As there is a transition in Grade 7 to the main Theatre teacher, the first weeks are spent revising key skills and completing introductory activities to reinforce key skills (collaborating effectively, communicating in sharing/performing work and expectations of an audience. Then the unit builds on the skills developed in Grade 6 to help students develop their improvisation skills. Students work individually, in pairs and in small groups on a range of stimuli and investigate how to act and react with little or no preparation. After building confidence and experience, students work on selected activities from Keith Johnstone's theatresports. This allows students to enjoy an element of healthy competition within a safe and creative environment. Students (normally) enjoy a workshop with DST peers run by a professional improv artist from Paris.
This short unit allows students to apply skills learnt in the previous unit to explore key ideas in selected fairy tales. A wide range of techniques are used in presenting live work (including, for example, narration, choral speaking, tableau, news anchor, interview, etc.). They look at how stories have changed over time with different contexts and interpretations and explore the Guardian's version of the 'Three Little Pigs' to see how a fresh perspective can be given to a traditional story. The unit concludes with students adapting their own fairy tale to give it a new interpretation along with an appropriate morale for a contemporary audience.
Students will build on their Commedia dell'Arte work from last year to explore Trestle Theatre's full masks (basic and intermediate sets). They will be reminded of the basic rules of working with masks and they will be guided through a range of practical activities to experiment techniques (clocking in mask, hot seating in masks, communicating an inner monologue, using music for impact, etc.). The unit will culminate with a group devised piece allowing students to play multi-role and present a range of contrasting characters in a particular scenario.
Students will research the conventions of Japanese sit down comedy, Rakugo. After watching useful examples, students will script their own individual comic performances and prepare their own performance that allows them to structure the work so it builds towards the main joke and to use the two traditional props of Rakugo (fan and small cloth) effectively to communicate various ideas/contexts. These short solo performances will be delivered to a target audience agreed with the teacher.