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Theatre games at primary school: a practical workshop
TAÍS FERREIRA – UNIVERSITY OF PELOTAS – BRAZILCULTURAL EDUCATOR IN RESIDENCE - ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM
KULTURKONTAKT – AUSTRIAN FEDERAL CHANCELLERY
“Each exercise is a ‘physical reflection’ on oneself. A monologue. An introversion. The
games, on the other hand, deal with the expressivity of the body as emitter and receiver of messages. The games are a
dialogue. They require an interlocutor. They are extroversion.”
(Augusto Boal, p.60, in Games for Actors and non-actors)
1st meeting – What do we need to make theatre?
Theatre games1. Presentation-game with gesture, name and preference: interaction, body, to watch and to be
watched.2. Game of serious: concentration, attention, relationship.3. Hypnoses game: confidence in partner, concentration and corporality in the space.4. Different ways of walking: self-perception, uses of space, rhythms, to listen and to act.5. Who’s game: Choose roles and, in pairs, just walk across the room and let the others
colleagues discover who you are and what the relationship between the two roles is.
6. Talk about theatrical experiences in the school with children, the teachers’ experiences with theatre, etc.
7. Ask the teachers to write something after reading Augusto Boal’s quote, making relationship between it and their works, and also the games, if possible.
Questions from the first meeting:1. What is necessary in a theatre lesson?
2. What would be the basic elements to a good theatre experience with children?
3. How to develop it?
4. Why a game works or why it does not?
5. What do I want my students to learn and experience from a particular theatre game or dramatic exercise?
Aim: the identification of basic elements to develop a theatre work in the classroom, the work about myself and the collective work (me and the other: stage partner or spectator).
Basic elements of an improvisation (by Viola Spolin):
Who? (role)
What?(situation)
Where? (action place)
The beginning
(how starts)
During(what
happens)
The end(how
finishes)Improvisation
2nd meeting – Bodies telling Theatre games
1. The little balls with numbers: first in circle, after in the space, more than one ball.
2. Sculpture or statue game: first in pairs, after walking across the garden of statues, observations, etc. Change who is the sculptor and who is the statue.
3. Picture game: in groups of 4 people, one will be the artist and the others the material, to make a painting or a picture. When the picture is done, with a command from the teacher, it becomes alive.
4. Improvisation: where are we? In groups, taking care of the improvisation basic elements.
5. Talk about the games, asking the teachers to write something making a relationship between Spolin sentence and the theatre classes with children.
6. Remember to ask teachers to bring objects (from home, from school, personals, etc.) for the next meeting.
Questions from the second meeting:1. Are all of us seeing and reading the same thing from the same object or image?
2. Is there generally a correspondence between what the artist desires to say and what the spectators meaning and experience?
3. What is the distance between the theatre and the spectator? What do we have in this space in between?
4. Can our bodies speak without words?
Aim: physicalization, relationship actor-spectator or stage-audience, reception notions.
3rd meeting – Sounds tellingTheatre games
1. Vocal and corporal exercises in a circle, the teacher conducting them.
2. Searching my corporal sounds: which sounds can my own body produce? Vocal and percussive sounds, etc. Researching in the space, alone. Choose an interesting sequence and show to the colleagues.
3. The blind and the conductor: in pairs, one of the players has eyes closed and the other one has to conduct him across the space using hand contact only. After, in a second turn, the conductor can use only sounds to conduct his blind partner.
4. Sound atmosphere with quotidian objects: where’s game with sounds. The audience can’t see the actors who must show a place only with sounds (vocal, corporal and object sounds) to the spectators.
5. Relaxing and imaginative exercise with Brazilian music.
Questions from the third meeting:1. What kinds of sounds can I produce with my own body?
2. Is the voice my single way to communicate me?
3. Are my body and my voice integrated, meaning, are they working together?
4. Can the sounds tell us stories or create atmospheres?
5. What is the aim of the sounds and the music in theatre experiences?
6. How can we produce sounds from simple materials and by ourselves?
Aim: To explore the functions of the voice, the body’s sounds and the sounds of objects in the improvisation theatre games and in the teacher’s relationships with themselves and with their bodies/voices.
4th meeting – Movement, action and imagination
Theatre games
1. Game of movement’s transformation, in circle. First all together, imitating one colleague each time. Then, one player is invited to leave the room and wait out. One of the players is chosen to be the ‘master’ (who determinates the movement). All the players have to reproduce exactly the same movement, and when the master changes the movement, they have to avoid that the player, who must guess who the master is, discovers it.
2. Object game: ask each teacher takes an object from his/her bag and puts in the middle of the room. Then, invite the players to observe and gently manipulate the objects. Each one has to choose one object. With your object, experimenting all kinds of use for this object that cannot be its normal (day by day) use, researching different actions (with an concrete objective). Try and make a sequence with the best 5 ways (actions) and show it, first in pairs and after to all the class.
3. Improvisation with where?, who? and what? without concrete objects, only with imaginary objects.
4. Last talking about the meetings, slides’ presentation with the abstract of the workshop and final considerations. Ask teachers a brief written evaluation (feedback) about the workshop experience.
Questions from the fourth meeting:1. Why action is important in the theatre?
2. Are my gestures, movements and actions the same of those of my colleagues? Why?
3. What is the difference between gesture, movement and action?
4. How could games with imaginary objects help us understand the theatre language?
5. Is there a distance between body, action and imagination? Why? How does work?
6. How to resolve problems in an improvisation just with my body, my imagination and action?
Aim: Physicalization, imagination, body and mind together (they are one!), the action’s role in the theatre, objectives in an improvisation and on the stage.
A didactical sequence about the theatre language in the primary school: let’s do and learn theatre playing?
1º meeting – What is theatre?
2º meeting – The game with the other
3º meeting – The body speaks and tells
4º meeting – Orality: listening, talking, telling and narrating
5º meeting – Performance spaces: make theatre anywhere
6º meeting – Scene elements: working with objects
7º meeting – Sounds and music in the performance
8º meeting – Lights and shadows theatre: introducing animated forms’ theatre
9º meeting – Dressing the roles
10º meeting – Finally: what stories do we want to tell through theatre?
Augusto Boal (1931 – 2009, Brazil)
Main books: Games For Actors and Non-Actors.
London: Routledge, 1992.
The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy. London: Routledge, 1995.
Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics. London: Routledge, 1998.
Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics. London: Routledge, 2001.
The Aesthetics of the Oppressed. London: Routledge, 2006.
Official websites:
http://www.institutoaugustoboal.com.br
http://ctorio.org.br/novosite/
Viola Spolin (1906-1994, US)
Main books: Improvisation for the Theater
Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook
Theater Games for the Lone Actor
Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director's Handbook
Theater Game File
Official website:
http://www.violaspolin.org/#home
