Movement

The use of dance, movement and physical theatre in GCSE work can make an exciting change for students and provide a whole new area for exploration. The idea of dance and physical movement can, however, be daunting for some students, so this scheme of work uses both devising and textbased work to help spark students’ ideas.

Each of the script-based sessions allows students to experiment with techniques that can then be employed in their own devised, and indeed scripted, work. Prior knowledge of the texts is not essential for students; they will only need a brief contextual plot summary and the extract of the text. The concept here is to help students feel confident in creating interesting visual theatre, using repeated sequences and movements to engage the audience. The work on each text will help students to create effective scenes that use little or no dialogue. Each session is based on an hour-long lesson, but timings can be adjusted to suit the mood of the class. Of course, if you have students who are dancers then encourage them to share their skills and knowledge, as this can really add to a piece of GCSE work.

Learning objectives

• To focus on creating convincing characters and portraying those characters to an audience without the use of language
• To create a repeated sequence to demonstrate waiting for a bus and perform it to music
• To create a synchronised movement piece firstly using a piece of script for stimulus and then developing own work with music
• To continue to develop a synchronised movement piece and perform it with music
• To create exaggerated caricatures
• To create a scene using only movement that can be used as a framing device
• To create exaggerated caricatures
• To create a scene using only movement that can be used as a framing device
• To use stimulus material to create a physical movement piece
• To use a script to create an abstract physical movement performance
• To use a script to create an abstract physical movement performance

Number of lessons: 8