In 7th Grade Drama right now, we are learning create and do speeches. We have been learning about building each pieces for the speech – beginning, middle, and end – , giving examples of what we could say. We also have been focusing on how our posture could be, facial expressions and how we project your voice. And then, each person chose a topic, whatever they are passionate about and did a speech for about a minute or so. We were given a document to fill out, to get ready. After a long period of hard thinking, I decided on the color, purple. At first, I was planning to do manga, but I heard two of my other friends from different classes were going to do manga as well, so I chose purple.

7A Drama: 1 Min Speeches from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

I think I spoke in a voice level where most people in the room could hear. I am not sure if I was able to project my voice well, or if it was clear, but I do think my classmates understood what I was saying. I did not change my voice level at all, and I am pretty sure it was just monotone. I did stumble quite a bit, and I think I said the same things over and over again, since I completely forgot my script and rambled on about random things. My speech was a little less than one minutes, about 59 seconds. Even though the change is just a second or so, I could have made it so much louder, if I talked more slowly. Since I have a habit of talking very fast, and with people not understanding what I am saying, I should try to speek slower. If I had spoked slower while my one minute speech, I think it would have gone over one minute. I should really work on speaking slower, instead of just babbling in a speed where nobody understands what I am saying. If I do projest my voice louder and use emphasis on some words, I think it would make my speech better.

During my speech, I did not have any pauses. And when I did, it was when I stammered or forgot what I was going to say next. And since I speak very fast, I usually don’t speak with any pauses, which affected my speech. I just spoke nonstop, with no emotions or emphasis in any of my words. I should think about when to stop to make it more dramatic instead of when I am trying to breathe or make a random thing to say. I really need to work on speed, projecting voice, emphasis, and also tone.

For our drama class today, we started off with doing a slow motion race. A slow motion race, is basically a running race that you do in slow motion. You pretend to run very fast, but in slow motion, and you also add on facial expression, etc. After that, we found a partner and made a short scene with slow motion. I paired up with Maya, and we did a scene about waiving at each other. Then, all of us was given a number, and we broke up into groups of  four. In the groups, we were given a scene to act it out in slow motion. I was in the same group as Tomoka, Yudai, and Jack. Our scene was about fixing a bicycle.

Our story, was Jack being the bicycle, and Yudai fixing it, me and Tomka riding the broken bicycle to Yudai. I was kind of an extra part, since I stayed with Tomoka and wheeled it to Yudai ,and just explained what was wrong with the bicycle. It was fairly a simple scene, but it was harder since we had to do it without talking and also in slow motion.

I don’t think I was very successful with the mime or neither the slow motion, but overall, I think my group did very well.

A few weeks ago during drama class, we went into groups, and we made a mime about not being able to open the door.

My partner was Maya, and our scenario was very simple. First of all, it started with me going to Maya’s house, but Maya forgot her key. So Maya tries to see if anyone’s at home, but nobody isn’t so I search inside her bag to see if the key’s there or not. Then, because the key wasn’t in Maya’s bag, I just kicked open the door and made it open.

I wasn’t very successful at opening the mimed door, since it didn’t go well as the practice, and I just kind of rushed at the end, and ended up kicking the door open . I think that the part where I kicked the door was very realistic, and also the part where Maya was yelling. I think  that the part where I was searching through Maya’s bag was a little realistic, and I also thought Maya’s expressions were quite realistic as well.

I think I could use mime, when I have a part where I can’t talk and I need to show what I am doing to the audience by using mime. I think mime can be very useful when you need to show the audience your act when there is no props, or when you have to tell a story without speaking, only by expressions and posture.

7A Drama: Mime Door from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

For this unit in Drama, we did a unit of studying dance for a few weeks. We were supposed to create a dance with a group of some people in our class, and by using a prop. Before creating the dance, we studied how to use the theater space, and the structures of dance as well. We also studied how to create rhythm, patterns, symmetry and emotion. Each group had an overall theme of their dance, and we were supposed to show what our theme was by the beat of the music, and how we danced in our dances. We choreographed each of our dances by using the skills we learned during class, and we added music that would suit our dance.

When we first produced our dance in front of our class, our classmates gave us feedback on how to improve our dances. Since the theme of our dance was an Japanese Myth, our group had a hard time creating the dance movements, and we weren’t very ready when we first showed it in front of our classmates. In our dance, we had a part where we pushed in Charlotte, one of my group members into a cave since the myth was like that. And while we were pushing Charlotte in, we were hurrying so it seemed rough. Most people said that they didn’t understand the theme of the story, and found the myth confusing, since our classmates didn’t know what the myth was about, and our group didn’t show the story well. We were also told that the rhythm of the music was confusing, and that we had to figure out who the drum was going to be played by.

