Shakespeare Dance Workshops

We enjoy running Shakespeare dance workshops to make the historical books come alive.

We were asked to help St Thomas More Primary School with a tricky subject. They were a mixed year 3 + 4 class who were starting to study Romeo and Juliet in more depth. Their class teacher felt the end of the story was a bit confusing for the children, so Zest was bought in to help make it clearer…

Planning the workshops

When planning the Shakespeare dance workshops, we first had to get our head around how to make the dance not at all romantic for the age of the students taking part!

We got them into boy girl pairs and started teaching a movement motif to them all. This conveyed the pain and sorrow the characters must have felt at the end of the story. Then we all explored different dramatic ways to die in not too gruesome a way – and while trying not to giggle!

Music

For the music, we used the instrumental version of the ‘Kissing You’ song. This was the theme tune for Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. It created a sombre atmosphere and really lent itself to the dramatic dance which unfolded.

Final performance

The teachers that came to watch the final dance really enjoyed it. They were amazed at how they conveyed so much emotion without words. The children said they really understood the ending of the story, and how Romeo and Juliet must have felt when faced with such a sad and tragic end.

We love getting feedback and we got a lovely email from the teacher who booked the workshop:

“Thanks for today, the children loved it! It was really well pitched and professionally delivered”

Phillipa Garlick yr 4 teacher St Thomas More Primary school