"Four Better or Four Worse"

Men's Comedy Sketch
Originally uploaded by K!Mberly.

lesson learned: practice with the props! Great job guys! What team work.

Praise the Lord! This is our last class!

Women's Reader's Theatre Psalm 104
Originally uploaded by K!Mberly.

COURSE EVALUATION - STRETCH YOUR MEMORY

Customer Survey Reports: This Customer’s Satisfaction is _____%!

These last 14 weeks…
I can’t believe you got me to try

I will never forget the lesson about

If you get to teach this course again don't forget to include ____________ (ie. information, helpful tips, style, advice, attitude)

I really want to work more on

I wish we’d had more time for

I hope I never have to _________________ again!

I was moved by

I sensed God’s presence when

I also have this to say

How can I pray for you?

May the God of peace, who…brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus…
equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 13:20,21

It's been my priviledge to be your teacher. See you soon!

Here's a link to a dance we didn't watch last night in class. The rehearsal to a dance by Singaporean believers. The song is ARMS OF AN ANGEL. I think you'll really like it.

I was sooo stressed out planning for this class. It didn't seem like anything was coming together. You have seen my demonstrations of my dance ability last night (the BUNNY HOP!) So, I'm sure you know why giving you and evening of dance overview caused fear and trepidation! I wasn't finding much of worth on YouTube, people I'd asked for help weren't available, didn't get back to me or gave me video tapes (my vcr is broken) or vcd's that wouldn't play. After surfing and reading and calling and reasearching and making copies of wikipedia info, and running around town, an hour before class I was wondering what was going to happen... But then, it all worked out!

Jaqueline showed up with a dvd and pitched in with input and demonstrations.
We watched her video from 2004 Dance Collective (a variety of styles and ability), and saw some of the highlights I'd found on YouTube (my favourite was Mustard Seeds 10th Anniversary). Come next week to meet Elaine Chan (you saw her dance in that improv dance from Dance Collective) and hear from her about her philosophy of dance as ministry.

Next week:
Preparing for our final night
Here are your options from the syllabus:

1. An in class performance of an original piece that can somehow be used in ministry (up to 8 minutes, and may be done in a group of up to 3 people). Part of your presentation is to explain how you would use it and why you chose it!
Printed draft of your script due: 14 November.
Work in progress performance on 21 November

2. An oral and creative presentation of the content of one of the chapters from the selected reading list (minimum 5 minutes) Draft of script due: 14 November

3. A written reaction paper to an entire book from the selected reading list.
Due: 21 November

Say, class...why don't you post a comment below to let us know what is brewing for you?

Quiz 3: Playback Theatre & Reader’s Theatre

NOTE: There are no “correct answers” for these exercises. It’s just an opportunity for you to show that you’ve learned about using these 2 forms, and give you a chance to be creative. AND share your inspiration in a way we can share with others. Post your answers as comments to the following entries. I suggest you first type it out as a document on your own computer and save it before pasting it as a comment in the class blog.

PART I: Playback Theatre

1. You are the “conductor” for an evening of playback theatre and the topic is:
“The Body: Celebrating what Fellowship Among Followers of Jesus Can Be.”

What might you do to help warm up the group (audience and players) to this theme and get them more ready to start sharing their stories?

2. After some kind of warm up, you want to start with some “short forms.” You tell the group one of your own favourite stories of how someone built you up or ministered to you. Then you ask them to remember a time when another Christian was truly the hands or feet of Christ to them. One person, Joseph, volunteers this information: “When I was out of a job, someone in my cell group helped me get a new position.” You probe and Joseph isn’t willing to share much else except that this person was generous with time and expertise. Gave Joseph a boost of confidence. You ask a few more questions to probe “Do you want to share the name of this person?” “Is there anything else about their helping you that you want to share?” “How did their help make you feel?” He gives you short answers, and there isn’t much of a story in what he shares.

What short form would you suggest the actors use?

Describe how you imagine it played out.

3. The next person who shares is Lucy. It’s easy to get her to talk. With very few questions, she tells about a time when she was housebound on evenings & weekends caring for an elderly parent who was ill. You find out that she is a single mother and eventually, when the mum was invalid, she had to take leave because there was no maid to help the family. On the 3rd week of not being able to attend cell group or church, the cg came to her house bringing groceries. She was embarassed that her place was such a mess and that some of them had to sit on the floor. But they didn’t seem to mind. One of the guys fixed her home computer/internet connection and showed her how to shop online for groceries. The 4th week someone came early to help clean the apartment and mop the floor. Another guy in the group bought a CD of songs he thought would encourage her during the week. The group met at her house for 4 months until the mother passed on, and then they helped with planning the funeral/etc.

