Palm Tree, Elephant and Giraffe

Palm Tree, Elephant and Giraffe from randolfd on Vimeo.

This exercise introduces students to spontaneity, body movement and working as a team. We begin by having a standard circle with one person in the center. The center person points to an individual, where the selected person, and the two people on either side must work together to make either a group of palm trees, an elephant or a giraffe. As the group makes one of the above objects, they must also add slight movement to make the thing look like it is alive. If anyone of the three people hesitates or creates the wrong object, then that person goes into the center.

An interesting twist on this exercise, is to add the adjective happy or sad to make the objects have emotion. For instance, happy palm trees would look very different from sad palm trees. After the exercise is complete, the class could have a discussion on what types of movement create the emotions happy or sad.