Theatre Education: A Resource of Practical and Project-Based Warm-ups/Theatre Games for K-12

Circle Tableaux

Where we learned it: Theatre for Social Change at ASU
Ages: 6th grade and up
Materials: None

Process:

1. Have the students get into one large circle and explain tableau.  (A frozen picture using their bodies, as if someone was taking a snapshot of them.)
2. Ask each student to think about a picture of herself when she is happy.  What do you look like when you are happy or what kind of activity do you do that makes you happy?  (Demonstrate a few for the students, perhaps with a different subject so as to not have the students simply copy you.)
3. Have all the students turn their backs and try their personal tableaux.
4. Then have all the students share them, going around in the circle for 3 seconds at a time.

Variations:

1. Any other theme or topic you can think of or are working on at the time can be used to introduce the tableaux concept.