THE LEGEND OF ST. CHRISTOPHER (Digital)
CLASS 2 CURRICULUM RESOURCE:
THE LEGEND OF ST CHRISTOPHER
An exploration into “Eurythmic Transformational Drama” by Diane Tatum
THE LEGEND OF ST CHRISTOPHER is a “Play in a Box”, a drama resource for Class 2 teachers looking to integrate class play preparation into morning circle.
The resource includes:
- A 60-page manual with an original script and original music, with instrumental music, adapted from the classical and traditional repertoire
- Production video of Class 2 actors in performance
- A folder of audio files (on USB in hardcopy version) with the entire soundtrack of songs and narration – great for listening to in the car!
- Sheet music for songs and instrumentals
- Choreographic Notes for the Teacher/Director for 10 vignettes
- Background information on the legend, including "The Story behind this journey"
Forming a living relationship to a play as a teacher-director is an act of creation, employing the capacities of imaginative visioning and listening. As you read the script, your inner picturing, hearing and sense of movement are engaged in translating the printed words on the page into a mobile, dramatic enactment of the play in miniature. Your own imagination becomes the stage, and upon it a lively, creative process begins to take shape.
These resource materials, developed over the course of many years of working with the same theme, are designed to aid the process of calling a play to life over the course of several readings and visioning sessions. As the life of your imagination is intimately connected to the life of your class, it is important for your version of the play to reflect your class’ unique qualities. Each class is different, and your task as a teacher-director is to adapt the play to suit your children and their particular needs.
The Play of St Christopher
The script consists of seven pages of predominantly rhyming couplets, to be spoken in chorus and by individuals. Many teachers in Waldorf/Steiner Schools practice their plays in the early primary years entirely in chorus, allowing individual roles to crystallise out of the holistic unity of the play once the text has been fully internalised by the children. The Play of St. Christopher is suited to this kind of treatment, with blocking taking place for the individual roles in situ, while the chorus speaks.
Choreographic Forms
For the context of this play, much of the choreography falls into the category of “Applied Eurythmy” and can be navigated with sufficient forethought and preparation by most class teachers with the use of the Choreographic Notes in conjunction with watching the production video.
The choreography is adaptable to a variety of class sizes and constellations. Instructions for the Grand March, the Castle, the Minstrels’ Song, The Black-Riders in the Forest, Crossing the River, The Flowering Staff and 4 other vignettes are included. The format is intended to give as much enrichment as possible while allowing for maximum flexibility.
