If Only Blue Could Be A Super – Hero

By Katja Lindeburg

Teacher Resource

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

About Young at Art Page 3 How to use this resource Page 4 Learning Outcomes Page 5 Summary of If Only Blue Could Be A Super Be A Super Hero Page 6 Cast & Crew Page 7 Curriculum links Page 8 Pre-performance activities Silly Shoes Page 9

Fairy Tale Freeze-Frames Page 10 Post-performance activities

Thinking Back Page 11 Hot Seat Page 12

This resource is the copyright of Young at Art 2016 and should not be reproduced or distributed to any third party. ©  Young  at  Art  2016  

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ABOUT YOUNG AT ART

Young at Art is one of Northern Ireland's leading children's arts not-for-profit companies and home of Young at Art Events and the Belfast Children's Festival. From its base in Belfast's city centre, Young at Art coordinates not only an international festival and a touring events agency, but also a wide variety of projects that encourage children and young people under 18 to enjoy the arts. Young at Art believes passionately that every child should have the right to access exciting and original creative experiences, regardless of who they are or where they come from. The company believes that arts provision should be FOR children and young people as well as BY children and young people. In this, it promotes child-inspired work by professional artists with an emphasis on performance and exhibition content over participatory activities. If Only Blue Could Be A Super Hero Teacher Resource was compiled by the Education Officer with exercises from All About Plays, developed by Mary Jordan and Young at Art, All About Playing, developed by Nuala O’Neill, Emma Berkery and Young at Art. To find out more about Young at Art, our performances and resources, please view our website www.youngatart.co.uk Alternatively please contact Emma Berkery Education Officer on 028 9023 0660 or education@youngatart.co.uk

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HOW TO USE THIS RESOURCE This resource is intended to support teachers whose pupils are attending a performance of If Only Blue Could Be A Super Hero during Belfast Children’s Festival 2016. It outlines pre and post-performance activities that can be utilized to both prepare pupils for the performance and also enable them to unpack and process the experience afterwards. While the pre-performance exercises will greatly aid the appreciation of the production, it is particularly important that pupils are given the opportunity post performance to explore the emotions and issues raised. The performance can be used as a starting point for a number of exercises and lesson development long after the original experience. The pre-performance activities outlined in this resource are designed to prepare your pupils for attending this performance. The activities can serve as warm-up games and exercises that engage the children in creative thinking, quick physical responses to suggestions, and experimenting with performance. It’s also helpful to introduce the vocabulary and skills, which will maximise children’s engagement with the performance on the day, and help to shape their critical responses. The suggested activities below include both active experimentation with performance and more reflective exercises based on teaching by questioning. The pre-performance activities can be reflected upon as a class and used to illustrate key concepts the children might encounter in a live theatre performance. These concepts include:

• The imaginative and non-literal use of props • The use of non-naturalistic scenery • Actors taking on multiple characters • The role of an audience in the process of 'collective make-

believe'

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If children are familiar with these concepts before experiencing a performance, there will be less of a 'shock factor' when they encounter them onstage. This leads a deeper appreciation of the performance they will see. Post-performance activities aim to elicit responses from the pupils, by encouraging critical appraisal of the performance they have seen as a class. The activities allow the students to explore how they felt about the performance and any issues or emotions raised. They also act as tools that can be used to encourage the children to express their own ideas and emotions in a safe, imaginative and creative way. Both sets of activities are intended to be adapted by teachers as they see fit to suit their own, and their classes’ needs and interests.

Learning Outcomes Pupils will be encouraged to:

• Work as a team (cooperating, listening, negotiating leading) • Work individually (focus, recall, thinking creatively and critically) • Make predictions and decisions (based on a range of cues and

information) • Express opinions, ideas and emotions • Experiment with performance • Explore perspective and composition

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If Only Blue Could Be A Super- Hero

Blue is a very scared little boy, but nobody knows that. In the schoolyard he is by himself. He's not allowed to join the others in football, because he is not very good at it. Instead he ruins the game for the others. He's loud in class, and he is mean to the weaker kids. That's better than being bullied. He's afraid to talk to the teachers, and mom and dad get sad.

Deep down inside, Blue dreams about being a superhero, to show the teachers and the other kids he is someone, and not just a wimp and a tiny dot in the universe.

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CAST & CREW

Performer: Dagfinn Tutturen

Technician: Oscar Udbye

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CURRICULUM LINKS Theatre visits and attending live performances provide the opportunity for different modes of learning within the curriculum. These experiences include the independent experience as an audience member, cooperative learning through group discussion and group play, and practical activities pre- and post-performance. Specific curriculum links which can be made to at varying levels include: The World Around Us, Personal Development and Mutual Understanding

• Demonstrating how characters' actions and decisions influence

their environment and relationships with others • Dealing directly with children's experiences and perspectives to

build confidence in the value of their contribution to the world • Creating imagery or spaces based on aspects of our world that

can facilitate conversations on reality and the imagined • Promoting greater awareness and understanding of other

people's feelings through the establishment of characters in performances

• Subverting language barriers, by storytelling through physical theatre and dance to highlight our shared experiences, emotions and challenges

The Arts

• Stimulating imagination, creative thought and expression through exposure to a range of artistic experiences

• Developing observation and interpretive skills in drama and dance contexts

• Encouraging children to express their views and understand their responses to performances and music

• Increasing visual awareness through observation/discussion of the different materials used in set and costume design

• Understanding how lighting and sound are used in performances to convey meaning and create imaginary spaces

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PRE-PERFORMANCE ACTIVITIES To prepare children for viewing the performance

SILLY SHOES Materials: None

Set up: Children stand in a circle in an open space

Specific curriculum links: The Arts; Language Development; Personal, Social and Emotional Development; Physical development and movement

How to play

• Explain to the group they should walk round the space until they hear a clap. When the group hear the clap they should freeze. Call out a type of shoes and invite the children to suggest types of shoes also. The group should imagine they are wearing these shoes, one type at a time. These imaginary shoes will make them walk differently and the group should walk round the room like a person who wears these type of shoes.

