The children who took part in the lessons and wrote these letters can be seen reading them in role on the BBC Children’s History website for Merseyside (bbc.co.uk/schools/4–11 history).
dance can carry a message and make the dancers (or their audience) think.
Dancers communicate through their own movement, both movement quality and actual motion, and other elements, such as form or the way movement fits or contrasts with music, can say just as much.
Although some dance pieces are made purely from movement-based (kinaes- thetic) stimuli, it is easier to direct energy and ideas with a clear idea of what you are dancing about (although it depends on what the dance is for). A theme studied in other subjects can be a good starting point, because children will already have discussed it, and dancing about it can inspire new ideas and view- points.
The raison d’êtreof creative arts subjects is their role as a vehicle to express creative ideas. Although music, dance and drama are also highly motivational for many pupils, they have a hard intellectual edge, just like any other subject.
For example, issues of power, equality and critical exploration of truths are particularly important areas for the performing arts. Theories about these issues and the other ideas that we have discussed in the chapter will guide your planning and implementation of drama lessons. At first the children will experi- ence these ideas implicitly, but later in their school career they will begin to explicitly reflect on how these things might affect the lives of themselves and others.
Creative touches
● Expand the meaning of a single theme by brainstorming its associations. For example, from the theme of ‘falling’, we can draw out falling asleep, falling out, falling down.
● Props – pillows, sponge balls, elastics – particularly used with older dancers who have some dance experience, introduce more relationships to think about within the dance.
● Alphabet – assign a movement or dynamic to each letter of the alphabet (Arch, Bound, Clasp, Drop). Dancers can make phrases out of the letters in their name, or choose another word as stimulus.
● Characters – just as in drama, taking on a well-thought-out character can inspire dancers. Children could create their own computer game characters, with characteristic ways of moving and ‘special moves’.
● Chance – think of six separate movements, then number them one to six and throw dice to decide their order. This makes for a less obvious and
sometimes surprising sequence of movements.
● Floor patterns – a chain of dancers tracing clear floor patterns with their movement might seem simple but is very effective.
Creativity in the Primary Curriculum Creative touches
● Simple abstract ideas – conflict, friendship, fear – can inspire movement or dynamics for a piece.
● Finding ways into drama. Sometimes a moment will occur in a lesson when you are discussing or reading something together, and you think, ‘I wonder what that would look like. Shall we try it?’ Starting a drama can be as simple as that. Volunteers create an image of the moment, or you, the teacher, address the class in role. ‘The fire appears to be beyond control. You are his privy councillors. His majesty will want our advice.’ It may not be extensive or even well-informed advice but whatever they offer should be taken seriously, clarifications sought for and implications drawn. ‘But what will the citizens say when you demand they pull down their houses while the flames are still some streets away?’ All that such low-key role play asks of you and the children is that you take it seriously as far as you can. You can always stop and reflect, out of role, on what is happening. Ask their advice on how to handle your role. ‘Would the duke be willing to get involved in the fire fighting himself?’ In fact, he did, but that historical fact might be disclosed later. If they think it would be beneath your dignity then you can go along with that for the time being. They may be intrigued to discover the truth was otherwise.
● A riveting account of the Fire of London can be found in Neil Hanson’s The Dreadful Judgement(2001) (London: Corgi). One of the wisest books on how to use role play is So You Want to Use Role Play?by Gavin Bolton and Dorothy Heathcote (1999) (Stoke: Trentham Books). It is wise not to attempt too much. Let a drama develop slowly, step by step. Draw up maps and documents; invent or ‘research’ characters; develop images and investigate them carefully – what might this character be thinking, feeling, going to do next? Never rush things. Always reflect.
● The key questions to ask of any dramatic moment are questions like: Why is this happening? What exactly is happening and what is its significance?
What might the consequences be? These questions can be asked out of role or they might suggest the next dramatic activity: ‘Can you show us that?’ An important task for us as teachers is to help draw out the significance of what the children are showing. The girls who wanted to challenge the
‘no-one-finishes-her-dinner-here’ rule needed the teacher to ask what the others thought. It was when they all admitted the rule was silly that the moment of recognition was achieved – a dramatic moment but, in a sense, outside of the drama.
● Dramatic activities do not have to involve all-singing, all-dancing
performances. They may just be pairs of children talking in role, writing in role or texting or phoning each other in role. These tasks may be fed back to
The Performing Arts
the others as mini-performances or, perhaps more usefully, as brief reports on what transpired.
● Small-group work is often the most productive when the task set is tightly structured. ‘Prepare a sequence of three images depicting the events’, rather than ‘Go off and improvise a scene’. Walking before running is a useful principle. Just making it up as we go along can easily become superficial play unless a clear focus and some element of structure are provided.
● Building a world physically, with crumpled newspaper and cloth or papier- mâché can be a useful way into a drama. Setting the scene, as it were, is often a valuable first task. There are various ways of doing it. We might simply describe it together. We might draw it up on a length of lining paper.
We might use our own bodies to create physical objects. A little boy being man-handled over cobbles turned out to be a piano that a group of emigrants were optimistically bringing to their boat.
● A parachute is a handy resource. It can become almost anything,
transforming itself from Scheherazade’s bed to the storm of dust from which the 40 thieves emerge; from the council table to the Pied Piper’s cloak (he rises up through the hole in the middle of the ‘table’); from the river to the mountain which swallows up rats and children; from long fields of barley and of rye to the magic web with colours gay on the island of Shalott. It can also be simply a lovely plaything for creative, co-operative play.
● Stories, tales and poems can provide effective stimuli for dramatic explorations.
What might happen to Burglar Bill if he goes shoplifting in Mothercare? One half of the class in role as CCTV figures mirror the actions of the other half as Bill and other shoppers, assistants, security guards, police. The Wolf catches sight of the boiling pot in the nick of time and decides to approach the house built of bricks some other way. The children who went on the bear hunt with their dad face their mum who wants to know exactly how their clothes got into this state, and what are these scratches on the front door? The poor sad bear!
Shall we visit him in his cave? But this time, we’ll plan the expedition properly!
● These and many other dramas can be found in the three Speaking, Listening and Dramabooks for teachers by John Airs and Chris Ball (2002)
(Leamington Spa: Hopscotch Educational Publishing) and in Key Ideas, Dramaby the same authors (1997) (Dunstable: Folens).
● In Dorothy Heathcote’s mantle of the expertdramas the children work as members of an establishment with specific tasks and responsibilities to carry out. This form of drama may last for weeks or even months and will cover many areas of the curriculum. The full account of this approach is presented in Drama for Learningby Dorothy Heathcote and Gavin Bolton (1995) (Portsmouth: Heinemann).
Creativity in the Primary Curriculum Creative touches
References
Ball, C. and Airs, J. (1995) Taking Time To Act. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Boal, A. (1992) Games for Actors and Non-Actors.London: Routledge.
Brecht, B. (1986) Poems 1913–1956. London: Methuen.
Brook , P. (1988) The Shifting Point. London: Methuen.
Moretti, F. (1983) Signs Taken for Wonders. London: Verso.
Tripp, R. T. (ed.) (1976) The International Thesaurus of Quotations. Hamondsworth: Penguin.
Williams, R. (1977) Marxism and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, R. (1981) Culture. Glasgow: Glasgow: Fontana.
The Performing Arts