Situated Performance Technique
The Situated Performance Technique is based on the physical theatre exercise ‘the machine of rhythms’.
Description:
The Situated Performance Technique is based on the physical theatre exercise ‘the machine of rhythms’. The exercise is done in small teams. It starts with one child performing simple, repetitive movements of their choice related to a specific location and context. The other children join in the exercise one after the other with a complementary movement. In this exercise, the children are encouraged to incorporate the space which surrounds their bodies in the proposals. The technique also consists in comparing the exercises in different locations (e.g. in the workshop room vs. in an outdoor setting).
Benefits:
- Stimulation of children’s awareness towards bodily and spatial aspects of an experience
- Slowing down the movement pace evokes that the children reflect upon how various parts of the body interact in the process of moving
- Improvement of children's understanding related to the capacity and constraints of the body actions
- Movement repetitions help the children to keep the focus on the sensorial experience in relation to the situated environment
- Being situated in different locations helps the children to explore questions of person-space interactions (e.g. timing, coordinating and synchronizing body actions)
Related Publications:
Marie-Monique Schaper, Ole Sejer Iversen, Laura Malinverni, Narcis Pares. (2019). FUBImethod: Co-Design Strategies to engage Children within Intergenerational Teams in Full-Body Interaction. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 132: 52-69. DOI= http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.07.008
Marie-Monique Schaper and Narcis Pares. (2016). Making sense of Body and Space through Full-Body Interaction Design: A case study. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA. DOI