MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE AT OUTOFTHEBOXFESTIVAL.COM.AUOUT OF THE BOX CREATIVE LEARNING GUIDE

Presented by Out of the Box

See Madame Lark with her musical-saw as she takes vocal flight at Out of the Box Festival.Madame Lark’s childhood was what you’d call peculiar. Her spot of synesthesia meant boring old objects became imbued with sound.Naturally, she’s turned this into a talent where she can whip up vocal interpretations of things like a hat or a chair... but her fascination is mostly with hair.Along with her unusual allure to hairstyles and shapes, Madame Lark has an affectionate and surprisingly accurate interest in replicating the guttural chatter and warblings of the bird calls around us.Madame Lark is played by multitalented Australian artist Christine Johnston, best known as one third of The Kransky Sisters. She will delight all ages with her harmonious symphony of ridiculousness.

EARLY YEARS FRAMEWORKOutcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world

Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators

NEED TO KNOWAGE RANGE: 2 and up

VENUE: Studio 2

AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM MUSIC: F-2

Develop aural skills by exploring and imitating sounds, pitch and rhythm patterns using voice, movement and body percussion (ACAMUM080)

Sing and play instruments to improvise, practise a repertoire of chants, songs and rhymes, including songs used by cultural groups in the community (ACAMUM081)

Create compositions and perform music to communicate ideas to an audience (ACAMUM082)

Respond to music and consider where and why people make music, starting with Australian music, including music of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (ACAMUR083)

DRAMA: F-2

Explore role and dramatic action in dramatic play, improvisation and process drama (ACADRM027)

Use voice, facial expression, movement and space to imagine and establish role and situation (ACADRM028)

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MADAME LARK

MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE AT OUTOFTHEBOXFESTIVAL.COM.AUOUT OF THE BOX CREATIVE LEARNING GUIDE

Madame Lark provides an opportunity for participants to unleash their creativity and tap into appropriate voices and sounds to reflect and personify objects and animals. This performance encourages and

challenges the audience to think about appropriate sounds to reflect the qualities of objects and animals.

Through experimenting with Music and Drama, this performance provides a platform for students to utilise their knowledge of roles, attitudes, status and voice, to develop their own characters as inspired by the world around them.

Improvising with vocal techniques and sounds makes performing and learning Music accessible to all; regardless of ability, and in a non-threatening and creative environment.

Using Drama as a vehicle to give an object a role, enables students to respond to their environment. Responding to the performance enables students to analyse and evaluate what voice matches which object and why, and to apply this knowledge to their own creative endeavours and projects.

ART FORM FOCUS:Music and Drama

KEY MESSAGES:How can an object or animal be represented and personified through sound?

LEARNING OPPORTUNITY:Through engaging with this performance students can:

• Reflect on appropriate sounds to communicate relevant qualities of object and animals

• Respond to their own environment and apply their knowledge of Music and Drama to devise performance work

• Experiment with Music and Drama elements to create stories and characters.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES:COMMUNICATING AN ANIMAL USING MUSIC

• Discuss how sounds can create a mood or atmosphere and listen to two contrasting songs to provide an example.

• Read Carnival of the Animals (refer to OTHER RESOURCES). After each image and text predict the types of music that would best reflect the animal image viewed in the book.

• Listen to each of the animal tracks on the Carnival of the Animals CD (refer to OTHER RESOURCES) and identify the elements used in the music to reflect the qualities of the different animal such as:

o Tempo; (speed) reflecting how fast or slow the animal moves

o Timbre; (pronounces Tim-bray) the mood or atmosphere and how it links to the animals’ attitude or demeanour

o Pitch; (high or low) whether the animal is heavy and has a lower pitch or whether the animal is busy and light, with a higher pitch.

• Use some images of animals in the local area and brainstorm what types of music would best reflect the qualities of the animal.

ANIMAL SOUNDS

• Choose four or five different types stickers or stamps (ensuring you have enough to cater for each student).

• Provide a sticker or stamp to each student.

• Revise well known animals and their sounds.

