Year 10 Drama students create thought-provoking devised performances in Frantic Assembly workshop

On Friday 13 May a member of the theatre company Frantic Assembly visited to run workshops for our Year 10 GCSE Drama students. This was an exciting opportunity for students to work with one of the best theatre groups in the world, enabling them to create exciting, thought-provoking devised performances. 

The movement director led the girls through a series of exercises that encouraged them to explore how drama can be expressed physically. They began with some warm-up exercises, before learning an exciting new physical theatre skill. In pairs, they learned to execute lifts, before adding a twist, turning their partner through the air.

Next, they focused on interaction and non-verbal story telling. The session leader took them through an exercise used by the production crew on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to develop sequences of physical expression. This exercise saw pairs tune in to their partner’s actions, as the exercise built towards telling a story together with no words, but with varied movements and tone. The students performed dramatic confrontations, melancholy chases, and one piece even played on the exercise’s focus on action-and-reaction by telling a story about distance rather than connection.

In their final exercise, drawing together everything they had learned so far, the students devised solo performances. Their task was to mime the action of approaching and opening a door, then reacting to what was behind it, with each student making the performance their own.

The girls loved learning new physical drama exercises and created impressive pieces that deepened their drama skills. Well done to all those involved, and thanks to Frantic Assembly for these lively sessions.

Find out more about GCSE Drama here.