A DRAMA GAME FOR KIDS
Using Movement to Create Characters

In Body Walk, students explore how leading with different parts of the body can change a character’s age, attitude, and personality. Designed for for older elementary, middle school, and high school students, this free exercise comes from the Curtains Up Acting Studio Creative Dramatics Curriculum.

Step-by-Step Instructions

As an actor, physicality is just as important as the lines we speak to portray a character.

1. Let the class as a whole start walking in a circle or in random patterns around the room.

2. Tell the students to alter the way they are walking by saying, “Walk with your head leading,” or “Walk with your hips leading.”

3. After a minute, say “Now change to your chin leading,” or “Change to your knees leading.”

4. Continue to change the way the students walk every minute or two by indicating which body part is leading (e.g., nose, chest, stomach, toes, forehead).

5. Ask the students, “How does it feel? What kind of character might walk like that? Does it change how old you feel? Does it give a clue to your personality?” 

Optional: Body Walk with Interview

• After leading the exercise “Body Walk,” ask the students to create a character based on one of the walks.

• Give them a minute or two to think about the character and to imagine details about the character’s life: What is the character’s name? What do they do for a living? How old are they? What is their personality like? What is their voice like?

• Then invite a volunteer to sit on a chair in front of the class and ask the volunteer questions—which he/she will have to answer as that character. If it seems appropriate, let other students ask questions as well.

• After five or six questions, let other students sit in the chair to be interviewed. The students should use their imaginations and answer the questions spontaneously and quickly.

  MORE DRAMA GAMES AND THEATER ACTIVITIES YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
  SPACE WALK - Students use their imaginations to covey different settings
  WALK THIS WAY - Students demonstrate characters through movement
  BODY SCULPTURE STATUES - Students explore emotion and ideas using frozen poses
  MIME EMOTION - Students convey feelings without words

Curtains Up Curriculum by Friends of the Groom Theater Co. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Curtains Up is a training program designed for young actors sponsored by Friends of the Groom Theater Company.
It is available to the general public for free under the terms of the Creative Commons License above.