1. What’s your story?: Presentational and Communicational Skills through story-telling and improvisation.
Age Range or Target Group| This workshop is appropriate for all age groups, it isrecommended however that participants of the workshop are at similar developmental stages. In regard to target group, as the projects depicts, both EU citizens/natives and immigrants/refuges/asylum seekers can participate in the workshop. The workshop is open to people from any socio-economic background.
Number of participants|10-15 participants. If the workshop is happening with more than 15 participants, more time should be given for each activity and maybe the help of another facilitator will be needed.
Duration |1h – 1h30m
General Aim- Objectives| The general aim of this workshop is to prompt and encourage participants to share their ideas and stories, whether personal or not; whether real or not, with an audience. Movement and theatre improvisation exercises will be used as tools for the participants to help them to narrate stories. The fact that the workshop will be implemented to a diverse group including both immigrants and not, gives an opportunity for contact between different groups of people and the creation of positive bonding that gradually leads to acceptance,understanding and social inclusion.
Key Words & Phrases| self-confidence; public speech; improvisation; acceptance; understanding; openness
Instructions (Step by Step Process)|
A. Greeting and Introduction to the workshop (5-10 minutes)
B. Warm-up (10-15 minutes)
B1. Tuned walking: The participants are paired in groups of two. The pairs start walking in the room all together. If one of the partners stops walking, the other has to stop two. When one starts walking again, the other starts two. If one speeds up, the other speeds up as well. If one slows down, the other slows down as well. If one decides to sit on the floor, the other sits on the floor too. The purpose of the game is not for one person to copy the other or to mirror them. The purpose is for the partners to start observing and “listening”/ sensing their partners so that they can start moving together, as one.
B2. Mazinga Energiser: For this energiser, participants come in a circle. The facilitator starts pronouncing loud the syllable “maaaa”. They continue saying the syllable loud, and then the person next to them starts saying the syllable as well. Gradually all people start shouting the syllable “ma”. When all have started saying the word. They then pronounce all together the word Mazinga as loud as they can. During the “ma” part, participants extend their arms to their front, while during the “mazinga” part, they can jump or take their arms to the air, or whatever they feel like. Please refer to the Resources section for a video with the energiser.
C. Main part (30-45 minutes)
C1. Live Sculptures: In this exercise, the participants are grouped in pairs. Partner A is the sculptor and partner B is the sculpture. The Sculptors then begin to work on their sculptures, trying different poses and creating their piece of art. It’s important that Sculptures do not move on their own but listen to where the Sculptors push them to go with their body parts. This process can be done with some background upbeat music. The Sculptors have 2-3 minutes to create their sculpture. When they are done, all sculptors can walk through the room and observe the sculpture exhibition they created. They can also start asking questions to the Sculptures. They can ask any questions they want: what their name is, where do they come from, what they do there, what is their favourite country etc and try to build upon the answers that the Sculptures are giving. The Sculptures have to answer the questions, not as their real selves but as the Sculpture that they embody during the exercise. After the exercise is done, the partners switch roles and repeat.
C2. The live story-telling photos: Each participant choses one object that they may have brought with them, found it in the room, or the facilitator brought with them. The object can be anything! Next, all participants get approximately 5-10 minutes to work on their own. What they will have to do is to create a story with the object that can be narrated in only 5 static scenes/photos. When all participants are done, they come together in a group and each participant narrates their stories. In order to get the full effect, the audience has to be closing their eyes while the performer is going from scene to scene. That is, the audience closes their eyes and the actor goes to their first photograph. Audience opens their eyes and see the first photograph. Audience closes their eyes again for 5 seconds and the actor has 5 seconds to move to their next photograph. When the audience opens their eyes again they see a different photograph of the story and so on. After each person presents their stories, the others can discuss what they understood from the story; what worked for them and what not.
Then, the participants can split in two groups and create a group-story with more than one objects and more actors. They can take 10-15 minutes to work in their groups. Then each group presents their story. After each group presents their stories, the audience can discuss what they understood from the story; what worked for them and what not.
D. Closure/Calm down (20-30 minutes)
D1. The group comes together in a circle. They relax and try to synchronise their breathing as a group. Inhale from the nose and exhale from the mouth, not afraid to make the natural sounds of breathing. They can lift their hands up, from the sides, in inhaling and slowly put them back while exhaling. Repeat a couple of times. Maintaining the synchronised group breathing rhythm, they now give hands to each other, continue breathing and while inhaling they walk towards the circle and lifting their arms up. During exhalation, they walk back and slowly put the arms down. Repeat a couple of times. They take a moment, to look into the other participants’ eyes and smile at each other.
D2. Debriefing- Suggested questions for initiating the debriefing section of the workshop: How did you feel during the workshop? How did it felt to be someone else’s sculptor/ a sculptor? How did you come up with the story for the live story-telling photos? Was there something challenging for you? What was the most enjoyable moment for you? Can you relate any of your feelings stemming from the workshop with your daily life? Anything else you would like to share?
Desirable Outcomes and Competences| Through the workshop participants will have the opportunity to work on presentational skills, their imagination and language articulation as well as the use of language in spontaneous and unplanned ways. This will happen through the improvisational and story-telling character of the workshop and the parts of the activities that will ask participants to present their pieces in front of an audience. The will engage, communicate and interact with others for creationalpurposes. The workshop will be a space for open sharing of thoughts, feelings and opinions, especially in the feedback sessions.
Photos and Videos deriving from the workshop’s applied process|
Relevant photos from group Live story-telling Photos activity:
The videos are uploaded as unlisted in youtube website and their goal is only to provide educational material for this output. Please use the videos only for your own personal understanding of the workshops.
Materials| The facilitator could arrange for some upbeat music to be playing during the workshop and for some items (clothing; bijou; daily objects etc) to exist in the room for the participants to use for their live story-telling photos.
Resources|
Mazinga energiser:
BESTorganisation (2011, March 18). Mazinga. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGY7L_0G9Jg
Live story-telling photos relevant material:
Dreams for life. (2015, September 2). 5 – Human photography – Improvisation Game. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiS5eeKXnFw
Media and Techniques| The workshop was based on online videos, articles and books about theatre improvisation and story-telling.
Tips for the educator| Please refer to the general tips for the educator of the ST workshops.
Questions for Evaluation|
- How did you find the exercises of the workshop?
- Are there any suggestions/comments/questions you would like to make?
- Are the activities well explained?
- Do you think this workshop will be interesting for all age groups?