Curriculum Portal

neurologyYou need to know

• Devising is the process of creating original drama from a stimulus, such as a word, image, sound, object, text, or news report.
• A stimulus is a starting point for drama that inspires ideas about plot, theme, character, atmosphere, and creative intention.
• Creative intentions are the intended effects, messages, or meanings that performers want to communicate to an audience.
• Characterisation skills include body language, facial expression, gesture, voice, movement, posture, and proxemics.
• Proxemics means the distance and positioning between performers on stage, which can show relationships, status, tension, or isolation.
• Marking the Moment is a drama technique used to highlight an important moment so the audience notices its significance.
• Freeze-frame, slow motion, mime, narration, one-word drama, sound, and lighting can all be used to Mark the Moment in performance.
• A rolling tableau is a sequence of still images that changes from one image to the next to show key moments in a story.
• Thought tracking is when a character speaks their inner thoughts aloud, usually while frozen or paused in action.
• A tunnel of thoughts is when a character moves between two lines of performers who speak thoughts, pressures, or opinions linked to that character’s situation.
• A vocal collage is a layered arrangement of voices, words, sounds, or phrases used to create atmosphere, tension, or meaning.
• A flashback is a scene that moves the action back to an earlier time to reveal background information, motivation, or emotional context.
• Cross-cutting, split stage, narration, physical theatre, and vocal collage can be used to create clear transitions between past and present.
• Theatre in Education is theatre created to teach, inform, or challenge a target audience about an issue, often using participation or discussion.
• The main staging types in this scheme are proscenium arch, thrust, traverse, in the round, promenade or site-specific, flexible, and black box theatre.
• Physical theatre uses movement, gesture, lifts, contact work, rhythm, and ensemble movement to communicate story, emotion, atmosphere, and tension.
• Naturalism is a theatrical style that aims to make performance appear believable and close to real life, often using realistic dialogue, behaviour, objectives, and given circumstances.
• Stanislavski’s techniques include given circumstances, objectives, emotion memory, hot seating, subtext, and Magic If to help actors create believable characters.
• Epic Theatre is associated with Bertolt Brecht and uses alienation techniques to stop the audience becoming too emotionally absorbed so they think critically about social or political issues.
• Brechtian alienation techniques include direct address, narration, placards, multi-role playing, breaking the fourth wall, and showing a character rather than fully becoming them.

• Develop a devised performance from a stimulus by selecting a clear theme, creating characters, shaping a plot, and deciding the intended audience impact.
• Use characterisation skills by controlling body language, facial expression, gesture, voice, movement, posture, and proxemics to communicate meaning clearly.
• Apply Marking the Moment by choosing an important point in the scene and using freeze-frame, slow motion, mime, narration, sound, or lighting to emphasise it.
• Create a flashback by making the shift between present and past clear through transition techniques such as narration, cross-cutting, split stage, vocal collage, or physical theatre.
• Perform mask work by using clear physicality, focus, posture, and movement so meaning is communicated without relying on facial expression.
• Select an appropriate staging type by linking the performance space to the creative intention, audience relationship, and practical advantages or limitations of that stage form.
• Devise a Naturalistic scene by using given circumstances, objectives, subtext, and believable interaction to make the performance appear close to real life.
• Devise an Epic Theatre scene by using alienation techniques such as direct address, placards, narration, multi-role playing, or breaking the fourth wall to make the audience think critically.
• Devise a Theatre of Cruelty scene by using intense physicality, sound, space, and audience positioning to create a powerful sensory impact.
• Evaluate a performance using drama terminology by identifying strengths, explaining their effect on the audience, and giving specific areas for improvement.