Station 4 · Criterion C · max 8 · single strand
Perform it
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.
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.
“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
Holding the Expressionistic style
What matters most at Criterion C
A consistently effective use of skills and techniques. Every Expressionistic technique you rehearsed should hold from the first moment to the last, so the audience can read your artistic intention throughout.
Externalised inner states. Exaggerated, angular, distorted physicality held across the piece. Slipping into naturalism breaks the style.
- The inner psyche on the outside. Every choice shows what your character feels, not what they would naturally do. If they feel small, the body and the space make them small.
- Telegrammstil delivered with precision. Fragmented lines need rehearsed rhythm, pace and volume, or they sound like forgotten lines rather than a choice.
- Mechanical movement that stays mechanical. Repeated, robotic gesture only works if it is identical every time and the ensemble keeps the same rhythm.
- The scream placed deliberately. Schrei is the moment the powerless person can no longer stay silent. Build to it, so it lands once and means something.
- Design that distorts. Lighting, sound, set and costume should make the world look the way it feels to the character with least power, not create a realistic room.
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.
The mark bands
The official MYP Arts assessment criteria.
What prevents a performance getting top band
- Slipping into naturalism. A moment of ordinary, realistic behaviour in an Expressionistic piece reads as an accident, not a choice. Hold the style your piece has committed to.
- Mumbled or rushed speech. Whatever your style, the audience has to hear every word, both the dialogue and the silence around it. Fragmented speech still has to be clear.
- 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 soft, naturalistic wash in a piece about a distorted world 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
There is no written exemplar for Criterion C
Criterion C is marked on the performance video itself, so there is nothing written to show you. The 2026 exemplar shows how that performance was developed in Criterion B and evaluated afterwards in Criterion D.