Commedia dell' Arte: Presentation and Wax Museum

Aim of Task: To share our knowledge about Commedia dell' Arte characters with our partners and with the whole class.

Description of Task: Following the previous research we did on our partner's Commedia dell' arte chosen character, we did a presentation for them where we told them personally all the facts that we found about their character. I told my partner, Shari, all I found out about Isabella: the gestures she normally uses, the custome, her relationship with other characters and with the audience... I tried to put more detail and emphasis more the things I thought she would be more interested in and could have got her attention when talking to her.

After this, she made her presentation about Flavio to me: she also talked to me mostly about his characteristics and his performance on stage.

After we were done with presenting our characters to each other, our teacher, Steve, asked us what were some of the good techniques in presenting. One of my classmates said that when her partner did her presentation, she compared La Ruffiana to Snowhite's old lady. I thought that was a pretty good way of giving an example people can relate to and are familiar with. It is definitely something I can include in my next research.

After we were done with feedback, we started doing what we called the "wax museum." Half of the class left the classroom and the other half stayed with their pairs. The half that stayed in the room, one person in each couple molded the other person into a position that was characterstical of their character. Then, that person had to stay still in that position while the other half of the classroom came in and the partner who was not standing still from the couple would give an oral presentation of who this character was and what was his personality/characteristics. After that, each couple would switch partners, give the presentation in the same manner, and after that the second half of the class would do the same thing.

It was quite an interesting exercise to imagine being in a museum where there was several people greeting you and telling you random information about that person who was standing still. I liked it a lot!

Reflection: What we did today in class was a very effective way of sharing information. It was an excellent class teamwork to research different things and the present that to our other classmates. This is how we can learn by sharing with other people. This is actually related to TOK and one of the forms of knowing: by other people.

Conclusion: I am very convinced Pantalone is the character I want to play now. Flavio was not really the character for me, I don't think I will really enjoy playing him. However, Pantalone seems to fit a lot of characteristics that I find funny and interesting to include while acting. Pantalone will be the primary choice for my Commedia dell' Arte performance.