Year 6 Italian & Drama Performance

Commedia dell'Arte 

By Archie, student in 6D

Recently, the Year 6 students have been studying Commedia dell’Arte which is a style of Italian comedy originating in the early 16th century. We have done a wide variety of activities, ranging from practicing stock characters in Drama to making our own masks. Year 6 has also seen multiple guests come to the school such as Commedia dell’Arte experts Rosa and Mason from Make a Scene, and circus instructors Sarah and Shona from Dummies Corps. 

To start our learning with Rosa, she and Mason held a large workshop where they brainstormed ideas for a play that Year 6 will be performing at the end of term 2. This is where Year 6 witnessed a hilarious Commedia dell Arte performed by Rosa and Mason called Venice in Love. This was one of our first lessons and there have been a lot more activities since then. 

One of the biggest highlights was making Commedia dell’Arte masks, these are a grotesque style of mask that is stunning in its own unique way. Each student made a mask that represented one of the standard characters. One interesting detail is that some of the different masks like the head Zanni (Pulcinella) and Pantalone are inspired by types of birds.

Each student’s mask turned out differently in its own ways, using different colours and highlighting however, they can’t differ too much from other masks of the same character, otherwise, it wouldn’t be a Commedia dell’Arte mask!

In sessions with Rosa, the students learned how to act greedy or just comical, as well as learning how to appear wise or cowardly. This was incredibly entertaining as the students had interesting imaginations. I didn’t think I’d ever see someone act out driving a bus into a fly before I saw it. The students also learned tricks in circus-like climbing on top of others and human juggling! 

Rosa has been teaching us Italian in the Drama classes and this has been fun. In Italian, we’ve been learning some new phrases and a crazy (perhaps even disturbing) song for our performance.

I know I can’t wait to see the Year 6 performance!