ALEX Learning Activity

Students explore how body language can show a story (i.e. how someone is feeling, character traits, etc.). This warm-up helps students take note of how their bodies move and respond to different given circumstances. This exercise also helps students to begin thinking about how to physically portray something as abstract as a feeling. Students will move around the room and be instructed to sit in different chairs in different ways. The teacher will provide all of the different ways to sit. Students will then be asked to use the chair as a different object (hat, cane, suitcase, phone, shield, etc.)

This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.

Learning Targets:

I Can:

• demonstrate awareness of nonverbal communication.
• demonstrate my ability to adapt my body language based on given circumstances.
• demonstrate my ability to create a character choice in the moment by responding to prompts from my teacher.

This warm-up helps students take note of how their bodies move and respond to different given circumstances. This exercise also helps students to begin thinking about how to physically portray something as abstract as a feeling. 

• Have students scatter their chairs all around the room. 
• Tell them they are not married to their chair (they will be sitting in different chairs throughout this exercise).
• Instruct the students to move around the room. (If 1 is the slowest and 5 is the fastest we are moving at a 3.) 
• Encourage them to be aware of the people around them and to remain quiet so they can hear the directions.
• You will now call out different ways to sit in a chair. ("The chair is sticky," "The chair is wet," "The chair looks very old and you are afraid it might break," "This is the most comfortable chair in the whole world," "You just got home from a long day working on your feet and you are about to sit down in your favorite chair," "The chair stinks," etc.).
• Have students move around in between chair interaction. Allow them time to really sit in each different chair.
• Add in the instruction of "Not a chair." Students must use the chair as a different object. You may need to give them suggestions (phone, cane, suitcase, hat, shovel, shield, etc.).
• You may want to remind them that these new objects must be school appropriate (no weapons or drugs).
• Add in the instruction of "Feeling." Students must use the chair to express an emotion. Example: for "fear," they might hide behind the chair; for "happy" they might dance with the chair; for "excited" they might jump up and down with the chair.

Lead the students in a discussion of what they experienced.

• What did you notice about your body when you had to sit in the "old chair"? What about "your favorite chair"? 
• What was it like to use the chair as a different object?
• How did you use your body to show something abstract like a feeling?

Gauge the students' understanding based on your observations of their participation and discussion.

• Students reacted to the given circumstances provided.
• Students were able to switch gears from types of chairs to creating different objects and then feelings.
• Students were able to make character choices in the moment based on the prompts given.
• Students were able to communicate what the process felt like.
• Students were able to communicate their successes and struggles.

In preparation for this lesson make yourself three lists:

1. All the different types of chairs you could sit in (sticky, wet, very old, soft couch, very tall stool, most comfortable chair in the world, recliner, wooden chair, wooden bench, church pew, etc.).
2. Suggestions for ways that students could turn the chairs into different objects (phone, cane, suitcase, hat, shovel, shield, baseball bat, bowling ball, umbrella, cat, dog, ladder, bed, refrigerator, etc.). Less experienced students may struggle with this idea. 
3. Emotions for them to react to (happy, sad, angry, anxious, depressed, excited, nervous, disgust, surprise, etc.).

• Consider playing calm music in the background to encourage movement around the classroom. Sometimes music helps to take the pressure off of shy students.
• Consider splitting your class into two groups so they can observe each other's reactions to the directives.

• This exercise works well with beginning actors (Proficient) to get them used to moving in the performance space as well as using their body language to tell a story.
• You could use this exercise with your cast to create an Accomplished or Advanced lesson. The actors would add the element of reacting in character to the directives.