Sixth Graders Give Shakespeare Rhythm(s)

As a part of their in depth study of the Renaissance, XIsJ (sixth graders) worked on some tricky text from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the passage, the fairy queen, Titania, argues with Oberon, the fairy king. She spits the monologue below at him, arguing that all of nature goes haywire when the two of them cannot find harmony.

The students analyzed the famous scene and broke down each disruption. Each student then chose a section of the speech to illustrate. From there, the students brought these images with them to Rhythms, and paired up in order of each section. Each pair then crafted physical movements that would use their bodies to tell the monologue’s story. 

“Rhythms affords the opportunity to bring text like this to life by exploring, kinesthetically, the language, characters, and imagery of the play,” said Jessica, XIsJ Group Teacher.

The result was a wordless physical imagining of Titania’s monologue that flows as a scene we can watch.

Enjoy! 

Titania’s Monologue (Act 2, Scene 1) from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Underlined is intro and conclusion, Italics is summary of the disruption, Colors are examples of disruption

Special thanks to Anita Castillo-Halvorssen and Jessica Vander Salm for their contributions to this brief.