Sakespeare is not as bad as you think!

In December 2019, Julius D’Silva, a real actor and lecturer of Shakespeare paid us a visit to give us a better understanding of Shakespeare and his language.
At first we did some moving exercises in which all of us ran around the room with different speeds and directions to warm up. After that we did some exercises in a circle to feel the rhythm Shakespeare uses in his work. We had to clap on our chest, feeling like Tarzan, and the exercises got trickier with time.
In this circle we also did some speech exercises with some lines from Shakespeare’s most famous plays. Then we sat in a circle and Julius threw worksheets into the air for us to catch and one of us  caught the prologue to Romeo and Juliet. With that we sat back to back with a partner and we read the famous lines to each other. One of us read out loud while the other constantly interrupted with questions.
At the end we performed the wedding in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing to feel what it’s like to be a real actor.
These were just a few of the things we did. It was a very cool and interesting experience because usually English lessons about Shakespeare tend to be boring. Julius was very open and very energetic. He easily motivated us to do things we would never do in front of our classmates during the lessons.
So what did we learn? Well, first of all we realized that language is one of the most important tools either when using it ourselves or when listening to others. There’s so much you can do with it. Another important experience we made was how important body language is and at the same time how to control it.
So it was a lot of fun and we really do recommend that the following grades do a workshop like this as well.

Verfasst von Chantal Ohligschläger, Lena Bialas, Michelle Saghir (Q2)