Background Information for the Arts
Entertainment
Theater in London had to compete with bull- and bear-baiting for an audience. The wealthy sat in the upper areas and tradesmen and apprentices stood in the pit. Admission went up with the level of the seat. Pit admission cost a penny. Public theaters were not visited by the aristocracy or by respectable women unless they were accompanied by their friends and/or husbands.
Dance was an art that people practiced before they performed. No one just went out onto the floor and made up moves. Everyone learned certain steps and then went out together and did exactly the same dance. Dances performed in the city and by the nobility were more elaborate than those performed in the country and by lower classes.
Music in sixteenth century England was simple and not chord based. It was composed in interwoven melodic lines. In religion, the entire emphasis was on the religious message that was being sung instead of the music so as not to distract from the words in sermons or hymns. Music was very important in Shakespeare's time, and Queen Elizabeth herself was a skillful player on both the lute and the virginal. Many other instruments became popular during this period including the spinet, harpsichord, and other brass and string instruments. During Shakespeare's lifetime musicians began to move into central houses in the city and to form guilds. Music became much more emotional in character. Popular composers included William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Morley, and John Dowland.
Social Studies
As part of these studies, students will use a trunk that I will fill with faux 16th century period clothing with descriptions and artifacts for the students to use in stations in the classroom. Using the trunk stations, I will include or have students make pomander balls, learn how to juggle, learn about social classes, and study the Tudor family tree. They will make their own family tree, look at some examples of coats of arms and make their own coat of arms, make a hornbook, cook Apple Moye, play games like Teetotum and Nine Men's Morris2, and make ink and a quill pen and use them to write a sonnet. I will also have Shakespeare picture books, a summary of the different plays that Shakespeare wrote with a collection of paper dolls as a station, a book of sonnets, renaissance music at a listening station, draw a map of Scotland and label it, draw a map of England and label it, practice knitting and or needlework with a parent volunteer.
Comments: