it important in life and theatre?
Viewpoint #2
Instruction
Introduce Duration viewpoint:
- Write it on the board with simple definition: Duration- How long a moment/action lasts
- Ask: How does changing this change a story?
Pull up the two movie clips below. Before playing them, instruct the students to look for how duration is used to tell the story of the scene. After each one, ask the questions listed below.
- Forrest Gump: Run
- How were duration and tempo used?
- What story does that tell?
- Was it effective?
La La Land: Dance
- 1:17 to 2:00
- How were duration and tempo used?
- What story does that tell?
- Was it effective?
Modeling
- Show a movement with different tempos for a different duration: putting on shoes (first time normal, second time as fast as possible for a really long time, third time super slowly for a few seconds, then super fast for 10 seconds)
Ask: How did my story change based on my duration?
- Slow tempo for a long duration
- Fast tempo for short duration
- Fast tempo for long duration
- Slow tempo for short duration
Exploration
Have students choose a simple movement to explore while sitting/standing in place (brushing teeth, hair, using phone, eating food)
- Tell them that I will call out “Change” at different times. Each time I say “Change” they must change the tempo of their movement. I will differ the duration between each time I say change.
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.
- Slow tempo for a long duration
- Fast tempo for short duration
- Fast tempo for long duration
- Slow tempo for short duration
Transition
Discuss the exploration with the students, asking:
- What story does each movement tell?
When do we do these in real life?
- Slow tempo for a long duration = sad, lost in thought, methodical
- Fast tempo for short duration = falling down the stairs, sprinting
- Fast tempo for long duration = running a longer race, trying to get ready to leave when late
- Slow tempo for short duration = sudden realization, noticing something, etc.
Group Work
- Put students into groups by counting them off 1-6
Give each student a given circumstance and tell them to create a 1-minute non-verbal performance that uses the viewpoint duration to further the story/scene
- Where: professional kitchen, aquarium, school, carnival, bank, farm
- Who: Doctors, lifeguards, explorers, robbers,
- Event: Zombie apocalypse, robbing a museum, discovering a fossil
- Give students 10 minutes to create and practice a performance
Performance
- Call all groups together and determine a performance order
After each group performs: ask audience members to give feedback on where the group used duration to tell their story, asking the following questions:
- Where did they use duration? What story did that tell? Why was that effective? How could they have made their story/objective more clear in their movements?
Viewpoint #3
Instruction
Introduce Kinesthetic Response:
- Write it on the board with a simple definition: Kinesthetic Response- WHEN you do something based on outside stimulus. (gut reaction to things outside of yourself)
Ask the students:
- What prompts you to stop/start your action?
- How does changing this change a story?
Exploration
- Tell students that we are going to play a game called “Stop, Go, Clap, Jump.” Explain that when you say “go,” students must walk around. When you say “stop,” the participants must stop in their place. You can add other commands like jump and clap. “Jump” means the students must jump, and “clap” means the students must clap.
- Invite the students to start walking around the room. Repeat the commands several times until they get used to the game.
- Say any of the commands randomly while participants try to carry them out without mistakes
- You can switch the meanings of the commands for an extra challenge. Where the students must jump for the word “clap” and clap for the word “jump” and they need to stop when you say “go” and walk when you say “stop”
After some practice rounds, start eliminating students who don’t follow the correct directions, and encourage those who get out to try and trick their classmates until there are one or two students remaining.
- If your students need a further challenge, you can add even more commands, such as spin and squat. You can also switch these around so students must squat when you tell them to spin and spin when you tell them to squat.
Partner Work
Let students get into pairs and create a 30-second non-verbal performance that uses the viewpoint of Kinesthetic Response. Instruct them that they get to decide the story they are telling, but they are not allowed to show violence or death.
- Give the students 5 minutes to create and practice a performance
Performance
Call everyone together, and explain that we will have 2-3 partnerships perform at a time
- After each set of performances, ask audience members to give feedback on where the group used the viewpoint