Activity 1:  The Great Game of Power: An introductory activity for exploring the relationship of objects and people within the performance space.  Materials required are an assortment of easily handled props, such as a small table, some chairs and a book.  Invite one person to enter the space, arranging the objects to make a naturalistic or abstract scene in which one chair appears to be the most powerful object.  This can be further developed with other students redesigning the space so that other objects seem more powerful.  Next, one student enters the space and makes a frozen image, assuming a high status position.  Other participants are invited to enter one by one and freeze in position, each trying to assume a higher status than everybody else in the stage picture.  Discuss which strategies worked most effectively.

Activity 2:  Status Pictures: In pairs, create a freeze-frame where one partner has a higher status than the other.  Show some examples and ask members of the group to guess which partner has the higher status, explaining why.  Discuss why there may be areas of disagreement.

Activity 3:  Image theatre:  Form a circle.  Invite several individuals to show a frozen image related to the theme of bullying, one at a time.  Afterwards, ask all participants who have already been in the middle to return there.   Now the images are dynamised: individuals are asked to change or move their position so that they relate to other people in the picture.  Using thought-tracking, ask individuals to speak aloud what their character is thinking.  If students are stuck, others in the circle may be invited to suggest ideas.

Activity 4:  As a further dynamisation, the participants are asked to move to the position they would have been in one minute before this moment took place.  Thought-track each character.  Next they move to a position one minute after the moment took place, again speaking their thoughts.  Ask the onlookers to suggest where the scene could be taking place, as well as names and other details for each of the characters.

Activity 5:  With everybody back in the group, discuss what could have happened to any of the characters previously that may have led to the bullying.  In small groups make one or more frozen images showing a scene or scenes that took place earlier related to this moment of bullying, including one or more of the characters.  Show these to the other groups, using thought-tracking if appropriate.

Activity 6: Through improvisation ask the groups to bring each scene to life for a few moments.

Plenary:  If any of these scenes had ended differently, would the final moment of bullying have taken place?  What have we learnt about bullying through the use of these techniques?  How could the techniques be used in other ways?

• Introduction to Boal