Week 11 Thursday 20th
September 2012
Jacqui Dreesens
This week’s lesson was based on bush dancing, in particularly the ‘Stockyards Dance’. This dance is ‘a lively circle dance, derived
from the "First Set quadrille", and still very popular at bush dances’
(Brown
2006). It comes from the English ‘Morris’ Dance, transferred to
Australian bush dance and is very unique. In the past, this type of dance was integral to society, and was where men
and women could meet each other (Dreesens 2012).
The lesson began with a warm-up by
Jacqui Dreesens. We started by walking in the space, with our arms strong and
moving fast, and our feet walking heel, toe, at the same pace.
After walking in the space, Jacqui called ‘freeze’. With this she asked us to
make a stretched out position, a twisted
position, a straight position or a ball position on either the low, medium or high level. We then
started to jog in the space. Jacqui again called out ‘freeze’ and named a
movement position which we had to create. These were the rules for a game
called ‘Jog and Freeze’. Once we
knew the rules, we then played this game.
You could make the activity competitive by eliminating
people, or you could just play for fun like we did, it all depends on the
students in your class.
Once we had finished playing ‘Jog and Freeze’, we stretched our muscles. We stretched our
hamstrings by reaching up to the
roof with straight arms and legs, and then reaching down to the floor with straight
legs. We also stretched our thighs
by bending on leg behind and holding it with your arms, then switching for the
other leg.
After stretching we created a big circle ready
to learn the ‘Stockyards Dance’.
To begin the
dance, the girls and boys greet each
other in the middle of the circle.
The girls lead
with their left foot and walk in for 3
counts and on the forth count curtsey
(step onto their left leg/right foot behind, holding their out skirts, bend
knees, head forward) and then move back
out for 4 counts.
The boys lead
with their right foot and walk in for 3
counts and on the forth count bow (left
arm behind, right arm forward, drop head)
and then move back out for 4 counts.
This greeting is repeated twice and the walking
can be replaced with skipping to challenge
students.
The
boy stands on the right and the girl stands on the left.
Once the greetings are finished you are
to link elbows with your partner.
With your partners you perform the ‘docey do’. This involves partners
walking or skipping around in a circle for 8 counts then changing elbows and
walking for 8 counts.
This is again repeated twice.
Then in the same partners, the boy offers their left hand to the girl for
them to take. The boy stands behind the girl, with their left hand at hip
height, and their right hand above the girls shoulder.
In these positions, the boy leads the girl around the circle in
a clockwise manner. You can either
skip or walk in your partners for 32 counts.
After we had learnt the basic steps of
the Stockyard Dance we experimented with other steps in our partners for the
last 32 counts.
We had a go at walking in a retrograde fashion, with the boy turning the girl around still walking
in a clockwise direction.
We tried joining hands facing each other, galloping sideways around the circle. If that was too easy, some
couples tried turning while galloping,
with the boy leading pulling or pushing
the girl depending on the direction they wanted to go.
Once we had learnt all the steps we put
on a performance all together.
We then watched two videos from YouTube, one of the Morris Dancing in
England and the other of children dancing bush dance in a school.
With keeping these videos in mind, we
discussed the safety aspects of using
this style of dance in the classroom, such as children not doing as expected,
hazards in the room and abilities of students. We also discussed ways in correcting inappropriate behaviour, by
instead of saying ‘stop’ or ‘don’t do that’, identify that they have good
energy and remind them to make sure they are doing the dance properly. This
ensures that students aren’t put back from being told off.
After this discussion, we entered the space
by walking. While walking through the space, we practised our greeting skills.
We had to greet people with movements
without using words. Some of the greetings included a high-5, winks, a head
nod, and a wave.
Once we were warm again, we got into our
performance groups and had to create a
folk dance. My group performed our dance in a circle, and used a similar
format to the stockyards dance. We greeted with our hands, and feet, used body
percussion, weaved between each other, galloped and turned with our parents.
We performed our dances, one at a time,
using the music of choice. We choice to use a bush style type of song.
After this, we warmed down, by stretching our
hamstrings and thighs.
Motif:
This week’s motif was about teaching a specific culture
through dance. This culture was the folkloric culture. This motif was portrayed
throughout the lesson, with the movements and music being of a particular bush
dance culture, keeping the theme throughout the lesson.
Adaptation for
different VELS levels:
This style of dance could be used at any VELS level; with the
complexity of the movement qualities being altered to suit each level.
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VELS
level:
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Adaptation
of lesson:
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Level
1
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At level 1, students could get a feel
for the style of dance, by moving freely to the music, with some guidance
from the teacher showing them different movements.
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Level
2
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For VELS level 2, students can begin to
learn the greeting section of the dance, improvising with other types of
non-verbal greetings as we did in the lesson.
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Level
3
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At level 3, students can learn the
whole stockyards dance.
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Level
4
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At level 4, students could do the whole
lesson, learning the stockyards dance, and then creating their own dance.
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Integration with other subjects:
- History – students could research a particular bush dance then learn and perform this.
- Mathematics – counting out the bush dance involves students to counting in lots of 8, this requires multiplication.
- ICT and Literacy – students could create a video of them dancing, with voice overs explaining what they did.
Main arts learning processes:
- Improvisation
- Creativity/Imagination
- Design
- Representation
- Interpretation
Personal Reflection:
This lesson was very fun, engaging and very challenging.
As a student, I felt much supported by my peers. There wasn’t
a time where I felt uncomfortable, and if I was confused about the dance steps
there was someone to help. It was very inclusive as it was a structured piece,
and allowed for students to be supported with a peer.
As an educator, I thought throughout the lesson to how I could
make the lesson inclusive of everyone. I was thinking in a classroom, if you
did the dance with the boys being the boys and the girls being the girls, there
may be too many boys or too many girls, which would single out these students
in having to become the other gender. To limit this from happening I thought I could
either switch so girls become the boys and the boys become the girls, or get
students to pick the gender out of a hat. This is to avoid those one or two
students that have to become another gender and feel left out.
This lesson has taught me a lot for the future. I have
another style of dance that I can teach students, and have furthered my skills
in teaching dance in the classroom.
References:
Brown, L 2006, Dance Repertoire, Manaro Colonial Dancers, retrived 27 September 2012, http://members.canb.auug.org.au/~lpb/MCD/repertoire.htm
Dreesens, J
2012, Workshop 7: Telling stories: Bush
Dance, Week 11 Thursday 20 September 2012, Deakin University, Burwood.
