Soundtrack Performance Group

MOVEMENT FOR MEANING, LITERACY AND REFLECTION
Glenys McQueen (C) 2004

This workshop is meant to provide ideas and avenues for using movement and music across the curriculum as a daily, ongoing method for teaching, learning, reviewing, reflecting, as well as for performance and presentations. Movement and music, as with all other exercises we use in Drama in Education, should not only enliven minds and bodies, they should help deepen reflection, awaken feelings, widen perspectives, connect mind-body-spirit, increase awareness, induce questions, provide a means of communication and an opportunity for transformation.


STRETCH & YAWN
· In unison, stretch and yawn. Suggest that yawn (voice) and stretch (body) should be the same size, not one bigger than the other. To see if they are the same size, do a terrible stretch and yawn. Listen and feel what happens inside your body as you do these":
1) do a HUGE LION'S ROAR yawn and a small, shy, repressed stretch. How did that feel? Where was there tension created? Stored?
2) do a GIGANTIC stretch and a shy, quiet grunt of a yawn (just make sure some noise comes out). What happened that time? How was it different? How was it the same?
3) now try it again, making voice and body the same size, so they fit together perfectly. How did that feel? Can you tell when your voice/ body are working together?...when they don't?
4) SHAKE-OUT: follow these by an overall wriggle shake-out, which means shaking/jiggling your whole body after the stretch.
--ask people what they did with their bbreathing [most held their breath]
--have them try it again, holding breatth; then repeat, exhaling (audibly). Notice the huge difference. The breath holds the emotional content of the work you've just done.
NOTE: Unless you release your breath as you shake out your muscles, you won't truly be "cleaning the slate" for the next exercise or instructions to come…you'll still be literally "full" of the last exercise still.


MONSTER TAG

· This is a warm-up for voice and body..a good way to accustom students to movement play, where everyone is "equally silly", or, for performance, to get actors to use voice and body simultaneously.
· for the person who is "it" , this is game has the same basic principle as Poison Tag (sometimes called Hospital Tag), in which, when tagged, the new "it" uses the position of holding his/her tagged body part as the basis for creating a "sound and movement" monster.
· everyone else must adopt the same monster position and sound as the "it" monster. These positions/sounds must be maintained while the chase is on (not dropped to escape).
· when a new "it" is tagged, everyone must adapt to this next sound/movement monster.
· this position becomes the basis for creating a monster way of moving (large, full-body, silly, exaggerated).
· the MONSTER adds an appropriately monstrous sound to the movement pattern.
· EVERYONE ELSE must COPY the sound/movement pattern of the "it" monster.
· the "it" monster must allow a few seconds for the others to see and adopt his/her monster sound/movements before beginning to chase others.
· once everyone is moving/sounding the same as the "it" monster, he/she may begin to try to tag someone else.
· (remember, breaking out of the monster sound/movements to avoid being tagged is not allowed).
· the minute someone else is tagged, they become the new monster and must establish their sound/movments according to where they were tagged, etc, etc. and everyone must adopt the new monster's sound/movement pattern.
· CONTEXTUALIZING: the 'monsters' can be directed to be 'elements of a storm' or 'elements of nature', or 'moments from 'digestion', or from 'photosynthesis', or 'metamorphosis', or 'the internal thoughts of a certain character', or 'moments of action from a specific event', etc.


PUPPETS

? [NOTE: from the beginning, add slow mood-based MUSIC AS BACKGROUND. It will help concentration and will keep movements slow. ] · in pairs; decide who is puppet first and who is puppeteer. Switch this from time to time.
· with index finger and thumb together (as if holding a string between them), puppeteer points to body part that puppet is to more.
· keeping his/her fingers about 3-6 inches from the indicated part of the puppet's body, puppeteer gestures slow, clear instructions (in silence) for the puppet to follow.
· when puppeteer stops the movement, puppet stops.
· puppeteer "freezes" the string (and therefore the puppet) by opening the thumb and index finger.
· puppeteer then continues to direct another part of the puppet's body
· puppet is to work hard to follow the puppeteer instructions as exactly as possible.
· CONTEXT: you can instruct puppeteers to "sculpt" a specific kind of statue: e.g. .....of a strong emotion; ....a character from a play or movie, ETC.
· VIEWING: have puppeteers create sculptures. Then, puppets stay frozen in position. Puppeteers can step back and view puppets (they look like a sculpture garden).
· Have them imagine a story created by any 3 or 4 or group of puppets, etc.
· ACT-REACT. Have 2 puppeteers; 2 puppets. Puppeteers are to create a meeting/ encounter, etc. between the 2 puppets.
· TABLEAUX. Have 2-3 puppets per puppeteer. Have puppeteer create a scene from a play, story, etc. Or have 2 puppeteers and several puppets.


