Lesson 3: Shape/Physicality

Objective

● Students will be able to communicate meaning using shape and physicality in movement by creating a character based on one of Laban’s eight efforts of movement that participates in a character walk.

Standards

● Utah
○ Standard 7-8.T.P.4 - Communicate meaning using the body through space,

shape, energy, and gesture. ● National

• ○  TH:Pr4.1.6.b. Experiment with various physical choices to communicate character in a drama/theatre work.
• ○  TH:Cr3.1.7.b. Develop effective physical and vocal traits of characters in an improvised or scripted drama/theatre work.
• ○  TH:Pr6.1.8.a. Perform a rehearsed drama/theatre work for an audience.
  

Materials needed
● Empty space to move

Warm-up

● Warm-Up Question
○ What’s an emotion to describe how you’re feeling today?

• ●  Challenge Review

• ●  Body Warm-Up

  Hook

• ●  Game: Embodying Emotion

  • ○  Have them spread out in an empty space where they can move around in

    front of the camera.

  • ○  Watch this video and ask them to follow the instructions: Embodying

    Emotion

    Instruction/Practice

● Discussion (5 min)

• ○  How did your movement change based on what the emotion was?
• ○  Why do you think that is?
• ○  Did moving in a certain way make you feel a certain emotion?
• ○  Was there any overlap with the emotions and the movement?

○ Which emotions seem connected by the same movement? ● Lesson (15 min): Introduce Rudolf Laban

• ○  Show this picture
  

  

  
  
• ○  Has anybody ever heard of Rudolf Laban?
• ○  Really liked the idea that emotion is connected to movement

• ○  Explain each of these different sections of movement and let them move

  about their space. Also have them experiment with one body part being one side of the spectrum and one body part being the other side. Example: Head is light and feet are heavy and vice versa.

  ■ Space/Direction

  • ●  The “where” of an action
  • ●  Direct/Indirect

  • ●  Give a minute each to move through the space first directly,

    then indirectly. To help keep them focused, have them pick one spot in the room to move toward both directly/indirectly.

    ■ Weight

  • ●  The “what” of an action
  • ●  Heavy/Light

  • ●  Give a minute each to move through the space first heavy,

    then light. ■ Time/Speed

  • ●  The “when” of an action
  • ●  Quick/Sustained

  • ●  Give a minute each to move through the space first quickly,

    then sustained. ■ Flow

  • ●  The “how” of an action
  • ●  Bound/Free

  • ●  Give a minute each to move through the space first bound,

    then free.

● Lesson (5 min): Then, he broke it down even more into what we call the eight efforts. Pull up the PowerPoint, have them guess if you feel confident they’ll know. Encourage them to do the little movements that come to mind–whatever it is that will help them remember–and move around with it as we go over each one. You can stay seated or stand up if you’d like. After practicing each one, ask them what emotion that effort brought up for them.

• ○  PowerPoint: Laban's Eight Efforts
• ○  Wring - indirect, sustained, heavy, bound

■ Wet towel, nervous hands ○ Dab - direct, quick, light, bound

■ When your mom is cleaning out a scrape, raindrops

• ○  Press - direct, sustained, heavy, bound

  ■ Pushing something across the floor, an elephant moving

• ○  Flick - indirect, quick, light, free

  ■ Shaking out your hands to get them dry, flicking at an insect

• ○  Glide - direct, sustained, light, free

■ Ice skating
○ Slash - indirect, quick, heavy, free

■ Knife
○ Float - indirect, sustained, light, free

■ Balloon, astronauts
○ Punch - direct, quick, heavy, bound

■ Boxing, fighting

• ●  Activity (20 min): Eight Efforts Movement Practice

  • ○  Stand in one spot first, try it with just your hands, then when you feel ready, transfer the movement to the rest of your body.
  • ○  Go through all the efforts with this process.

  • ○  Questions for side coaching

    • What is something that you can (effort)?
    • What is a creature or a person that (effort)?

    • How does it make you feel when you (effort)? What emotions does

      it bring up?

• ●  Character Work - Let them know we’ll be doing a character walk.

  • ○  Create a character based on whichever effort(s) that intrigue you most. Begin the same way as we did with the efforts activity, then adjust based on the character.
  • ○  Give them 5 minutes to work on their character by themselves, with sidecoaching questions. Take the time to develop this character! It does not have to be human. Tell them they should be up and moving, away from their computer!

○ Side-coaching Questions

• How old are you?
• How are you feeling today?
• What are you hungry for?
• What is your living space like?
• What’s your name?
• Are you human?

• What makes you (emotion)? How do you react when you’re

  (emotion)?
  ● Happy

  ● Sad
  ● Angry
  ● Scared
  ● Disgusted

  Assessment (20 minutes)

• ●  Character Walk

  • ○  Invite the class to come back together and sit at their camera.

  • ○  For the next activity, they will all choose a virtual background of a place

    their character would go to. Everyone will then get a chance to walk on camera, sit in a chair, then walk off camera. The chair should be far enough back that we can see their whole body move.

  • ○  Don’t be afraid to exaggerate with movement, even if it’s not realistic. Remember, not everyone has to be a human.
  • ○  The rest of the class will put in the chat what they think the effort that person chose was.

• ●  Submit a grade in “physicality” on a scale of 1 (below standard) to 4 (advanced).

  Challenge

● Pay attention to how you change your movement based on a certain emotion you’re feeling. If you’re ever feeling a negative emotion, try changing your movement to be aligned with a more positive emotion and see what happens. Be prepared to share next time.