Our group used all the feedback that we received from out classmates, and tried to make our dance better. We had a few problems since some of our group members wanted to change the whole entire story, and the dance. We fought over this for about two weeks, completely wasting time. But we somehow were able to get our dance ready in time by getting out some of the parts, for example the part where we were pushing Charlotte inside the cave, or the part where we had the drum. We also put some patterns in our dance by two people going up, and two people going down. We used our prop for swaying it up and down in the air, and we were also able to use the stage space by moving in lots of places. I don’t think there was any confusion in our dances, because we got all the parts that seemed confusing, and we didn’t exactly show what the myth was. I also think we had a good choice of music, and I liked the way the music stopped and went back on again.

Overall, I think my group did a good job on our dances, and I think each one us worked hard. I also thought that we listened to the feedback we got carefully, and we changed practically everything in our dance to make it less confusing, and more like a proper dance.

Right now in drama, we are doing a unit about movement. I am not exactly the kind of person who likes to move their body around, but I really like this unit, and I am enjoying it too. We were watching a clip of the movie, “Singing in the rain“, and we were watching the part where Gene Kelly is actually singing and dancing in the rain.

The video was about 4 minutes, and during the 4 minutes, Gene Kelly used his body to express his feelings. He used 3 props, but it seemed as if he was using the water as a prop as well. The first he prop he had, was an umbrella. He was using it as a regular umbrella first, but when he started singing and dancing, he started to use it as a prop. He twirled it in the air, on the ground. He also used the umbrella as a dancing partner, and he danced around with it. He didn’t use his hat as much as the umbrella, but he did use hat a few times as well. He took his hat off a few times, and he took it off to get more wet. Gene Kelly used the pole for only a few seconds, but he jumped on it, and he also put his face on the pole as well. While he was on the pole, his face showed that he was very happy.

His face showed mainly showed one expression, and that expression was “happiness”. From the brightness of the song, and the way he moved, you could easily tell that he was happy. But his expression changed in each move. When he was near the pole, it looked like if he was thinking about the person who he loves, and when he was dancing with the umbrella he also had the same face. His facial expression showed both happiness and love as well.

He looked like if he had lots of rhythm. He made rhythm from dancing, and tapping his feet in the ground. It was especially amazing that he made rhythm from tapping his feet, and I really liked the sound of it.  The song was very bright, and you could tell that he had rhythm from his movements .

He used a lot of the stage space, and it was amazing the way he moved from one place to another. He used the stage space very well, and I really liked the part he was kicking the water, because he used the stage a lot there, He also used the stage a lot when he was dancing wildly down the streets.

In my opinion, this video was really amazing. It showed me what kind of movements there are, and how you could move. It also showed me about different facial expressions. How you could change them, according to the movement you are doing.

Drama talk one reflection

On tuesday last week, my class did our first talk about our hobbies. Because my hobby is reading, I did a talk about reading, and this is my reflection.

Overall, I think it was okay, but there are lots of things I could improve on. I think I need to speak in a more clear voice, because usually, my voice isn’t that clear, and I think I could speak in a louder voice. I think I should speak in a louder voice, because I had to have the volume quite high when I was listening to my talk. I also found myself speaking in a rush, probably because of I was nervous, or because I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say. I think I should pause once in a while, and stop moving around. I think I didn’t do very well with eye contact, or either with gestures. I should remember to look at the audience, not just at the camera, or Ms. Erickson. I think I get a 3 out of 5, because I think I did okay, but I have a lot of things to work on.

I will try my best to work on all of these, and I hope to make my next talk better than my first one.

This is our 6A theatre sports videos. I was in the same group as Mihaela, Tobi, and Kosuke.

I think my strengths was being able to continue the story when we were doing spacejump.I found it hard to continue the story at first, but it got easier for me because I learned the timing when I was supposed to jump in. I looked at the position when the person(Tobi) stopped, and I was able to continue the story .

My weakness was repeating the same thing a lot of times. I repeated a lot things I said because when the person who was supposed to jump in next(in spacejump), was a little late, I kept on saying the same things. I will try to stop repeating by remembering next time, and reminding myself.

I found keeping up with the story challenging sometimes. Because some of the people in my group were really good, and they were able to change the story really fast. But I was able to continue the story even though I found it easier once I was used to it.

The easiest part for me was when we were doing story story die, because everyone made me able to go on with the story, and it made me easier to continue the story. People in my group didn’t change the story very much, and it made it easy.

This is a video of Juulia, Sophia, Charlotte, and Eddie’s group. Juulia is really funny.

Significant Concept: Responding to an external stimulus, one needs to have immediate action where there is a suspension of thought.

Guiding Question: How can I stop hesitating and re-act without thinking?

Summative Task: Improv Theatre Sport
Students will engage in summative Improv Theatre Sport Event. 3 theater sport games will be chosen from 6 theater games practised during the unit. Students are divided in 3 teams. Each student has a sheet with rubric to record the minimum of 2 games joined.

Knowledge
•Be aware of dramatic instinct.
•The importance of the ensemble.

Skills
• Making an offer
• Accepting offers
• Giving the stage to others
• Move the action on (advancing)
• Creating a location