THE WAVE
· Divide class into groups of about 7-9 per group (for learning...afterward, groups can become much larger).
· While one group works, audience stands on both sides of room to watch.
· Working group stands at one end of the room, shoulder to shoulder in a straight line, ALMOST touching elbows.
· There should be no "leader" for the work; the group concentrates on 'listening', sensing each others' impulse to go, then the entire group will move forward as if one. Their feet DO NOT need to be in unison--it is the lining up of the bodies which creates the effect.
· The group begins moving SIMULTANEOUSLY forward, cross the room, turns around and returns-- maintaining their close, straight line formation. Let each group repeat the crossing at least a couple of times before stopping them. Students should keep hands by their sides and eyes straight ahead.
· ADDING STATUES: as the working group (the WAVE) crosses the room, anyone in line may stop in a statue formation.
NOTE: at least one person from the WAVE must remain walking!
· The 'statue' stays frozen in position until the WAVE returns and 'envelops' them back into the line. Statues may wait for more than one passing of the wave to be enveloped.
· ADDING CONTEXT: as it is already slow and contained (ie not chaotic), it works very well accompanied by text spoken simultaneously--from within the WAVE itself or from outside.
· The performing group can be given a theme, idea, character, etc. from work being done in class and told to have the statues reflect different aspects of that subject. Each statue a person does should be very different from the last. For example, it could be "images of war", or "statues representing thoughts of a character from the story," etc.


SOUND INTO MOVEMENT

…or, making objects/ pictures come to life.
PREMISE: every sound has a corresponding movement, shape, size, direction, tempo, etc. ...and vice versa.
· warm-up: sit in a circle, heads down and practice making as many strange noises (mouth only) as you can. Then, demonstrate how a sound = a hand movement.
· divide into groups of about 5 (or for very small children, stay in one big circle). One person in each group will make a strange noise for his/her group and repeat it 3 times.
· as soon as the noise-maker in each group finishes, the rest of the group, using only one hand each, simultaneously translates the noise into corresponding hand movements.
NOTE: each person will translate the sound slightly differently with their hand. The noise-makers observe how their sounds were translated.
· this continues until each person in the groups has had a chance to be the noise-maker.
· a second round of noises is done, but this time, the listeners translate the sounds standing up, using their whole bodies. The differences in interpretation with whole bodies will be even greater now--and should be celebrated.
· NOTE: remember to emphasize that there is no right and wrong.
· then, we are going to SWITCH THE PREMISE to: every line/shape has a corresponding sound.
· hand out a drawing to each group (I used black and white copies of the abstract art of Miro--but children's own drawings can also work.
Note: less realistic drawings are easiest to translate into sound). People are to secretly find one part (or, in the case of our workshop, 3 differing parts) of the drawing which interest(s) them.
· they are to translate this (these) part(s) of the drawing into sound(s).
· turn the drawings face down. Now, each person translates the sound(s) they have chosen into a corresponding movement(s).
· each group member shows the others his/her movement(s); they then combine the movements of the group members into a movement pattern/dance.
· have each group name their piece and tell what kind of dramatic atmosphere they want the music to have.
· ? ADD MUSIC which seems appropriate, just as each group is presenting/sharing the work.
· afterward, let each group show others what the original picture looked like; what area(s) each person in the group chose; and what sounds they used as the translation basis for their movement choices.

© Glenys McQueen-Fuentes, 2003