Day 4: Forms of Drama

Here is the overview of what we did in class:

Performance Advocacy: DAY 4
Forms of DRAMA

1) Tell personal stories. This stories should be told as if you talking to a group at an after dinner party. They should be personal and direct, told without scripts.
2) Share and explain FOUND poems.
Email: Name Poem rewrite; Found Poem; This Is Just to Say poem.
Look at various forms of drama or examples of performance:
A) Duo
B) Duet (Interpretation)
C) Oration
D) Readers Theatre (look at the script “Goodbye Polar Bears”)

Here are some links to help you write drama and dialogue:

Tips for Writing Drama

How to write dramatic dialogue

BBC writing tips

AN EXAMPLE OF A READERS THEATRE script:

Title: Goodbye Polar Bears

1 – The Most Extensive, least spoiled, and most un-spoilable of the gardens of the [North American] Continent are the vast tundras of Alaska. In summer they extend smooth, even, undulating, continuous beds of flowers...that [extend] to the shores of the Arctic Ocean; and in winter sheets of snowflowers make all the country shine, one mass of white radiance like a star.

2 – John Muir 1901

3 – Alaska

4 – Meaning in Aleut “The Great Land” or “the Main Land”

5 – or That Which the Sea Breaks against

2 - Alayeksa

3 – Alaksa

4– The Last Frontier

1 – Seward's Icebox

5 – Seward's Follie

All - Land of the Midnight Sun

1 – Or Land of the Midday Moon

2 – Depending on the Season

All - Refuge

1 – The state of being protected as from danger of hardship

All - Refuge

3 – A place that provides protection or shelter

All -Refuge

4- A Haven

All – Refugee

5- One who flees, usually to another country, especially from invasion, oppression, or persecution

1- Until we can change our habits we can’t expect to save an inch of this earth
2- Until we can change
3- Change our habits
4- habits we can’t expect
5- expect to save

ALL - Beat - Sigh

ALL - We are a wasteful people


[The Last Wolf by Mary TallMountain]

1 - The last wolf hurried toward me

2-4 through the ruined city

1 - and I heard his baying echoes

3-5 down the steep smashed warrens

2-4 of Montgomery Street and past

3-5 the ruby-crowned highrises

2-4 left standing

1 - their lighted elevators useless

[Caribou Story by Faith Gemmill]

4 – As I was growing up in Vashraii K'oo, I never thought that our way of life could be threatened or could be lost.

2 – I thought that our way of life would always be what it was...

5 – Surly we would live on in our traditional way as was intended since the beginning of time

4 – I took it for granted every time we were out on the land and I was able to experience the enjoyment of eating caribou meat, watching the grandmothers to create clothing for us to wear, learning the skills of dying meat, listening to elder as they explained the importance of our traditional teachings and my own traditional language.

3- We are people who rely heavily on the porcupine caribou heard

4 – Our creation story tells of time when there was only animals, the animals became people. When that happened Gwich'in came from the caribou. There was an agreement between the two that still stands. The Gwich'in retain a piece of the caribou heart and the Caribou retain a piece of the Gwich'in heart. We are one. What ever befalls the caribou will befall the Gwich'in.

1 – In 1988, the Gwich'in people became aware of the threat to our culture and way of life.

2 – The oil industry was trying to gain access of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

4- The Gwich'in people could not allow oil and gas development in the birthplace of the Caribou.

3 – Whatever befalls the Caribou

4 – This is not a political fight it is a spiritual fight.

All ( Succession following first line after 5)
Passing the flicking red and green
of traffic signals
baying his way eastward
in the mystery of his wild loping gait

2-4 closer the sounds in the deadly night
through clutter and rubble of quiet blocks

1 - I hear his voice ascending the hill

3-5 and at last his low whine as he came
floor by empty floor to the room

1 - where I sat

2-4 in my narrow bed looking west, waiting

1- I heard him snuffle at the door and

All - I watched

3 – If Textbooks told the history of America the Way they tell American Indian History

5 – Marco Polo Discovered America in 1776
2 – Two Days after Benjamin Franklin was Elected president

4 – One Year after the South won the Civil war

1 – And Five Years after Alaska became the first state of the Union

3 – ANWR Facts On File!

[Shelby Begins to Sing “The Mighty Quinn, turning back and forth as the pros and cons are being said]

1 - Only 8% of ANWR would be considered for exploration

4 - Oil Reserves are Spread out in different areas. Therefore oil companies would have to spread out over the entire 1.5 Million acres.

2 - U.S. Federal revenues would be enhanced by billions of dollars

5 - Those billions of dollars would likely trickle into the already 2.6 trillion dollars the U.S. Government spends on its domestic and foreign military spending.

1 - Up to Seven hundred thousand jobs would be created

4 - The National Resources Defense Council estimates that by increasing vehicle fuel efficiency by 40 miles per gallon over the next decade would save the U.S. 6.5 times more oil than ANWR can produce and create 1.3 million jobs in the process.

2 - The importation of oil is to costly

5 - ANWR would produce 3.3% of daily consumption of oil in America. Meaning that the U.S would still be largely dependent on foreign oil

1 - There would be no negative impact on animals

4 - There is a spill a day at Prudhoe and The Pipeline has an average of 409 spill annually – Oil is toxic to plants. [Aside as a whisper] Animals eat plants!

2 - 75% of Alaskans support drilling in ANWR, including every governor of the last 25 years (and three of the last four presidents)

5 - Oil comprises 80% of the States revenue and it is a state with the highest unemployment rate in the U.S. Considering Maslos Hierarchy of needs, feeding oneself, clothing oneself, and housing oneself comes before all other thoughts of humanitarian or environmental costs. Yes, Alaskans in poverty want jobs.

2-4 He trotted across the

All - floor

3-5 - he laid his long gray

All - muzzle

2-4 on the spare white

All - spread

3-5 and his
All - eyes

3-5 burned

All - yellow

2-4 his small dotted

All - eyebrows

2-4 quivered

1 - Yes, I said.
ALL - I know what they have done.

[Hell No, Of Course Not, but... by Wendell Berry]

1- The Arctic Wildlife Refuge is under threat right now because policy may go wrong,

[2,4,5 Sing Quyana song]

3 – Because of greed and ignorance in high places, because corporations have no conscious

1-3 all that is true

3 – but a lot more is true than that.

1 – The refuge is under threat because we have no energy policy

3 – No agricultural policy

1 – and no forestry policy

3 – that is not keyed to consumption

1 – rather than conservation

3 – why do we not have better policies?

1-3 because there is no organized public demand