Building the basics. Frozen pictures

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Description

A Year 7 class work on frozen pictures with teacher Kelly Jasur at Haggerston School for Girls, East London, learning to express themselves using gesture and facial expression rather than movement and speech. Drama has a clear identity here within Performing Arts and there is a strong culture of discipline. The lesson starts with a recap of the rules, followed by a simple warm-up and a look at a Victorian narrative painting. After brainstorming criteria for a good picture, they work in groups to create tableaux on subjects such as a picnic, a birthday party and an accident in the canteen. The class review each group's work, reflecting on the criteria established earlier and touching on interpretation, facial expression, physical gesture, blocking, addressing the audience and even the idea of levels in visual composition. Finally they consider what they've learned, and the teacher reflects on her personal style of strong discipline as a context for creative work.