Workshop 1: Making ideas dance

Week 1 Thursday 12^th July 2012

Jacqui Dreesens

The introduction to ECA410: Dance, consisted of a ‘break the ice’ type of activity, where we all wrote down why we chose to do dance. 10 students were then randomly picked and asked to read one reason to the class.

 

These were then discussed and it was found that many reasons were similar.

The warm-up was next, taken by Jacqui Dreesens consisting of a number of movements to get the body moving. We were to mirror Jacqui’s movements trying to stay in unison.

The first movement we did involved vibrating our hands up to the sky, and then down to ground.

Then as this picture shows, we started to run around the room moving between spaces, darting and weaving through people, focusing on being safe within the kinesphere. 

We then stopped on the spot, and followed Jacqui’s movements stretching up and down bending our knees, changing levels from high, medium to low.

Then we again ran between the spaces in the room, until coming to a stop again. This time mirroring Jacqui balancing on one foot, again moving through the spatial levels, developing awareness of the types of spatial organisation our body can move in.

We then started to use percussion movements such as clapping, tapping our heads (as the picture shows), stomping and slapping and voice while walking around the room between the spaces.

We then stopped; stretched and balanced our body through the levels one more time and then began the first activity of the lesson.

To begin this activity we contracted the space we were in and faced the above picture in an unorganised clump. We then in unison we followed Jacqui’s improvisation. 

Her movements used all parts of our body, making curved, twisted, symmetrical and asymmetrical body shapes, balancing through each movement. The movements moved through different speeds, flowed freely, were smooth and moved through all levels, different directions and dimensions.

The movements moved around the theme of ‘fish’, being flowy, vibrating and light.

After Jacqui modelled how to improvise in front of the group, each of us had a turn being the leader, exploring movements within the theme of fish, changing directions to change the leader.

This activity focused on improvisation and being creative on your feet. It made you think quickly of movements within a theme for your students to follow.

This then linked into the final activity.

To begin this activity, we got into 6 groups of around 5-6 people. Jacqui then provided us with a problem in which we had to solve through dance. The problem was that we had to come up with a movement pattern to tell a story, keeping in the theme of the ocean and fish.

She asked us in our groups to firstly think of the macro perspective, who you are, where are you going, why, how and when. Once we had figured this out we had to think of the micro perspective,  how we were going to use space, time and energy to portray our story.

Once we had rehearsed our stories, we then performed these (see video above).

A discussion of how well each group went followed, with each group sharing their thoughts.

A warm-down concluded the lesson, which consisted of us stretching our bodies on the ground, and moving in all directions loosening up our bodies, keeping within the theme of the ocean.

Motif:

Throughout the lesson there was a motif (an action that gets repeated along the way) which was built upon. The motif for the lesson was the theme ‘the ocean and fish’, with vibrating, slow and smooth movements being repeated and built upon throughout the lesson. 

Adaptation for different VELS levels:

VELS Level:	Adaptation of lesson:
Level 1 and 2	For prep – 2 students, I would only use the first half of the lesson as VELS states that at this stage 'Students’ natural tendency to discovering possibilities and limitations is encouraged' (VCAA, 2009). Therefore their lesson would include: The same warm-up as in Jacqui’s lesson, moving through the space in all directions, using percussion, stretching through the levels and balancing. The themed improvisation, within a contracted space, with the teacher leading the improvisation. Then to avoid students feeling anxious, I would break the students into small groups and get them to each have a turn in improvising the theme in front of their group. I would conclude the lesson, with a follow-the-leader exercise moving through the space in a single fill, following the teacher improvising ‘fish’ movements.
Level 3	For grade 3 and 4 students, I would use this entire lesson, as in this level VELS states that 'Students select, combine and experiment with ways of using a range of arts elements, principles and/or conventions, skills, techniques and processes, to explore arts ideas sourced from their imagination and from their own and other cultures' (VCAA, 2009).
Level 4	For grade 5 and 6 students, I would use parts of this lesson, as this level states that students 'learn about ways to design, improvise, represent, interpret, make and present arts works that communicate feelings and their interests and understanding of themselves, their relationships and other people (VCAA, 2009). Therefore their lesson would include: The same warm-up as Jacqui’s moving through the space in all directions, using percussion, stretching through the levels and balancing. However, I would use more complex balances, and harder skills, to challenge the students. I would then use the same contracted space improvisation activity. In place of the small group task, I would create a dance card on the same topic for students to problem solve.

Integration with other subjects:

• Science: Students could research into the types of creatures that belong in the ocean, the food cycles of the ocean and the vegetation that grows in the ocean and so on.
• Literacy: Students could write stories to the dance they created in the problem solving task.

Main arts learning processes:

•  Improvisation
• Creativity/Imagination
•  Design
• Representation
• Interpretation

Personal Reflection:

This lesson was very engaging and allowed for everyone of all abilities to explore with movements of dance.

I am an experienced dancer of many years, and still found the activities very fun and somewhat challenging, as they enabled me to go out of my comfort zone of one particular style and experiment with movement qualities which I personally haven’t explored before.

I really enjoyed that the lesson was focused around a particular motif; it gave the lesson depth and purpose and made it more interesting rather than just dancing with no theme or intent.

This lesson has impacted my teaching of dance in the future, by showing me that there are many other ways to explore dance with children, e.g. using a theme to underlie the purpose of the lesson, using improvisation, and using problem solving to create a story through movements.

References:  

Dance Choreographic Principles n.d., Week 1: Making Ideas Dance, Deakin University, retrieved 17 July 2012, <https://d2l.deakin.edu.au/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=108145&tId=1486961>.  

Laban Movement Analysis Cheat Sheet n.d., Week 1: Making Ideas Dance, Deakin University, retrieved 17 July 2012, <https://d2l.deakin.edu.au/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=108145&tId=1486961>.

Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority [VCAA] 2009, Prep to Year 10 Curriculum and Standards, State Government of Victoria, retrieved 17 July 2012, <http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vels/>.