Creative Dance


Main Menu

Introduction

Dance Analysis

Section 1

Section 2 

Section 3

Section 4

Management Suggestions

Assessment Strategy

Teacher Reflections

Resources

Dr Hopper Website
 

Management Suggestions      

1) Equipment

  • Claves or drum
  • Stereo
  • "The Boy Who Could Fly" by Bruce Broughton

2) Teaching Space

  • Large empty gymnasium (be sure the floor is clean for those students in bare feet!)
  • Outdoors (be sure to have an area marked off as your 'dance floor')

3) Support materials

Task Progression

Dance Analysis

Poem (optional) or story about leaves

4) Grouping

This dance can be developed using a number of groupings.

  • Students can perform the entire dance individually
  • They may work in pairs, taking turns performing the movements
  • They may form two or more groups to represent leaves from different trees

The exact groupings depend on the level of the class, the time available, and the preference of the class and/or teacher.

I do recommend dividing the class in half throughout the development of the dance to have a chance to watch each other performing the different movements.

5) Pacing

  • Devote sufficient time to fully explore each movement on its own.
  • If necessary, devote most (or all) of the first lesson to moving safely around the gym and finding an emtpy space in the gym.
  • You may want to spend an entire lesson working on creating shapes. You can incorporate elements such as space, body and effort into shape activities, which will transfer to the next sections of the dance.
  • Drifting and turning can be the focus for the following lesson. Explore pathways and levels. Whirling/Twirling and Leaping can either be explored in the this lesson or the following one, depending on time.
  • You may want to have one lesson for developing the 'Settle' movement and then putting the entire dance together.
  • Before performing the entire dance, it might be useful to have a lesson on refining and adjusting the various sections as the class sees fit.