This put up incorporates six free infographics that cowl completely different features of the VCE Drama course. Technically, these assets are related to native readers of The Drama Teacher who’re both learning or have college students endeavor Year 11 or Year 12 Drama within the Victorian Certificate of Education (Australia). However, if this isn’t you, I’d be stunned if you happen to didn’t discover a number of of those infographics related to your Drama or Theatre Arts curriculum in different areas of Australia, within the UK, the U.S, or elsewhere as a result of a lot of the terminology is common.
I created these infographics for my senior Drama class to arrange them for his or her upcoming written examination in Year 12 Drama. Each of the infographics covers a “family” of terminology college students must know so as to apply their understanding to stimulus materials of their written examination. Visual learners, specifically, love the succinct phrases and examples, the easy graphics, and the organized format of the posters. At the top of this put up, you’ll be able to obtain all 5 infographics free of charge in excessive decision for sharing together with your college students or printing them to A4 or A3 to put up on the classroom wall.
1. Play-Making Techniques
The VCE Drama course prescribes seven “play-making techniques”. As the time period implies, these strategies belong within the creation and building/improvement part of pupil drama work. As the VCE Drama course focuses on primarily student-improvised materials, these strategies are:
While there is no such thing as a specific order for endeavor these phases in making a student-devised drama piece, the above order is considerably logical because it represents an approximate information to the probably order of actions, which might happen over a number of classes or weeks. The infographic beneath incorporates a lot of examples of what might happen in every part. For instance, hot-seating often occurs within the improvisation stage, scripting might embody collaborative scriptwriting with classmates, whereas enhancing might contain trimming dialogue.
2. Production Areas
Production areas, usually known as stagecraft in different curricula, contain outstanding areas of theatre akin to costume, lighting and sound. However, particular state or nationwide curriculum our bodies worldwide often prescribe a particular listing of manufacturing areas for research. In the VCE Drama course, manufacturing areas improve student-devised drama however are typically not the main focus and embody:
This infographic lists all manufacturing areas studied within the VCE Drama course and consists of helpful examples in every class, akin to interval or modern costume, underscores or results in sound design, specialty or hand props, plus flats, platforms and risers for set items.
3. Expressive Skills
The 4 expressive expertise in VCE Drama course are widespread to many drama training programs world wide and embody:
The infographic beneath incorporates particular subdomains of voice in appearing, akin to pitch, accent, tone, and timbre. It shows numerous forms of motion, akin to stylised, mechanical, symbolic, ritualistic, or fluid. For facial expressions, it incorporates examples akin to managed, sarcastic, optimistic, and confused. For gestures, the infographic consists of examples akin to purposeful, dismissive, emphatic, and pained, to call a number of.
4. Dramatic Elements
The “dramatic elements” within the VCE Drama course are sometimes called “elements of drama” in curricula elsewhere. The particular listing of ‘elements’ varies broadly throughout Australia and the remainder of the globe, as you’ll be able to see in this put up overlaying thirty-seven completely different parts of drama, which is an try to outline a mixed listing of parts from completely different curricula. The VCE Drama course consists of the next “elements”:
These parts are important when a pupil devises a solo or ensemble drama piece. Most drama work includes a lot of these parts. I liken them to substances in a recipe and discover college students don’t have any hassle understanding this easy idea.
5. Drama Conventions
In the VCE Drama course, 4 drama conventions are prescribed for 2 main student-devised efficiency duties within the closing yr of highschool (Units 3 and 4 Drama). These relate to an inner, teacher-assessed ensemble efficiency and an exterior examiner-assessed solo efficiency. The conventions are:
Students should transcend a sensible portrayal of characters and occasions by making use of these 4 conventions of their main evaluation items. Each pupil should rework into a number of characters earlier than the viewers, together with non-chronological scenes that rework time, akin to flashbacks and flashforwards. Inherent on this construction will nearly actually be a lot of transformations of place within the drama. In addition to this, the scholar should apply image in some kind of their efficiency evaluation.
Added to this, college students are prescribed (by their trainer within the ensemble efficiency and by the curriculum authority within the case of the solo efficiency) conventions from a spread of efficiency kinds akin to Epic Theatre and Absurdism, but in addition movie kinds akin to Silent Film and Film Noir, which you’ll see examples of within the hyperlink above within the 2024 solo efficiency examination.
This infographic consists of quite a few methods college students can apply every of the 4 conventions of transformation of time, transformation of character, transformation of place, and software of image.
6. Performance Skills
In the VCE Drama course, a small group of phrases stay aside from the 4 expressive expertise of voice, motion, facial features, and gesture. These are often called “performance skills” and embody:
In some ways, these efficiency expertise will be seen as cousins of the 4 expressive expertise. Every actor requires a powerful focus, managed timing (which might fluctuate broadly relying on the calls for of the piece), appropriate power, and a eager understanding of the connection they’ve with the viewers. The actor-audience relationship, alone, can differ at sure moments inside a single piece or fluctuate between items of various efficiency kinds. For instance, the intimate actor-audience relationship of an Immersive Theatre theatre efficiency needs to be vastly completely different from the connection wanted for a play carried out within the type of Epic Theatre.
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