Arms! (impro game)

Moving bodies

About this activity: The students work in pairs and while A provides the text and lines of dialogue, B has to coordinate his/her movements as if controlling a human-sized puppet... and while doing this they act out short impro scenes!

What comes next?

About this activity: Our students like this impro game a lot! A person is on stage and asks the audience "What comes next?" They tell him what to do (e.g. that the phone rings and that he picks it up) and by asking "What comes next?" over and over an ongoing story is told. It usually doesn't take too long until a second or third person enters the stage (for example the boyfriend or a doctor)... Our students tend to be very creative and the stories they invent are often unforgettable!

Slow motion sword fights!!!

About this activity: With swords made of newspaper the students had to improvise a short sword fight in slow motion and learned that there are lots of different ways to die on stage...

Newspaper theatre

About this session: Using some techniques of "newspaper theatre" the students created short impro scenes and also learned how to pass on a "secret message" without being detected by observing "police officers". At the end of the session we also tried a game of "What comes next?"...

 

More activities (19/2/2010)

Activity mix (12/2/2010)

Three games inspired by Boal - "Bears and lumberjacks", "Blind museum visitors" and "Goalkeeper"...

Dance instructor (29/1/2010)

About this activity: "dance instructor" functions as a nice warm-up activity... and it’s very simple too: listen to the music and imitate the moves of the "dance instructor" on stage... there's no better way to get moving!

Gestures everywhere! (22/1/2010)

About this session: This time we explored various gestures (e.g. snapping fingers, stroking the chin, hands on hips, arms crossed etc.) and their effects. The students had to answer questions like: How do you show that you are thinking? or How do you show that you don't want to see this person? We also discussed how to express certain emotions like anger, worry or relief with simple but effective gestures. Afterwards the students worked in pairs and prepared a short scene where one particular emotion was shown and decided on gestures that best illustrated that emotion.