Performing Arts

Howdy all!

The term may be winding down, but the energy, entertainment and excitement is still high in Performing Arts! 

In Prep we have been doing a deep dive into Marcia K. Vaughn’s “Wombat Stew”. Students have continued building on their previous work with emotions and are moving towards combining indicators of different emotions with characteristics of creatures in the story. Preps have also been expanding their vocal skills as they approach a wider range of characters to match a voice to. In addition, a song is built into the story, so they have worked at holding a consistent character voice in both a speaking and singing voice. 

In Year 1/2 students have been focused on transformation and the ways we can show an audience that we are no longer ourselves, but showing them a different person, creature, or character. They’ve worked through a number of guided improvisation exercises in which they isolated, focused on and practised altering some of the key markers of a transformation (gestures, voice, expression, etc). When bringing a frozen tableau to life, students worked on combining those key markers to show an audience of their peers a complete and well-round transformation.

In Year 3/4 students have been focused on, well, focus. They have worked on staging a scene effectively so that they can redirect the audience’s eye to the person or object that is important in the narrative. They began with the simple task of devising a scene around opening a box. During this task they have concentrated on mime work, in particular of imaginary objects, to use consistent physical actions to inject tension into their work and to focus on non-verbally communicating a short story to an audience. This simple premise has also encouraged students to consider reactions, both to their scene partners and the invisible object inside the box, in ways that indicate to the audience what is going on.

In Year 5/6 students have been playing within the genre of melodrama. After responding to and discussing elements of melodramatic theatre, Charlie Chaplin films, and modern-day soap-operas, students embarked on planning their melodramatic scenes in the vein of Little Red Riding Hood. Students worked as partners to plan a scene that relied heavily on their usage of over the top movement, expressions, actions and reactions to tell a mostly non-verbal story to their audience. The introduction of costumes and props added an additional layer of excitement and character work to the process.

Outside of the classroom we have begun the rehearsals for the principal acting roles for the upcoming whole school concert Trinity Primary: Calling All Heroes! The show will be premiering (and closing) on Monday 16 September. We look forward to seeing you there!

Please note that ALL students/classes are involved in the musical numbers in the production which we will begin working on in class shortly.

Preps acting out the moment before “Wombat Stew” starts. Students had to think beyond what was presented in the text to come up with a plausible improvisation of what happened based on their knowledge of the characters.

Year 1/2 students working together on group transformations and bringing to life a scene from the book.

Year 3/4 students working on their miming and staging for specific focus.

 Year 5/6 students preparing for and performing their melodramatic scenes.

Principal actors having their first read of the script!