Name: Columbina

Status: high zanii, maid

Physical appearance: petite, strong

Props: basket, duster, broom, apron. 

Walk: hips movement, light feet, 

Mask: no mask, heavy, dramatic eye makeup

Voice: gossipy, high pitched and sharp.

This term we have been learning and studying about Commedia dell’ arte. This is an improvisation type of theatre performed in the 16^th century on the streets of Italy. There are many different characters in this including Isabella, Columbina, Flavio and many more. Many characters on TV shows we watch these days have characteristics of Commedia dell’ arte. During this term we have learnt about Commedia dell’ arte walks, talks and lazi’s. Each character in this form of theatre has different walks including the floating, soft movements Isabella takes, to the hippy, dainty walk Columbina has. Lazi is stage comedy sometimes with fighting.

We also got to try the masks that the different characters have on. This was very fun because the masks completely change what you look like and really help you get into character. With the masks you really had to do the body expression too so that you look more like the character instead of a school kid. I think for this particular unit you have to be more confident and be able really get into your character.

Near the end of the term we started of our assessment tasks. I found this particular assessment hard as your group has to make your own scenes. I was in a group with Nina, Ryan and Cameron. In our scenes we had to come up with our characters, the storyline and the lazi’s. We also had to have an aside for each character. Our group had many difficulties with adding characterization and using movement and voice to make our characters for noticeable. We changed our storyline many times because at first we didn’t add the concept of Commedia dell’ arte. In this term we also watched a video of Commedia dell’ arte being performed and this helped very much in making our scenes as it showed how much the actors over exaggerate there characters.

In conclusion this term has been very fun and also challenging. I found it very hard to really get into my character because the characters are very particular. Making the scenes was very hard but in the end very fun and worth it. I found the history of the commedia dell’ arte very interesting because it has influenced modern drama and television. 

Today we had to hand in our drama logbooks. As Mrs Daley was not here last week we played a few games to catch up. First we played a new game called ‘monkeys and minefields’. In this game we had to split the class into two groups the monkey and the minefields. The minefields would scatter themselves around the classroom and make a ticking noise, the monkey would have to shut their eyes and try and get to the other side of the classroom without hitting a minefield. It was very hard. After this we got into our assessment groups and each group talked to Mrs Daley about what we had come up with so far with how assessments. We talked to her about the magical aspect in our performance and she said that was fine to do.

In ‘Monkey and Mindfields’ i learnt that the best way to get your team through is for someone to sacrifice themselves and destroy all the Mindfields. In our assessments i learnt that we need to make our characters more clear throughout the performance and we also have to extend the performance.   

Today Mrs Daley was away again :( Our class decided to play Mafia. Prab, Anna and Billy were the mayors. After a quick game we went straight back into our scenes. Our group is starting to think our scene has too much magic and potions. We tried and wrote down ways we could make it less magical and more comical. We then worked on more characterisation and expanded our characters and worked on walks and voices. 

Today Mrs Daley was away again. We went straight back into work on our Assessments. All lesson we discussed new ideas and different characters. We started thinking of a new idea of Ryan being Isabella and Nina and I being Zani’s. Nina and I walk in the room and decide to play a trick on isabella, We put a potion in her food but Nina puts too much in. Isabella eats the food and starts to turn into a man. Flavio (Cameron) doesn’t believe that his beautiful isabella is a man and gets angry. The Zani try and make a new potion to turn her back. They keep getting it wrong and he turns into various different animals. 

Today we learnt and re create a whole new performance and we will expand more on it in later lessons. 

Today Mrs daley was away so we went straight into working on our assessment tasks. Our groups idea is for Nina to be a zani and to be helping me ( Isabella) when we reach and puddle. I make her get to the ground so that i can walk over her. Right when i reach the middle of her back Ryan (Flavio) and Cameron ( Alecino) start trying to win my affection. Whilst i am on top of Nina and boys are trying to impress me. At the end of the lesson we decided that our idea of me standing on Nina might not work, but we will expand on the idea we already have. 

Today we joined the other class to watch The Comedia Dell’Arte workshop video taught by Fava the expert of Comedia Dell’Arte. We wrote down notes about the characters, lazi and comedic scenes. There was many different scenes in this DVD and they were all over the top and hilarious. They used some modern aspects to the scenes including words, foods and different ways of speaking. After this we got our groups for our assessment task, i’m with Nina, Ryan and Cameron. We talked about what characters we are going to be and what the scene is going to be. For the rest of the lesson we discussed this and came up with lazi’s, a story line and asides. 

In the DVD i learnt a lot about the characters and how they act with each other. I also learnt a lot about the different scenes you can do and different complications that can happen throughout the scenes. In the discussion our group had i learnt about what our assessment is going to be and what characters are going to be. 

-After handing it in the class played 2 games of bang. (from anna’s logbook as i was away) 

Today we started off talking about our assessment tasks. We received the marking criteria’s for our performance assessments and logbook criteria too. We then played “Bang”. In this game Nina stood in the middle of the circle and would point to someone and say “BANG!” and that person would have to duck and the two people on each side would have to shoot across to each other. At the end the two last people in, would have a walking competition. After this we played zap, which a bit similar to “bang”. The aim is to be really fast and not to mess up. 

We learnt a lot about how our assessment are going to be marked. In “Bang” we learnt how to keep focus. In “zap” i learnt how think fast and listen carefully.