Lesson 4: Showing Emotion and Ideas with Movement
Lesson Objective:
Students will demonstrate their understanding of becoming objects with their bodies by participating in a review activity and their ability to express emotion and ideas with their bodies by participating in classroom activities using some of Bogart’s viewpoints.
Standards:
TH:Pr5.1.7a. Participate in a variety of acting exercises and techniques that can be applied in a rehearsal or drama/theatre performance.
Hook: (15 minutes)
Review
Close your eyes. Raise your hand if you understand what it means to interact with imaginary people, places, or things. Raise your hand if you feel you are good at interacting with imaginary people, places and things. Raise your hand if you know what it means to become an object with your body. Raise your hand if you feel you are good at becoming objects with your body. Raise your hand if you think you need more practice with 1 or 2.
Do a review activity base on their response.
If one, play freeze/charades.
If two, watch Travis Wall video and play group machine game again.
Step 1:
We have practiced interacting with imaginary nouns with our bodies and becoming objects with our bodies. What else can we do with movement? (Is anyone in here a dancer? What do you like about dancing?) How can we show emotions with our bodies?
Step 2:
Shape
How can the shape of my body portray emotion? I’m going to make a shape and I want you to tell me by raise of hand what emotion you think it portrays.
Have two volunteers come to the front of the class. Have them face away from each other. Ask them each to make a shape with their body (not just their face or their hands) that expresses Fear. Ask for two more volunteers to come be sculptors. Make small changes to this person’s shape that you feel help it express this emotion more. Ask the class to think to themselves how these two images could go together to create one image that expresses Anger. Ask for one more volunteer to come show us the way they thought of.
Take a few seconds to look at this image we have created. What are some of the other emotions we see? What is one word or phrase that could describe this image? (Power Struggle, Family, Fighting, Miscommunication, Violence)
Step 3:
It should express an idea, a theme, an emotion.
Ask students to get out a piece of paper and something to write with. As you show images, ask the students to write down one word that captures the feeling of the image. One idea or emotion that they see expressed.
Ask for a few students to share what they wrote after each image is shown. What about their bodies expresses that? What shapes are they making and how are they using their bodies to help us feel that or understand that?
Step 4: Choose another Viewpoint or two that you’d like to have students explore. Tempo is used in the next lesson.
Step 5: End with a brief discussion on how their bodies help to tell a story – how can the students use their imaginations and bodies to portray images and feelings and thoughts on stage?