• Explain that this is a walking game and that the group need to be careful of the furniture and of each other, and not bump into things.

• Examples of silly shoes could be, dancing shoes, football boots, spaceman boots, clown shoes, ice skating boots, roller boots, cowboy boots, dinosaur boots, pop-star shoes, super-hero shoes etc.

• Each time the leader claps the children freeze and the type of shoe should change and then counting down 3, 2, 1 and the children should move as the new shoe type.

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Unpacking the learning – Questions after the activity

Why did we walk differently when we have different shoes on? What other types of shoes could we try on? How did we feel when we were walking round like different people?

Skill Outcomes

The children gain confidence by having their ideas and contributions valued. The leaders have an opportunity to introduce new vocabulary. The group follow directions and instructions, which aids listening skills and concentration. They are developing an awareness of others as well as fine tuning balance control, coordination and awareness of size, space and direction.

Building on

The game can be repackaged by using different character walks, for example; a baby, a prince/princess, a fairy/wizard, a dancer, a giant or different animal walks, for example; a lion, a shark, a dog, an elephant.

FAIRY TALE FREEZE-FRAMES Materials: None Set-up: Groups of 5/6 Skills: Freeze - frame work, performing, story-telling, working as a

team, decision making, audience behaviour: concentration, listening, observing, ‘reading’ a picture.

In this exercise the pupils will create 3 different tableaux or freeze-frames to perform a fairy tale. The audience will ‘decode’ the tableaux and comment on their meaning.

• Split the children into groups of 5/6.

• Give each group the name of a well-known fairy tale (quietly, so that the other groups don’t hear). Tales that work well are: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, Hansel and Gretel.

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• Ask each group to select 3 key moments (scenes) in the story, from which they will create 3 separate tableaux, which, viewed in sequence, will tell the story.

• Give the groups some time to prepare. When they are ready, ask

each group to perform their 3 images for the audience.

• The audience then identifies the story. Building on This activity can be developed, to include text/dialogue with lines and thoughts suggested by the audience for each character/object: ‘What are the Ugly Sisters saying?’ ‘What is the beanstalk thinking?’ Further each group can develop an alternative ending for their fairy-tale and it can be re-played and extended using 5/6 separate tableaux. Developing the activity into mini plays.

POST-PERFORMANCE ACTIVITIES To unpack and the experience of the performance THINKING BACK Materials: None

Set up: Large open space, children stand in a circle

Specific curriculum links: The Arts; Physical development and movement; The world around us; Mutual understanding

How to play

• Begin by generating a discussion with the children about the show. What do they remember about the performance? What were the most important/funniest/ least enjoyable parts of the play? Did the lights/music change, and when? Why?

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• The teacher can then ask each child to talk about their favourite moment and further explore the pupils’ positive memories of the play: Why did you like this? What made it funny? Were there any other parts that haven’t been mentioned that you liked? The responses can be recorded for evaluation/feedback purposes.

• Next the children can work in small groups to act out a chosen part of the performance that they liked/disliked/felt was important and so on.

• The exact same process is then repeated with the question: What

was your least favourite part of the play? Skill Outcomes

Developed language and social skills. Developed critical appraisal and memory skills. Developed sense of confidence and creativity.

Building on

To further this exercise of acting out parts of the performance they liked/disliked. The teacher can ask ‘what would you do next?’ to develop the play beyond recollection of the performance. Remember there’s no ‘wrong’ answers. Let the children’s imaginations flow using elements of the performance as a starting point.

HOT SEATING Materials: None Set-up: Groups of 5/6 Skills: Recall, Performing, story-telling, working as a team, decision

making, creative thinking, imaginative skills, empathy, audience behaviour: concentration, listening, observing.

The teacher asks the group to think about the play. What do they remember? What was the best bit? Which part did they like the least? Was it funny? What were the funny bits? Pupils can volunteer to be a

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character, they sit in the ‘hot-seat’ and the class asks them questions to which they respond in character. Suggested characters could be Blue, Blue's Mom/Dad; Blue’s teachers; A pupil in Blue’s class; A bully from Blue’s school; A super-hero.

• Split the children into groups of 5/6.

• Ask each group to suggest a character from the performance that they can hot seat.

• Ask each group to discuss this character and take it in turns to

'be' the character. What might he/she say to Blue? How does this character feel about Blue? How does this character act towards Blue? What is Blue like? Is he confident, happy, sad, lonely? Do his family know how he feels or does he hide his feelings? Is he fun to be around?

• Give the groups some time to prepare. When they are ready, ask

each group to perform their character for the audience. The audience can question the character to try and deduce who they are.

• The audience then identifies the character.

Building on This exercise allows for group discussion of the themes raised. Further development of the issues raised can be explored through the development of short plays, written short stories or debates. There are no right or wrong ways to do any of these exercises. They are designed to be flexible and allow for as much participant ownership as possible. Giving the children the opportunity to lead and direct the content of the activities gives rise to greater expression and engagement.

The resource is the copyright of Young at Art 2016 and should not be reproduced or distributed to any third party. It is solely for use in educational settings in conjunction with the performance of If Only Blue Could Be A Super-Hero.