“Where the Wild things Are” Story Acting Workshop at V&A Waterfront
I met Leanne Reid through Open Design 2017 (thank you Suné Stassen), as both our organisations Learning in Reach and Pukka Theatre were part of the festival, both our organisations are looking to transform the educational space for young people in South Africa, so collaborating seemed imminent. Learning in Reach is running a variety of activations and kids activities as part of their Power of Literacy: Building a new world campaign at the V&A Waterfront as part of Literacy Month this September.
Leanne invited Pukka Theatre to be part of the magic! And so we hosted a Story Acting Workshop. The idea behind our story acting workshops is to invite kids to play, make and collaborate in a workshop where act out Maurice Sendak’s children’s story Where the Wild Things Are. This way kids are made agents in collaboratively telling the and acting out a adaptation of the classic. The goal of the workshop is to build confidence through performing a simple story as a team, using our bodies, faces, voices and imaginations.
This workshop is aimed at young children (ages 4–7), aims to drive children’s involvement in the story. I find that through embodiment and being active storytellers, kids recall and memorisation is enhanced. Within 10 minutes we are reciting lines of dialogue on que, “They gnashed their terrible teeth, and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”
Accompanying the dialogue, we act out parts of the story as a group, this is particularly great for the kinaesthetic learners, as kids of this age often are, thus enabling better development of memorisation, learning new language skills as well as promoting the pattern recognition and sequencing.
Working as group allows children the opportunity to explore their body awareness and self-expression in a collaborative context. Performing stories gives children space to play with the creativity of words and emotion particularly in communicating to an audience. By using their voices they explore volume, inflexion, pitch, pauses and speed as well as using their faces thus learning to convey meaning and self-expression. Exploring breath coordination, facial and physical gestures further enhance kids exploration of non-verbal communication too.
When giving instructions I try about statements, rather I want to optimise for participant autonomy. Autonomy allow the kids to feel they have space to be creative and make individual choices, it also boosts engagement. Asking questions such as “How can we make the sounds of boat sailing across the ocean?” provides kids with opportunity to make decisions as to how each individual wants to create the sounds of the ocean and gesture the movement of a rocking boat. Rather than directing and choreographing them every step of the way
Power of Literacy: Building a new
Share the power of literacy this International Literacy Month with Learning In Reach. Join us for storytelling and art activities to ignite and fuel your child’s love of reading. Look out for puppet show performances and story telling workhops with special guests and local authors.
There’s an opportunity to “pay it forward”, pledging a book for a child in Lavender Hill, sharing the love of reading and raising funds to establish Rock of the Hills Preschool. Many of these children have never owned a book before. Let’s unlock the child’s true potential and give each individual a chance to shine.
WHERE CAN YOU CATCH US NEXT?
Saturday, 16th September | 1pm | V&A Waterfront (downstairs next to Pick ‘n Pay)
Moms, dads, umkhulu, oupa’s and kids (bring the whole family) and join us for a collaborative workshop in making stories come to life. We’re building resilience and confidence to explore ourselves and the world around us through stories and theatre! Come join the action.
WHO?
All workshops are lead by me, Gabi Immelman, Founder of Pukka Theatre and international teaching-artist. I am an experienced theatre-maker with a history of working on distinguished and award-winning productions in both the United States and South Africa. I have worked with hundreds of children from all walks of life in various capacities from directing children’s productions to facilitating workshops and immersive learning experiences. Pukka’s mission is to help kids build resilience and motivation through theatre-making workshop.
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