Which “long form” would you use. Describe a way it could be played out by 4 actors.

QUIZ 3 PART II: Reader’s Theatre

Break down ONE of the following text as a reader’s theatre script. You can write in your own text as an intro, or closing how you see fit. Be creative!

Reader’s Theatre Option #1:
Prayer of Detachment
St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Deliver me, O Jesus...
...from the desire of being loved
...from the desire of being extolled
...from the desire of being praised
...from the desire of being preferred
...from the desire of being consulted
...from the desire of being approved
...from the desire of being popular

Deliver me, O Jesus...
...from the fear of being humiliated
...from the fear of being despised
...from the fear of suffering rebuke
...from the fear of being forgotten
...from the fear of being wronged
...from the fear of being ridiculed
...from the fear that others may be loved more than I

Jesus, grant me the grace to desire...

...that others may be esteemed more than I
...that in the opinion of the world others may increase and I may decrease
...that others may be chosen and I set aside
...that others may be praised and I unnoticed
...that others may become holier than I provided that I may become as holy as I should.

NOTE: If you choose to work on this one, copy the text above and break it down as a Readers' Theatre. You can do this first in word processing document on your computer (to save it this way) and then paste it in as a comment here once you've finished.

Reader’s Theatre Option #2
In Praise of Dancing
St. Augustine

I praise the dance, for it frees people
from the heaviness of matter and binds
the isolated to community.
I praise the dance, which demands everything:
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.
Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,
who are in constant danger of becoming all brain,
will, or feeling.
Dancing demands a whole person, one who is
firmly anchored in the center of his life, who is
not obsessed by lust for people and things
and the demon of isolation in his own ego.
Dancing demands a freed person, one who vibrates
with the equipoise of all his powers.
I praise the dance.
O man, learn to dance, or else the angels in heaven
will not know what to do with you.

NOTE: If you choose to work on this one, copy the text above and break it down as a Readers' Theatre. You can do this first in word processing document on your computer (to save it this way) and then paste it in as a comment here once you've finished.

Dance as Ministry
Links from a dance ministry leader in USA - Evelyn Okamoto

Celebration of Dance
This link is to a ministry that has videos and shows clips on their website.

Using American Sign Language
This link isn't a dance link, but is a useful resource for movement ideas. Limited, but great since it shows a video clip as well as the verbal description.

This one has loads of training & networking resources for Christian dance.

Wonderful quotes Evelyn has collected and passed on to us:

“A dance is a very profound means to integrate the internal world with the external world.” Bill T. Jones, dancer/choreographer

“…the poetry of dance is the expression of unseen spiritual grace.”
Stewart Headler (19th century)

“The art of dancing…perhaps more than all other arts, is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.”
Ruth St. Denis, pioneer of modern dance, founder Sacred Dance Guild

“No, art is not catharsis. Just the opposite: Art is rehearsal. Watching or listening to other people do something is a way of mentally rehearsing it—which makes it easier for us to do the same thing. After all, that’s why businesses spend untold millions of dollars on advertising every year.” Chuck Colson, founder, Prison Fellowship

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, writer

“Art takes the ordinary and alters it in ways which make us see a deeper reality, one of things not merely seen but both implied and inferred. It alters relationships and makes us move off our comfortable center, to see, hear and think anew. Art can, in the hands of great talent, make beauty which reverberates through our lives and carries us into rarified strata. It can shatter our perceptions. It can clarify our anger. It can help us to understand our sorrow…Art provides the channel for those qualities which endure beyond the turmoil of a chaotic and threatened world…In dance, one returns to long forgotten basics: the revelations of non-verbal symbology – the physical knowledge of emotion. The body has been learning since before birth.”
Bella Lewitzky, dancer/choreographer

“I scrub my hands with the purest soap, then join hands with the others in the great circle dancing around your altar, God, Singing God-songs at the top of my lungs, telling God-stories.” David, song writer, king (Psalm 26)

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—which is your spiritual worship.”
Romans 12:1 (NIV)

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”
Romans 12:1 (The Message)

“The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.”
James 2:26 (The Message)

“Beauty is not only a terrible thing, it is also a mysterious thing. There God and the Devil strive for mastery, and the battleground is the heart of men.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist (The Brothers Karamazov)

Last week we gave Reader's Theatre a try.
Bet you never knew READING a script could get so creative...and complicated!
KEY POINT: Direct for picky details, like opening and closing your scripts together, actors starting their lines with their noses out of their notebooks, being CLEAR about where actors look when using offstage focus (if it's fuzzy to them, it will never work to create the illusion for your audience.