Drama Game: Moving Images

Demonstrate the technique with the whole group: stand in a circle and ask one person to enter the space and freeze in a random position, making an abstract still image. Now ask a second person to add him/herself in as part of this tableau. The idea is not to plan, but to ‘think with your body’. Do the same with another two participants so that an abstract shape is created by the four players. As each person enters they should relate to the other people's shapes. You may need to remind participants about exploring different levels and body shapes.

Now ask the first person to unfreeze and move to a new position in the tableau. After a moment, ask the others to do likewise, in the same order that they entered the image. (You can count ‘One, two, three, four’ to let each person know when to move.) Repeat this until a movement sequence has been devised in which everybody has three different positions. Now they should practise moving smoothly from position one to two to three and back to one.