Drama strategy where spectators are invited to enter and transform dramatic action; innovation used mainly for political purposes by Augusto Boal and others.
Members of the audience watch a scene - usually on a political or social theme - and are then invited to stop the action and to suggest alternative ways of playing the scene.
The audience become spect-actors, rather than passive spectators.
A few weeks ago I wrote about what I was revisiting about early learning as a result of having our 3 year old grandson living with us for a couple of months. Today I am pursuing a few more of those thoughts.
It is many years since I taught (or parented) pre-schoolers. These days I teach a mix of adolescent age groups, plus tertiary aged students and adults of all ages.
But living with a pre-schooler reminds me of some important lessons:
Kids genuinely love learning and exploring new ideas. William and I have been playing around lots with the concept of beat and rhythm – both in music and language. He loves to move to the beat. He loves to tap and bang the beat. He fits nonsense sounds to a beat. But beat doesn’t have to be confined to the times when we are consciously doing music activities. Last night his Mommy formed a family conga line as we chanted and stomped him into the shower.
Little kids are way more capable than we sometimes think of making connections. William often says, “That’s like the….”.
Of course, as a doting grandparent it is much easier to observe these moments. But as teachers we need to be switched on to moments of student connection – and we need to practise finding the right questions to stimulate the connections.
William loves the iPad (and other devices) and – like most of his generation – amazes us with his facility on a device. But he also loves to explore all of his environment – and so many everyday activities can be used to reinforce rhythmic and musical concepts. Yesterday he found our jar of coffee grounds and was curious about how we scoop out the coffee for the plunger. This started a game of scooping coffee from the jar to a bowl. I observed him muttering ‘ta-aa, ta-aa’ as he scooped – in other words making a rhythmic connection. He was having fun but subconsciously that important beat concept was being further internalised. We started to fit words and melody to the beat and a simple song emerged.
All this time spent with William has reinforced yet again my huge respect for what primary music teachers do for the children in their charge.
It is such important work!
Short songs used by advertisers to promote a product or service and have a catchy musical hook and slogan.
Theatrical swagger, arrogance and overstatement.
A zoom lens has a variable focal length. It can be adjusted to provide any shot size you wish within its range without needing to move the camera. The image size grows or reduces as you zoom in or out.” Excerpt From:
Excerpt from Media Key Terms and Concepts. Continue the conversation on facebook and twitter.
An elaborate, sophisticated drama with long traditions and origins in ritual and religion.
Silla period - 578 BC - 935 AD featured
Kommu: masked sword dance about the death of a young warrior.
Muaemu: dance without masks
Ch’oyongmu: grotesque masked dance drama
Koryo period - 918 - 1392 AD featured mainly puppet plays, acrobatic dances, but not a fully featured developed drama tradition.
Choson period - 1392 - 1910
P’ansori: one man operetta accompanied on the pug, double headed drum.
Kwangdae - actor - used three elements:
Sori - singing
Aniri - narration and dialogue
Ballim - acting restricted to emotional expression of joy.
Korean masked drama had two major forms
Purakje - village festival plays
Sanda-togam-g¨uk - court plays that later came to be performed in theatres, included dance, singing, music, mime and exchange of repartee; used elaborate and colourful masks made of dried gourds or paper which were traditionally burned at the end of each performance. Plays were collaboratively developed and transmitted by oral traditions.
Khoktu kaksi - traditional humorous Korean puppet theatre featuring animal and human characters.
Hahoe mask dance drama - originally had ritual significance but in recent times has mainly entertainment focus. Features various allegorical characters represented by masks not dissimilar to the commedia dell’arte use of stock characters and masks. Focused on class and social distinctions in humorous ways.
As Australian teachers return to school after the long summer break, it is timely to talk about voice care.
Teachers are high energy voice users and music teachers in particular need to be mindful of caring for their voice.
Here are some tips I have learned over the years – from singing and voice colleagues as well as fellow teachers:
Try to incorporate a basic voice warm-up into your drive to school. Some gentle sirening on a lip trill, ‘ng’ phoneme or vowel sound will help. Start in the middle of your speaking pitch range and gradually explore higher and lower pitches.
Keep your larynx well hydrated with frequent sips of water throughout the teaching day.
Avoid shouting over your class – establish a signal for attention early in the year. My favourite is to clap a 4- beat pattern which the class echo back. If established at the start of the year it becomes a habit and a terrific way to refocus the students’ attention on what you need to say – as well as bringing them back to the task at hand.
Eliminate throat clearing! If you are a habitual throat clearer, make 2020 the year you break the habit. Try to swallow instead.
Don’t smoke.
Avoid excessive talking / singing when you have a cold.
If you direct a school choir, sing only the parts which are appropriate for your singing range.
What are your favourite voice care tips? We would love you to share by commenting below.
Happy teaching!
The belief that western society is saturated by all types of media messages – news, entertainment, advertising – through all forms such as television, radio, film, print, internet, and that this is so overwhelming it affects our daily lives. This instant gratification affects our ability to think freely and make voluntary judgements with regard to what products to buy, what issues are presented etc.
Also, the pervasive nature of a particular message being promoted across all forms of media (television, radio, film and print) does not give the audience a chance to escape from that message.
A business can also saturate the market with advertising, often past the point of gaining any benefit.
The level of colour (chrominance) in an image.
Divisions of dramatic texts into sections.
In traditional drama, dramatic action was divided into a succession of inter-related scenes, and further shaped into sections called acts. In Aristotelian drama, the action of the play was divided into five acts. Although these divisions have been applied to plays, it is not always possible to set such formal and formulaic limits to drama; frequently the structure of drama is more organic and less schematic.
Some directors and actors also further divided scenes into beats, naturally occuring sections which make a whole statement or point and which contribute to the overall impact of the scene.
Using language effectively to please or persuade an audience. Therefore, in communications studies it is the use of all the codes and conventions used by a media text producer to persuade and audience to its message: selection and omission of particular images; symbolic, technical codes; narrative; audience positioning.
The point of rhetoric is to be so persuasive that the audience is overwhelmed so much by the preferred meaning that they struggle to create a resistant reading.
For example, a particular news network might use seductive graphics, dramatic music, repetition of slogans, a limited variety of paid ‘experts’ for commentary, selection of some details of some news stories to the exclusion of others, in order to create a particular context (fear, patriotism) to seamlessly insert a certain agenda and promote a certain point of view of the left or right wing of politics.
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