Introduction

Dance Analysis

Section 1

Section 2 

Section 3

Section 4

Management Suggestions

Assessment Strategy

Teacher Reflections

Dr Hopper Website
 

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

Creative Dance

By: Laura Mix & Ashley Stubbs

This website contains the breakdown of a creative dance developed based on the use of an imagery idea, phrases of a piece of music, action words and a task progression.  The students' movements are refined using Laban's movement concepts (Wall and Murray, 1994).  

The website breaks the dance down based on connection to the BC IRP for PE (K - 7), analysis of the dance (Boorman, 1973), the dance task progression broken down into sections, management suggestions from teaching the dance, assessment ideas and finally reflections from the teachers teaching the content.

Here is a teacher Task Progression for the dance.

Laura Mix and Ashley Stubbs created this website to inspire creative dancers worldwide!!  The website was a major assignment for their Creative Movement class in their professional year of the Elementary Education Program at the University of Victoria. 

Laura and Ashley put the "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas Dance" to the test with an energetic class of twenty-two grade two students right here in Victoria.  Experiences with this class led to refinements and touch-ups, morphing the dance into the wonderful piece of work you see here today!!

WARNING: Only continue perusing this website if you are prepared to be creatively inspired!!

References

Boorman, J. (1973). Dance and language experiences with children. Don Mills, Ontario, Longman Canada Ltd.

Wall, J. and N. Murray (1994). Children and movement. Dubuque, IA, Wm. C. Brow Publishers.

Resources