The Children's Theatre Ed Pack (2007)
The Arts - Page Three
Animal Characters
Student Outcome Statement: Arts Skills and Processes - Level 3 – Uses a range of specific arts skills, techniques, processes conventions and technologies in presenting arts works for identified audiences or purposes.
Focus Question: How can the students create characters based around the animals from Return of the Snow Queen
The Hook: Children have seen the characters in the performance and understand that it is possible to combine both human and animal characteristics.
Resources:
Safari suit or khaki shirt or pith helmet or Akubra for teacher’s role
WARM UP:
KANGAROO, TIGER, COW
ALLITERATION INTRODUCTION
Everyone is in a circle. The Teacher begins the game by introducing themselves as an animal using alliteration, gesture, facial and vocal expression, providing a model for the rest of the class.
Eg: Hi, I’m Kenny the craaaaazy Kangaroo
Or Hi I’m Wilbur the woolly wombat.
The names continue around the circle in a clockwise direction.
TIP: If students are having difficulty creating names using alliteration it would be wise to brainstorm some possibilities.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
“Build your own character”
Students are to lie down on the floor with eyes closed and the teacher begins the following narrative, saying this in a slow relaxing voice:
Teacher: I want you to imagine that you are an animal, you could be a dog, a cat, or any animal at all.
Imagine how you look- are you tall, tiny, fat or thin, are you ugly or beautiful?
How do you walk? With little light steps or great galumphing stamps? Where do you live, is it cold or hot?
How do you stand? Now these animals are magical and can speak, what sort of voice would you have? What might your name be?
In a moment when you open your eyes I want you to start walking around like the character you have imagined, you are to be silent and concentrating on your own character.
Students rise and begin walking around– offer suggestions to keep them focussed, perhaps repeating the original narrative
Teacher: now you can begin acting silently to the other characters, quickly looking at the character and seeing if you would like this character, thinking how you would respond.
The teacher now separates the students into groups (as they are interacting) allowing for a good mixture of animals. He/she may act as a game keeper or Steve Irwin type of character to herd/separate the animals. It is important that the teacher does play a role as this lends credibility and assists in suggesting the importance of commitment to character.
Teacher: Now that you are in groups I want you to introduce yourself to the other members of the group. Telling them a little bit about your animal character.
IMPROVISATION PREPARATION:
“the one word only monster”
 | In pairs, arms linked or around waists (note hands must be free) |
| Students are to become a one whole animal/monster. They are to walk around the room finding a comfortable pace so that they are walking in unison as thought they are one animal. They may growl and snarl and make their animal noises |
| Once students have developed a comfortable walking pace they are to describe aspects of the room as they are pointed to, speaking one word at a time. Eg: this..is..a..door..it..is..made..of..glass |
| Once students are talking in a flowing manner they should swap partners so that they are to become flexible. |
| EXTENSION: they can meet another two-headed animal/monster and conduct a conversation in the one-word-at-a-time style. |
IMPROVISATION:
“Who, what, where”
As a class students are to nominate topics for when, what and where (time frame/period, action/purpose, setting) which may or may not relate to animal “goings on”.
Students are to work in small groups (4-5) and improvise using the when, what and where as their basis for a 30-45 second improvisation.
Some examples:
When: in the stoneage; in the roaring 20’s; during the rock n roll era, 200 yrs in the future etc
What: making a giant sandwich for a Guinness World Records entry; catching slippery fish; sewing a quilt; baking a cake; painting a mural etc
Where: on the moon; in the arctic; at the beach; in your dreams etc
Extensions and options:
-Students that are new to improvisation can perform to the teacher only as he/she works their way around the room observing and offering tips
-Students can work two groups together, each one taking turns as being the audience. Doing this the audience can offer a critique of things that were great and things that need improving next time. At the end of the class all students can offer general critiques and advice as they have all had the chance to observe.
Magical Folk
Student Outcome Statement: Arts Skills and Processes - Level 3 – Uses a range of specific arts skills, techniques, processes conventions and technologies in presenting arts works for identified audiences or purposes.
Focus Question: How can the students create characters based around the magical folk from Return of the Snow Queen
The Hook: Children love magical folk and have seen the characters in the performance
Resources:
-A cape and hat for the teacher so that students can see that commitment to a role is necessary
-Relaxing, icy, magical sounding music as the children lie down and build their character. It can also be played during the entire character development section. (suggestion: Antarctica by Vangelis is very good)
WARM UP:
FAIRY BALL
Students mime playing a slow motion snowball game of tossing and catching. Calling either fairy or goblin when they throw the “snowball” to either a male or female. This mime can include being splattered with snow, miming the packing of the snowball etc.
NOTE: they must project the word Fairy or Goblin loudly before they actually throw the “snowball”
ICE SCULPTURES
Students form partners and name each A or B
“A” must mold the person into a sculpture, “B” obliges and freezes so that all of the other “A”s can look at the creations
“B” then does the molding of “A”
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
“Build your own character”
Students are to lie down on the floor with eyes closed and the teacher begins the following narrative, saying this in a slow relaxing voice:
Teacher: I want you to imagine that you are a magical character, you could be a witch, a wizard, an animal with magical powers,a fairy or a goblin of the forest or any other place. Or you could be some amazing magical creature that only your imagination could create
Imagine how you look- are you tall, tiny, fat or thin, are you ugly or beautiful?
How do you walk? With little light steps or great galumphing stamps?
How do you stand? How do you speak? What might your name be?
In a moment when you open your eyes I want you to start walking around like the character you have imagined, you are to be silent and concentrating on your own character.
Students rise and begin walking around– offer suggestions to keep them focussed, perhaps repeating the original narrative
Teacher: now you can begin acting silently to the other characters, quickly looking at the character and seeing if you would like this character, thinking how you would respond.
The teacher now separates the students into groups (as they are interacting) allowing for a good mixture of fairies and goblins and other magical creatures. He/she may act as a head witch/wizard to separate the magical folk. It is important that the teacher does play a role as this lends credibility and assists in suggesting the importance of commitment to character.
Teacher: Now that you are in groups I want you to introduce yourself to the other members of the group. Telling them a little bit about your magical character.
“Tableau”:
If students have never done a tableau before explain the theory that they are to appear as though they are “a moment in time” or a “photograph”. This means that they are to be frozen and not to be making any noise.
Titles are:
“Its snowball fight time at the palace!”
“Making Frosty the snowman”
“The arctic wind is blowing stronger than ever before! “
“Can you hear the howl of the Arctic Wolf?”
IMPROVISATION PREPARATION:
“Walk, freeze and defend it”
Students are to walk around in their groups, moving around and interacting as their characters would. Every now and then the teacher says “freeze”. All students are to freeze and each person must justify/defend the reason that they are in that strange position by saying something which makes sense of it.
For example: Two students maybe linking arms and others in a crouching position… they may say things like “come on Glimmer you can climb up the tree, I know you can do it, be brave!”
IMPROVISATION:
“Continuing emotions”
A neutral scene such as “preparing for the ice palace banquet” is started. The teacher (in character) then freezes the students and selects students from the audience to take over the roles (note: they must be frozen in exactly the same pose) the audience then suggests an emotion (eg: fear, anger, jealousy etc) and the scene is to be continued with the new characters and the new emotion. The scene can be stopped several times to experiment with several different emotions.