Kōkiri Learn

Week 1 of 5

What drama can do: games, freeze frames and theatre that speaks up

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5

Session 1 · CREATE: Connect

Bodies, space and freeze frames

  1. 8 minCircle warm-up: pass a clap, then a sound, then a movement around the circle. Agree the drama ground rules, including 'freeze'.
  2. 12 minWalk the space. Change speed (1 to 10), level (high, middle, low) and energy. Meet someone and greet them as a king, a tired nurse, a nervous new kid.
  3. 15 minFreeze frames: in groups of four, make a still picture of 'the bus is late', 'the flood', 'the goal'. Use levels and facial expression so the audience knows who matters most.
  4. 10 minThought tracking: the teacher taps a frozen actor on the shoulder and they say one sentence their character is thinking.
  5. 5 minDiary: which freeze frame told a story most clearly, and why?

Session 2 · CREATE: Respond

Theatre that speaks up

  1. 10 minHook: read aloud (or act out) a short story about a real problem, then show it as a freeze frame. Which made you feel more?
  2. 20 minLearn about theatre that speaks up: Te Ika a Maui Players (1976) and Maranga Mai (1979), who toured schools and marae; Bertolt Brecht, who wanted audiences to think; Augusto Boal's forum theatre, where the audience steps in.
  3. 15 minWatch a short recorded or live scene (from a local company, a senior drama class or a video your teacher has chosen). Talk: who is this for? What does it want us to think or do? Did anyone speak straight to the audience?
  4. 5 minStart the class issue wall: stick up the issues you noticed for your first step.

Getting started

Make three freeze frames with a partner using high, middle and low levels.

Stretch

Make a freeze frame 'sandwich': a still image, a 10-second moving scene, and a second still image that shows how things changed.

Checkpoint

You can make a clear freeze frame, use thought tracking, and explain one way theatre has been used to raise an issue in Aotearoa.

Activities for this week

Useful this week