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KS4 Drama – Acting Skills: Movement, mime and gesture

Acting Skills:Movement, mime

and gesture

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Learning ObjectivesLearning objectives

Explore the concepts and uses of movement, mime and gesture in drama

Develop skills using mime, movement and gesture

Develop confidence through the use of mime, movement and gesture

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Movement

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Mime

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Mime

Professional mime artists can make the audience see things that aren’t really there. In order to mime successfully, you need to have a detailed understanding of how your body moves when performing a particular action.

You also need to communicate a number of physical properties, such as size, shape, weight, and texture.

Choose an action, such as putting on a tie or jacket. Practise doing this

movement for real a few times. Then try miming it. Remember how the object

felt, and what your hands and body did.

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Gestures are powerful forms of communication and expression, and are used across the world in many different cultures.

Kathakali theatre, which originates from southern India, is a vibrant combination of drama, dance, music, poetry, costume, make-up and ritual.

Gestures

Kathakali theatre uses gestures, or mudras, for its storytelling. These are usually hand gestures, although some involve the entire body.

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In Victorian melodrama, exaggerated movements conveyed meaning and actors learnt stock gestures to show different emotional states.

In pairs stand opposite each other. Person A has an urgent message for person B.

However, there is a sound-proof window between you, and B is unable to lip-read. Use

only gestures to get the message across.

These images show three different melodramatic gestures. Can you guess which emotions they represent?

Gestures