m22739 Arts and Culture: Drama-the warm-up 1.1 2009/04/30 15:33:40.096 GMT-5 2009/04/30 15:39:39.855 GMT-5 gert bezuidenhout gert bezuidenhout gertb@mweb.co.za gert bezuidenhout gert bezuidenhout gertb@mweb.co.za gert bezuidenhout gert bezuidenhout gertb@mweb.co.za Arts en

Before we can start being creative in our drama class, you have to warm up properly to prepare your body and voice for performance.

Enjoy the following fun exercises that will help you to prepare your ‘instruments’.

Relaxation is fundamental to the efficient use of the body, not only in drama, but in carrying out our daily routines with maximum efficiency. Relaxation Exercise: Shoulders Stretch the arms upward as far as you can reach. Look upward. Let the arms fall. Repeat four times. Shrug your shoulders. Raise them as high as you can. Hold for a moment. Drop them. Repeat four times. Roll your head around gently, four times – clockwise and then anti-clockwise. Imagine a strong elastic cord running down from the top of your head, through your spine, and attached to the last vertebra of your back. Imagine the cord is tugged and it gently lifts your head and straightens your spine. Let your head and spine bounce very gently to the easy upward pull. Let your head ‘float’ up without any help from the shoulders. Face Make the most hilarious and horrible faces you can. Stretch and purse your lips. Inflate your cheeks. Screw up your eyes, then open them wide. Frown fiercely and release. Waggle your jaw. Shake your head. Arms and hands Swing your arms like a windmill. Slowly and flexibly flap them like a bird. Raise your arms and let them fall as though through water. Shake your hands till your fingers flap. Play the piano with your fingers. Rotate your hands from your wrists, clockwise and then anti-clockwise. Upper body Inhale through your nose. Exhale through your mouth. Rotate your hips to the left and then to the right. Stand with your feet apart and take a deep breath. Stretch up and as you breathe out, let the top half of your body fall forward from the hips, first the hands, then arms, head, shoulders and chest. Let your spine curl forward. Hang your head down for a moment. Inhale and uncurl. Reach up with a catlike stretch. Repeat four times. Ankles and feet Shake each leg in turn. Clench each foot and release. Swing each leg like a pendulum. Run lightly on the spot on the ball of your foot. Stand on one leg – lift the other leg a little – rotate the foot from the ankle. Change legs. Kick with each leg (like a footballer). Bounce lightly on the balls of your feet. Change your weight from foot to foot. Stretch up and inhale. Stand still – breathe comfortably.

Good breathing is a fundamental requirement for voice production. Breathing exercise: Stand easy and erect with feet apart. Rest the backs of the hands on the lower side of the ribs. Make sure your shoulders are loose and not raised. Inhale, noiselessly, to a mental count of one-two-three. Feel the outward swing of the lower ribs pushing the hands out. Release the breath gently to a mental count of one-two-three. Repeat six times.

Resonance is the sound produced by a body. You depend on the resonating spaces for the quality of sound you produce. The resonator cavities are the pharynx (throat), the mouth, the nasal passages and sinus cavities. Breath excites the vocal cords, and the sound gains resonance in these spaces. Resonance exercise: Stand poised – arms relaxed at your sides. Breathe in and out with your own natural breathing rhythm, a few times. Inhale swiftly and silently through an open mouth. Project your sounds across the room and say aloud ‘one’; inhale, one-two; inhale, one-two-three; and so on, up to ten.

Pitch, or tone, is the quality of the sound you make, the timbre of the voice. Pitch exercise: Speak the following line of dialogue with your jaw closed, but with your lips open: I’ve just met a man with a lemon stuck in his ear! The result will be nasal and woolly. Now check that your mouth is open and relaxed. Say the line again. Speak the same line in as deep a voice as you can. It will probably be a harsh gravely sound, because you’ve tucked your chin in and stuck your chest out. Speak the line again, pinching your nostrils. This will produce a comic unrecognisable honk.

Articulation is developed by means of vowels and consonants. The vowels are: a e i o u The consonants are the rest of the alphabet. Exercises for the jaw, lips and tongue The jaw Waggle only your jaw from side to side, up and down, forwards and backwards. Stretch your lips wide, and then purse them. Push them up as far as possible, then down. Repeat six times. The tongue Stick out your tongue, then withdraw it – repeat six times. Protrude your tongue as far as possible and rotate it in both directions. Try to touch the tip of your nose with the tip of your tongue. Try to touch the point of your chin with your tongue. With your lips wide open, protrude your tongue and bring up the sides, making it in a tube. Repeat six times. The sounds Repeat these sounds as often as you can until you can say them clearly and audibly. Hah Hoo Hah Hee Ha Hoo Hah Hee Mah Nah Moo Noo May Nay Mee Nee PahBah BahPah PahBah Bah Pah KooGoo GooKoo KooGoo GooKoo DayTay DayTay DayTay TayDay

Warming-up is not only being relaxed and having the body and imagination in good shape, but it also means gaining self confidence and getting to know your fellow learners at the same time. Warm-up 1: Red, Blue, Yellow Place chairs in a circle, leaving a space between each chair, and sit down. Your educator will give each of you in the circle a colour – alternating between red and blue. The purpose of this exercise is to exercise precise movement, with no fuss and in complete silence. On the order red!, all red must rise and move to another chair. On the order blue!, all the blues have to move to another chair. On the order yellow!, everyone moves to another chair. Vary the movement form slow motion to a fast reaction. No contact may be made with other learners.

Now that you have warmed up and your voice is fit for peak performance, you are going to create and perform your own drama based on an African story. Your educator will read a story aloud. Listen carefully and picture what you hear in your mind. Try to imagine what the story will look like if you had to see it happen in front of your eyes.

