Creative Dance

Introduction

Dance Analysis

Section 1

Section 2 

Section 3

Section 4

Management Suggestions

Assessment Strategy

Teacher Reflections

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Teacher Reflections

Whole Dance

This creative dance was successful when taught in a grade two class over a period of three 40 minute lessons.  We chose to carry out our unit in an empty classroom (considered the school studio), as we believed we would have more control over this particular group in this setting.  Overall, students seemed to enjoy the dance and they really made it their own through unique interpretations of the action words.  We were surprised by how quickly students caught on to the repetition in the song and picked up on musical cues when carrying out the entire dance because it is quite long.  Students had great concentration in general when going through the full dance because they were listening intently to the song in order to remember the sequence of the movements.  During the musical interlude, students enjoyed keeping the beat using their bodies.  However, the beat was a little too quick for them so we adapted the movement so they could keep the beat in half the time.  This was much more successful.  We were impressed with how students came up with creative ways to show excitement in the last eight beats following a set of stomps.  After the first lesson, we noticed that some students (especially the boys) were intentionally running into each other.  To remedy this situation, we decided to have the students carry out their movements in one direction.  This improved the situation greatly.

Section 1

-students were responsive to the imagery of the dance.

-students responded accurately to the question of "what is beat?"

-most students were successful at finding their own beat, then finding the beat in the music

-students were excited to display their "hissy fit" stance to the class, describing why they had chosen their specific movements/effort/body quality.

-most students were successful at performing movement to the beat in the song.

-most students performed both the "stomp" and "waddle" movements within the effort expectations.

-the concept of pathways was challenging for a majority of the students, as their concentration was focused on the movement quality and keeping the beat.

Section 2

-students found it difficult to creep in time with the beat because although the music slowed down significantly at this point, the quick beat remained the same.

-however, students enjoyed the imagery associated with creeping, of creeping down the stairs on Christmas morning to sneak a peek at their presents.

-ideas of hiding behind imaginary objects so as not to be caught peeking were well received by students as indicated by their movements.

-students were successful at skipping to the quick beat and using wide, stretched body movements and high knees while they did this.

Section 3

-although students enjoyed bobbing up and down to keep the beat with their bodies, it was difficult for them to do so because the beat was so quick.

-therefore, we adapted the bob so that students carried it out in half time and were more successful at keeping the beat in this way.

-the concept of tableau was introduced as a 'frozen picture' where students were asked to display their perception of the imagery of the song.

-students understood and accepted the idea easily, however they had difficulty holding their pose for the entire 8 beats.

-with a lot of positive feedback, students increased the amount of time that they held their poses for.

Section 4

-students were successful at remembering all the steps of the dance with verbal cues and opportunities for them to verbally recall the step sequence prior to actually carrying it out.

-students also picked on musical and lyrical cues to help them remember the sequence of the movements.

-students showed pride in their accomplishment of learning and carrying out an entire sequenced dance to the music.