Mime and movement

When students arrive in Year 7, their experience of drama can be extremely diverse. Some may have been involved in KS2 productions, while others may be actively participating in amateur theatre groups. There are also pockets of students who have little or no experience of drama and fear the idea of performing. This scheme, which we have used in September for a number of years, is an ideal way of providing everyone with the same foundations of knowledge while allowing the more experienced performers to extend their natural ability. The focus on movement rather than voice challenges dramatic preconceptions that having something to say necessarily makes you a good actor.

Learning objectives:

• All students will understand that movement is an essential way of communicating with an audience
• Most will use movement to communicate with an audience
• Some will mime using controlled movement to fully communicate an object or an emotion to an audience
• All students will understand how one of the key skills could be used to communicate with an audience
• Most will be able to use one of those skills to communicate with an audience in performance
• Some will be able to apply all of the skills in order to successfully communicate a mime to an audience
• All students will understand that the positioning of actors on stage impacts on the performance
• Most students will be able to offer suggestions as to how the actors could be positioned in relation to an audience
• Some will be able to demonstrate a clear understanding of the importance of stage positioning in their practical work, linking their ideas to the intended impact on an audience
• All students will understand that the emotion of a character affects the manner in which a mime is performed 
• Most students will be able to adapt their movement in order to suggest an emotion
• Some students will be able to convey emotion through mime in a believable fashion
• All students will be able to understand how they could alter their movement in order to communicate their character to an audience
• Most students will be able to create an appropriate character which is sustained for the majority of the performance
• Some students will be able to adapt their movement to create an appropriate character which is sustained for the entire performance
• All students will be able to understand how they could alter their movement in order to communicate their character to an audience
• Most students will be able to create an appropriate character which is sustained for most of the performance
• Some students will be able to adapt their movement to create an appropriate character which is sustained for the entire performance

Number of lessons: 6