The Very First Lesson

2011 was a good year and that's when I first started having authentic drama lesson (though I never had any hands-on experience on drama). Honestly, after today's lesson, I kind of forget my pass few drama lessons with prue. Maybe some skills lost XD


Today we got to know Mr. Kenneth Kwok who will be teaching us this module this semester. He is a regular writer/ critique on InkPot. The very first introductory game was to give a little warm up to our sensory system. First, we had to picture ourselves in our mind and draw ourselves without letting other people know. Then, putting all the pictures together, we identify who is who. This drawing activity helps us to focus one distinct feature that we have but the rest do not, since all of us are created differently. It is also a good sort of 'ice breaker' because we can get to know our students through their drawing because art is creativity and the expression of the inner self. Students get to express their emotions, identity, personality, character through art, which academic skills cannot (such as Mathematics). Students can also get to know their friends better. One disadvantage is that students might not want to reveal their art pieces for fear that their emotions or personality are exposed.


We were then separated into three groups. The first group will walk in their normal behaviour while the rest of the group members had to observe them. Then, a piece of paper is assigned to every one of us (A,A1,A2,B,B1,B2...) The first letter represents the person you are to observe while the number 1 represents the person who needs to do the imitating of the person he observed. Group 1 and A2, B2, C2.. have to observe all the 1s to identify who imitates who in group 1. This game taps on the unconscious and conscious mind. When someone imitates another, we get to see ourselves in them. We notice things that we do not know that we do it. It helps raise our self-awareness. Others observe what we might think we have already. However, I think the first group might 'overdo' their natural actions because all eyes are on them, which makes them think whether their actions are natural or not. This activity is a great activity to activate our listening, observation and memory skills. Similar to the drawing, this activity also tells people of their personality through the movements. This activity might not work well in normal stream people because they are restless.


Another activity was having two people come up with two different actions, then allowing the rest to choose which is the easier one to do. The most people doing that particular action wins and continues to do until another challenger breaks away the chain of action. This is a good activity to play in status.


Then we came to the main activity, where we had four groups and four different assignments to each group. Using the topic that we choose, we need to perform according to the assigned tasks. There were Writer role, Tableaux, Hot seating, Collective role. The writer role was more of the In, Out, and on-the-edge focus that Prue taught us. Hot Seating is being in character while answering questions from the audience. This caused some tension between the audience and speaker because they challenged the power of the speaker. It requires us to be prompt in our answers too. Tableaux is like postcards scenes that we had to decipher. Collective role is short monologues by us within a character, which also gives different perspectives and focus on the character. This activity is great for teaching tension and focus because of the different powers shifting and focus lens.