Tortoise has used up all his salt, and he found his meals so tasteless without it that he decided to call on his brother and ask him if he had any to spare. His brother had plenty. How will you get it back to your home?” he asked Tortoise. “If you will wrap the salt in a piece of bark cloth, and tie it up with string, then I can put the string over my shoulder and drag the parcel along the ground behind me,” said Tortoise. “A splendid idea!” exclaimed his brother, and between them they made a tidy package of salt. The Tortoise set off on his long, slow journey home, with the bundle going bump, bump, bump, along the ground behind him. Suddenly he was pulled up short, and turning around, he saw that a large lizard had jumped onto the parcel of salt and was sitting there, staring at him. “Get off my salt!” exclaimed Tortoise. “How do you expect me to drag it home with you on top of it?” “It’s not your salt!” replied the lizard. “I was just walking along the path when I found this bundle lying there, so I took possession of it and now it belongs to me.” “What rubbish you talk!” said Tortoise. “You know well it is mine, for I am holding the string that ties it.” But the lizard still insisted that he had found the parcel lying in the road, and he refused to get off unless Tortoise went with him to the elders, to have their case tried in court. Poor Tortoise had to agree and together they went before the old men at the court. First Tortoise put his case, explaining that as his arms and legs were so short he always had to carry bundles by dragging them along behind him. Then the lizard put his side of the matter, saying that he had found the bundle lying in the road. “Surely anything that is picked up on the road belongs to the one who picks it up?” cried the lizard. The old men discussed the matter seriously for some time; but many of them were related to the lizard and thought that they might perhaps get a share of the salt, so eventually they decreed that the bundle should be cut into two, each animal taking half. Tortoise was disappointed, because he knew it was really his salt, but he sighed with resignation and let them divide the parcel. The lizard immediately seized the half that was covered with the biggest piece of cloth, leaving poor Tortoise with most of his salt escaping from his half of the parcel, and spilling out on to the ground. In vain Tortoise tried to gather his salt together. His hands were too small and there was too little cloth to wrap around it properly. Finally he departed for home, with only a fraction of his share, wrapped in leaves and what remained of the bark cloth, while the elders scraped up all that had been spilled, dirty though it was, and took it back to their wives. Tortoise’s wife was very disappointed when she saw how little salt he had brought with him, and when he told her the whole story, she was most indignant at the way he had been treated. The long, slow journey had tired him, and he had to rest for several days. But although Tortoise was slow, he was very cunning and eventually thought of a plan to get even with the lizard. So, saying goodbye to his wife, he plodded along the road towards the lizard’s home with a gleam in his eye, and after some time, he caught sight of the lizard, which was enjoying a solitary meal of flying ants. Slowly and silently, Tortoise came upon him from behind and put his hands on the middle of the lizard’s body. “See what I’ve found!” called Tortoise loudly. “What are you doing?” asked the perplexed lizard. “I was just walking along the path when I found something lying there,” explained Tortoise. “So I picked it up and now it belongs to me, just as you picked up my salt the other day.” When the lizard continued to wriggle and demanded that Tortoise set him free, Tortoise insisted that they go to court and get the elders to judge. The old men listened attentively to both sides of the story, and then one said: ”If we are to be perfectly fair, we must give the same judgement that we gave concerning the salt.” “Yes,” said the others, nodding their white heads, “and we had the bag of salt cut in two. Therefore we must cut the lizard in two, and Tortoise shall have half.” “That’s fair”, replied Tortoise, and before the lizard could escape, he seized a knife from an elder’s belt and sliced him in half. And that was the end of the greedy lizard! After your educator has read the story, follow these guidelines to devise your play of “The Tortoise and the Lizard”. It might be useful to use this form to structure your drama. The storyline: The settings/places where the action happens: The characters: The props: 1. Writing a play Write your own drama based on this African story. Remember to add in stage directions. You can use the dialogue from the story or you can make up your own. 2. The Performance Your educator will select a number of the plays written by the learners. The class will be divided into groups – depending on the number of plays chosen. Rehearse your play. Perform your play to the rest of the class.

Learning Outcomes(LOs) LO 1 CREATING, INTERPRETING AND PRESENTINGThe learner will be able to create, interpret and present work in each of the art forms. Assessment Standards(ASs) We know this when the learner: DANCE 1.1 in preparing the body, demonstrates increasing skill and understanding of warming up, including: the development of spinal flexibility and strength; the controlled and relaxed use of the joints, especially the knees, hips and ankles; 1.2 improvises and creates dance sequences that use: steps and styles from various South African dance forms; costumes, props, imagery and music; varying use of energy such as tension and relaxation, stillness and flow; personal and general space; 1.3 learns, interprets and performs dances from South African culture with competence and appropriate style; DRAMA 1.4 performs simple relaxation, breathing, resonance, pitch and articulation exercises when warming up and cooling down the voice and body; We know this when the learner: 1.7 uses African stories to develop dramas that: have a clear plot; highlight key moments; contain credible characters; use space effectively; MUSIC 1.6 focuses on music from a variety of South African forms: improvises and creates music phrases with voice and/or instruments that explore dynamics, articulation, pitch and rhythmic patterns; plays simple rhythmic patterns on a drum or equivalent; explores and uses drum hand techniques such as base slap, open slap, muffle; reads and sings or plays the scale and simple melodies in C Major. VISUAL ARTS 1.7 transforms visual information into structured compositions based on individually selected, real or imagined situations in South Africa , using available materials and appropriate techniques in both two-dimensional and three- dimensional work.