Example: Duck = quack quack

• State that each colour or stamp represents a different animal.

o Example:

Blue stamp is a cat and the cat makes the sound “meow, meow”

Red stamp is a horse and the horse makes the sound “neigh, neigh”

• Each student needs to make the sound of their animal and find the same animals and sit in a group together. Encourage students to use actions to assist with communicating the role of their animal. The first group to find all animals of the same type and sit on the floor are the winners!

• Repeat this activity with different animals.

EXTENSION:

• Ask students to make the sound they think is appropriate for their animals rather than providing the sound.

• Repeat the activity and rather than using stickers or stamps, ask students to be sea or land animals and see if they can find a match based on the animal sound they have chosen to reflect their animal. This could be done in gender groups (boys all land animals, girls all sea animals) or allocate different eye colours. If appropriate, link to the animal unit that could be covered at the time such as marsupials, dinosaurs or insects etc.

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MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE AT OUTOFTHEBOXFESTIVAL.COM.AUOUT OF THE BOX CREATIVE LEARNING GUIDE

PHYSICALLY RESPONDING TO MUSIC

• Play different types of music which inspire different moods.

• Move around the space, responding to the music played. Use a variety of stimulus.

o Example:

Baby Elephant Walk by Henry Mancini

Do Your Thing by Basement Jaxx.

• Discuss what the music made you think of.

• Describe the movement you thought was appropriate to match the music, focussing on elements such as:

o Fundamental movement skills (travelling and non-travelling movements and actions)

o Space (including levels, shapes, pathways)

o Dynamics (energy and force; such as sharp, smooth, forceful or weak).

• Discuss what animal could link to the piece of music and why. Encourage students to refer to the tempo of the music (speed) and timbre (mood or atmosphere) to link to the animal chosen.

RESPONDING TO VIDEO CLIPS AND INTRODUCING PERSONIFICATION

• Discuss how an object or animal can have human qualities and introduce the concept of personification.

• Use examples from the Videos: Animal Focus (refer to OTHER RESOURCES) to discuss the voices used for each animal and how this is reflective of the animals’ qualities or attributes.

• Refer to and view the iconic Pixar films logo and identify the human qualities of the lamp.

• View some of the short films (listed in OTHER RESOURCES) and discuss the qualities (attributes) and attitude of each object (character).

• Allocate small groups and ask each group to focus on one object (character) in the clip viewed.

• List your allocated object’s human qualities.

• Brainstorm ideas about what this object would sound like if it had a voice and experiment with voices to match the object. If possible, write an appropriate line of dialogue for one person in the group to perform as your object.

• Allow time to devise and decide on your voices.

• Listen to each group and provide feedback as a class and as a teacher on whether the voice matched the object and why.

OTHER RESOURCES:BOOKS

Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns, Narrated by Peter Garrat, Words and images by Michael Leunig, Music as recorded by the Australian Chamber Orchestra (Book and CD)

Animalia by Graeme Base

The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers

Little Green by Keith Baker

Happy by Mies van Hout

Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman

VIDEOS: PERSONIFICATION FOCUS

Pixar short film: The Blue Umbrella

http://www.metatube.com/en/videos/224049/Blue-Umbrella-FULL-Short-Film-Pixar-2014-HD/

Pixar short film: Luxo Jnr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmhZm5FRV4s

Pixar short film: Wall-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4vnapu0WcY

Pixar short clip: Wall-E treasures and trinkets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWnWVuwvuX0

VIDEOS: ANIMAL FOCUS

Air Play - Press

http://www.airplayshow.com/press/

New York Sculpture Artist | Kinetic Sculpture | Daniel Wurtzel: Sculptor of Unique Materials and Experiences

http://www.danielwurtzel.com/air.cfm

Magic Carpet | Daniel Wurtzel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C_40B9m4tI

VIDEO: ARTIST

Christine Johnston https://www.christinejohnston.com/madame-lark/

This Creative Learning Guide was prepared by Education Consultant Lucy Flook for QPAC’s Out of the Box Festival in 2018.