7. What’s your status?: Theatre Improvisation activities reinforcing perspective-taking and communication.
Age Range or Target Group| This workshop is appropriate for all age groups, it is recommended 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| 1h30m -2h
General Aim- Objectives| This workshop aims to help participants become more confident and take initiatives. Specifically, in this workshop, participants will be mainly focusing on the concept of status; high and low. They will be exploring, through theatre improvisation techniques, how one’s status affects their personality and their interactions with other people.
Key Words & Phrases| theatre improvisation; social norms; creativity; inclusion; critical thinking
Instructions (Step by Step Process) |
A. Greeting and Introduction to the workshop (5-10 minutes)
B. Warm-up (20-25 minutes)
B1. Splat: Everyone stands in the circle. One participant or the facilitator takes the role of the splatter and goes in the middle of the circle. The splatter randomly points at one participant each time, shouting “Splat!”. The person who is pointed at, has to squat down and the people that are on their right and left have to splat each other and shout “Splat!”. The person who Splats second, is out of the game. The game continues until there is only two people. The people who are out of the game, they remain in the circle in order to make it more complex for the people who are still playing. When only two people remain in the game, they stand back to back, the splatter counts from 1-10. With every number, the two remaining players take a step forward and away from each other. The splatter decides whenever they want to say instead of a number, the word splat. Then the two players have to react quickly to splat each other. The faster, wins.
B2. Walking IT: Participants get into pairs. Partner A are the “IT”. Partners B starts to walk 2-3 seconds ahead of Partners A. Partners A begin then to walk aiming to tap on Partner’s B shoulder and say “IT”. When they manage to do so, Partner B has to make a turnaround themselves and start chasing Partner A in order to tap their shoulder and switch roles again. Players are allowed only to walk and not to grab people. They can play the game for 1 minute and by the end see who has the IT. The purpose is not to be left with the “IT”.
B3. Character Bus: There are multiple chairs in the room in lines, reminding the seats of a bus. One participant volunteer to be the driver. The driver drives the bus and makes various stops. In each stop, one passenger comes in with a specific mood/character (i.e. very relaxed, sleepy, happy, funny, anxious, suspicious etc.). Every time a character gets in the bus the passengers and driver have to adopt their character and behave respectively. For further information on the warm up activities, please refer to the Resources section.
C. Main part (45-60 minutes)
C1. Walking high and low: Participants are asked to start walking across the room. They are then asked to focus on the weight on their feet, to put emphasis on their hills and to observe what this does to their body (i.e. their neck, head, spine, eyes) their speed and their rhythm (high status walking). Then they can start walking while getting lower and observe how does that influence their body, rhythm, speed etc. Facilitator can guide them then to play around going from high to low and back to high status.
C2. High and low group: In this activity the participants are asked to become one as a group. All together they are going to walk, talk, behave as one creature of, first, high and then, low status. In each case, the facilitator asks them some questions (i.e. what is your name, where are you from? what is your phone number? etc.) and all the voices of the group have to reply together as one and spontaneously. They do this activity both for high and low status.
C3. The king game: In the king game, one participant acts as the king while the rest are servants. The king asks for a servant and one of the servants has to go there immediately. The king makes their request and the servants have to execute it. If the king is not satisfied they can say the word “die”, the servant dies and another one comes in. The king can be asking for multiple servants and ask them to perform various things (They can perform this game in groups if the number of participants is big. When one group is performing the rest can be an audience).
C4. Playing with a status: The facilitator hands out a piece of paper to the participants with a number of it. Higher number indicates higher status and lower number indicates a lower status. Participants know only their own number. The facilitator then gives them a location (i.e. a restaurant kitchen, a bus stop, the offices of a primary school etc). The participants enter the space and start acting according to their status in the location they are supposed to be. By the end of the small improvised play, participants are having a discussion to see if they understood the status of each person (They can perform this game in groups if the number of participants is big. When one group is performing the rest can be an audience).
For further information on the main part activities, please refer to the Resources section.
D. Closure – Calm down (15-20 minutes)
Debriefing – Suggested questions for initiating the debriefing section of the workshop: How did you feel during the workshop? Was there something challenging for you? What was the most enjoyable moment for you? How was it to be low/high status? 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 this workshop, participants will have an opportunity to reflect on and question social norms. They will experience daily life situations from different perspectives, both as a group, as individuals and in their interactions. This experience can lead to development of perspective-taking and empathy and eventually to better interpersonal relations. For the purposes of the workshop, participants will be also performing during some activities which will help them develop their presentational skills, confidence, imagination and better use of language. Due to its improvisational character, the workshop will keep the participants active both physically and mentally while asking them to act and react in spontaneous but still conscious ways. Moreover, some activities which are performed by the group as a whole, help participants develop team spirit. All these will be happening in a safe context for participants to express themselves and enjoy.
Materials| No special material is needed for the workshop.
Resources|
- Warm up activities:
Drama menu (2016, March 15). Theatre Game #42 – Walking IT. From Drama Menu – drama games & ideas for drama. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L19DCM9JTE
Drama menu (2015, July 13). Theatre Game #3 – Splat! From DRAMA MENU – drama games & ideas for drama. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZEJBiUKA-U
Drama menu (2014, June 26). Theatre Game #52 Character Bus. From Drama Menu – drama games & ideas for drama. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDeDKCRxlA0
- Main Part Activities:
National Theatre Discover (2017, February 16). Spymonkey: Devising Masterclass. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-_QItaSa4I
Media and Techniques| The workshop was based on improvisation and performing arts workshops, online videos, articles and books about theatre improvisation and story-telling.
Tips for the educator| Please refer to the general tips of the educator for 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?