Criterion C · Task 3 · max 8 · single strand
Creating
Single strand. Assessed on your final performance. Not the process, not the writing. The examiner watches your 5 minute video and judges the consistency and effectiveness of your skills and techniques.
“The performance is assessed for the skills and techniques demonstrated in the final piece.” Process is not assessed here. That lives in Criterion B.MYP Arts criterion C
What you are marked on
One strand, one video of about 5 minutes. You are responsible for performance choices (voice, body, space, ensemble) and for the production roles you contributed (sound, set, lighting, costume). The examiner judges both at once and does not separate them.
Consistency under pressure is what separates 5 to 6 from 7 to 8
A flash of brilliance surrounded by hesitation is not 7 to 8. The examiner watches whether your style holds across transitions, silences, changing characters and the moments when nothing is happening to you on stage.
- In transitions. You stay in the style of your piece walking from one moment to the next. The audience never sees you stop performing.
- When you change characters. The change is choreographed, body and voice shifting cleanly, no fade between them. Visible or hidden is a style decision.
- In stillness. When you are not the focus your body is still doing something. Strong ensemble has no resting actor.
- In direct contact. Rehearsed eye lines and deliberate pace. You do not rush to fill silences you have asked the audience to sit in.
Every choice lands. The performance reads as a series of deliberate decisions and the audience is held in the world of the piece throughout.
What the examiner is watching for, by style
Naturalism
Believable behaviour under stillness. The illusion holds in the small moments: listening, breathing, not quite saying. Heightened reactions break the style.
Epic Theatre / Brecht
Anti illusionist style held throughout. Direct address is extreme proximity to the audience, making the audience think, with variation in tone and intonation. Multi roll switches are visible. Sound and lighting expose rather than create mood.
Expressionism
Externalised inner states. Exaggerated, angular, distorted physicality held across the piece. Slipping into naturalism breaks the style.
Physical theatre
Body as primary text. Shape, lots of negative space and exaggeration. Ensemble breath visibly synchronised. Dialogue, if any, sits inside movement rather than alongside it.
Verbatim
Faithful delivery of real testimony. Mannerisms, pauses, vocal tone and vocal dynamics preserved. The performer disappears behind the source.
Style
Whatever style you have chosen, the examiner asks: is it consistent? A piece that switches style accidentally reads as 3 to 4. A piece that switches deliberately reads as 7 to 8.
The mark bands
What prevents a performance getting top band
- Slipping out of style. A moment of real emotion in a Brechtian piece, or exaggerated vocal delivery and exaggerated physicality in a naturalistic piece, reads as an accident, not a choice. Hold the style your piece has committed to.
- Hidden choices that should be visible. If your style asks for visible mechanics and your costume change happens backstage, you have undone the choice.
- Mumbled or rushed speech. Whatever your style, the audience has to hear every word, both the dialogue and the silence around it.
- Going neutral in ensemble moments. Watching from the edge is still performance. If you slip into an off stage body while another performer is centred, you have left the piece.
- Production cues that contradict the style. A coloured wash that creates mood in a Brechtian piece, or a stylised sound cue in a naturalistic one, reads as the design going against the style.
- Transitions that are gaps, not choices. If your audience can tell when one scene has ended before the next has begun, your transitions are not part of the piece. Choreograph them.
Final checks before the performance
Final checks. Performance readiness, Criterion C.