CAE BODY and ART Drama workshop

The 5th grade students took part in twelve drama sessions to discover the practice of theatre, while reflecting on the themes of our RESpectOl project: the practice of high-level sports and its consequences on the body and mind of athletes, and the stakes of organizing international events like the Olympic Games in society. The actress presented extracts from a contemporary play: "Je ne cours pas, je vole" by Elodie Menant (2021). The work involved reading aloud and distributing the text. The roles were taken over by several students for the same character, which led the students to discover choral work and to reflect on an inventive staging, with a set reduced to two rows of chairs. The students worked hard to memorize their lines. The workshop provided an opportunity for very open discussions, and led to a new awareness of the less positive aspects of the Olympic Games (the physical and psychological pressure put on athletes, the problems associated with urban planning in the cities hosting the Games, the pollution generated).These questions shed new light on the issues already raised in the project over the course of the year. The students acquired knowledge, built up their personal opinions, deconstructed stereotypes and developed their critical thinking skills. Above all, they worked with their voices and bodies, and had to work together to put on a final show in which everyone remained on stage throughout. They had to learn to deal with stage fright, and experienced a moment of great emotion during the final performance in public, on a professional theatre stage, with sound and light control. The final rehearsal was devoted to video recording, with a second professional participant: Fabien Soret, a professional video maker, who filmed the students performing and proposed a cinematographic montage.