Day 3 - February 4, 2015

Eye shadow does NOT work on me apparently.  Preparing for final Grade 11 performance.

So right off the top, this was probably my favourite session.  That is because in this class I got to do basically my favourite thing ever - inhabit a character and play around with it.  Sure the character was a giraffe but he was a dancing giraffe...nay he was MY dancing giraffe.  (I couldn't figure out how to embed the video BUT enjoy - https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10155192548720501&set=o.1536723739911265&type=2&theatettpsr)

The strategies used in this class were choral reading which is where groups of students read the same passage together - it makes for a very cool effect.  After choral reading we did something called mirrors which was fun to do, but very difficult.  I dont have the patience to do it well, but those that did, it looks awesome.  We also did some tableaux's today and after seeing how our tableaux turned out, it might be my favourite one that I did in class.

We nailed it girls! (by the way in the scene i'm really horrible ugly, they are blown away by this)

After the strategies we looked at the Ontario curriculum to look up definitions of the fundamentals of movement.  I think exploring the fundamentals of movement could be an entire lesson in and of itself, and the only way for students to really learn about them is to DO IT.  Some of these can be very difficult (angular/curved body, neutral space.etc) so I think the best way to teach this, is to have the students actually do it.

Fundementals of Movement

Finally we got to the giraffe part! We were reading from a book that was about bullying.  I will always be a major anti-bullying proponent and thats because I was picked on a lot as a kid.  Its a topic that hits almost too close to home.

So I loved exploring bullying through something like a giraffe dancing.  It was perfectly silly while also being a serious piece.  I also just had a lot of fun pretending to be a giraffe and dancing and being silly!  Dominika started as the giraffe and we did a voice alley with her where we basically pelted her with insults.  This can be a great strategy to show how much words actually hurt.

This was Dominika demonstrating her dance - we "insulted her" after this beautiful display

 Then i got to be the giraffe, we did a hot seat activity where I got to answer questions in character (which i loved) and we wrapped it up with the giraffe finding his confidence again!

Giraffe in the hot seat

The book was a lot of fun, and I will ABSOLUTELY be doing something very similar to his in a classroom.

This is how a happy Giraffe dances