MR. MOON (SONG)

THE KING'S TEST. A NIGERIAN TALE BY GEORGINA

Dear Diary...

I am princess Doo and well loved by my father the Lion King. When it was time for me to get married, my father had a test for all my suitors before he would determine who is suitable to marry me.

He invited all the other animals in our kingdom and presented six seeds of small pepper saying that any animal who could chew the seeds one after the other without feeling its pinch or hotness it would marry me.

The dog tried first but could not keep its tongue in the mouth as it felt the hotness of the pepper.

Next came the cat, the elephant, the donkey, horse and giraffe. All the other animals tried and all failed. Finally came the hare. It decided that it would sing while chewing the pepper. It song and chew and song and chewed until it chewed all six seeds. Unknown to my father, the song was a method it used to expel the hotness of the pepper and cool its tongue.

Finally I am happily married to my wise husband the hare who was smarter tan all the other animals.

Its song was:

A sange a mbakpa a trata...

or la ya ya...

nana tough ya...

kwase a bunda nan...

In English:

The six seeds of pepper...

the who eats it...

and shows its hotness...

the new bride...

he losses....

ACTIVITIES TUESDAY 12TH

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Players stand in a circle with enough room to move their elbows. Player one begins miming an activity, any activity such as playing football. Player two, to the right asks player one: "what are you doing?" Player one is to answer without hesitating with the first action which comes to mind OTHER than the one he/she is miming. I.e. tying my shoelaces.

Player two then begins miming the thing announced by player one a

nd is asked by player three "what are you doing?"....

Get players to speed up and start to eliminate if they hesitate, repeat or make a mistake.

EMOTIONAL BOUNDARIES

The place is divided in four zones. Each one will be designated with a particular emotion, as the players move about on the place they must adopt the emotion of the zone that they are in. First time slowly and stand in each emotion for a while. After a few times, speed up.

EMOTIONAL SYMPHONY

Put the participants is groups of five/six. Each group is designed an emotion. They must agree how to express this emotion with a noise. After practising the noises, put all the groups as a chorus, choose one person who will be the conductor of the emotional orchestra.

CINDERELLA

Choose a well-known fairy tale. I.e: Cinderella. Review the story with the help of the participants. Write the main characters in the board. Put the part

icipants in pairs or small groups. Each group is one of the characters of the story, and they must write the story from their own point of view as a diary. They must start with the beggining: "Dear diary..."

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ACTIVITIES MONDAY 11TH

NAME WITH AND ADJECTIVE

Ask the participants to tell you words to describe a person phisically and in character. Put all the participants in a circle. Each person in the circle introduce him/herself saying: I'm (name) and I'm (adjective)! with a walk appropriate to the adjective hi /she uses by walking into the circle. Everybody must walk to him/her and pointing at him/her repeat: He/she is (name) and he/she is (adjective).

NAME WITH AN ACTION

Players stand in a circle. One player says his/her name and at the same time invents a matching action or movement. The

player next to the left repeats the name and action and adds his/her own name and new action. The

n the next players does exactly te same, including the names and actions of the people before and so on around the circle. If any player makes a mistake, the action returns to the first player.

BIOGRAPHICAL PORTRAITS

All players are given a piece of paper and a pen. They are then given 2 minutes to draw themselves and include in their drawin

g the answer to a series of questions that has been put on the board, like, what do you do for a living?, what do you want to be?, what do you dream of? what are you afraid of?, etc.

The drawings are then passed on the person next to them. The person who receives the drawing must introduce the artirts but only according to what they actually see or can presuppose from the self-portrait. After that, the owner of the drawing can explain more about him/herself.

I FEEL... WHEN...

Elicit all te adjectives from the participants and write them on the blackboard. Players take it in turns to make sentences following the structure: I feel (adjective) when .....

When all the adjectives are finished put the class into small groups and give them 5 adjectiv

es each on paper taken from the blackboard. The team must then mime each adjective with th

e rest of the class guessing which feeling is.

FAMILY PORTRAITS

The same groups as before. Ask one group to create a "family portrait" based on a type of family indicated by the leader Take photos of the group miming the feelings: THE HAPPY FAMILY, THE THIRSTY FAMILY, THE SMALL FAMILY.... Quickly move on the next group and form another portrait. After a while change the feelings for animals: THE ELEPHANT FAMILY, THE LION FAMILY, etc.

GROUP MACHINE - GROUP ANIMAL

Each group must create a machine or an animal by: the first player gets into the scene and stand facing the group, adding a movement and a noise. When it's done, the other players, one by one, get next to player one, adding a new movement and a different noise until the whole machine or anim

al is created.

PARTICIPANTS

Thanks a lot to: Abraham, Appollonia, Bola, Caroline, Doris, Funmi, Georgina, Ifeoma, Juliana, Regina, Stella, Stephanie and Victoria, for your participation, energy and good work. Without you the workshop could not have been so great.

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