Incorporating 5 stimuli for Dance compositions

This last workshop involved choreographing our own dance steps based on our group’s response to different stimuli. The stimuli were based on 5 different learning styles and they are: visual, ideational, auditory, tactile and kinaesthetic. We all got to choose which group we wanted to be in.
I reckon this would make for a very good dance lesson in the future as it would be great to give the children the same choice in the classroom.

Visual

• This should just be an object that is visually interesting/stimulating
• We had a wooden object that showed a woman. 
• We were to describe it visually, write down how it made us feel, and then create a context for this object.
• Students then use this to choreograph dance steps based on 2 counts of 8.

Ideational

• This is when a dance is created in response to a story.
• The picture book 'Henry and Amy' was used by Stephen Michael King
• The group that did this choreographed the dance steps based on the theme of friendship.

“Early one morning when Henry was out walking backwards, trying very hard to walk forwards, he bumped into Amy.”
Henry and Amy (right-way-wound and upside down), by Stephen Michael King
Scholastic, 199, reprinted 2005

Iris read the book to the class. We talked about types of contrasting movement which the two characters have. We can elicit these contrasting terms from our students:straight/wiggly, look up/look down, right/left, front/back, back-to-front, topsy-turvy, upside down
We will then get students to explore these movements. Then compose a set of 2 counts of 8 beat movements.
*Note: There are other picture books that we could use. Some activities with The Island (Armin Greder) and My Place (Nadia Wheatley) are outlined in Gibson & Ewing (2011, pp44-48)
Reference: Gibson, R. & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts. Palgrave Macmillan, VIC, South Yarra.

Auditory

• We listened to the first few bars of a song.
• Create a dance of 2 bars of 8 beats
• an integrate Music into a lesson such as this – focus on the pitch, mood and dynamics of the song in musical terms before allowing students by trying out moves and actions.

I was in this auditory group because when I heard the song, I immediately thought of the dance moves and I really really liked the melody of the song. It was very Christmas-sy and I could in my head imagine a couple dancing in each others arms. We decided to choreograph an up beat and more swinging and lyrical sort of style for this song. With an open-ended task it was a very enjoyable and imaginative process, and one which really promoted collaboration.

Tactile

• Before introducing the other stimuli, Iris passed an object in a bag – and we weren’t allowed to peek. What we needed to do was reach in and feel what it was.
• This involves the students feeling but not seeing an object
• In this case, it was a something that was wooden, and very prickly and thorny. (I immediately thought of a durian).
• Students then use this to create choreography

The students in my workshop were able to recognise that it was an object that was bursting and prickly. They created a dance about a something in the middle shooting to get out from the confines within. 

Kinaesthetic

• This was based on the quality of the movement itself and meaning was made out of those movements and actions.

Just Dance!

Warm Up:Follow the Leader

• Every person is allocated a word to move to with the music e.g. swing, lyrical, percussive, sustained
• Follow the leader’s movements and move around the space
• Change leader so every person gets a couple of turns as leader

I really really liked this warm up activity. It gave us all freedom of expression and creativity. I think it’s also a great warm up for PE lessons as well. We were all really engaged.
Today’s workshop saw us learning the dance steps to the Hairspray song. In the “real” world of teaching, it could probably take a few weeks to teach children the steps. I am beginning to understand how the dance instructions are being broken down. It gives students the chance to practice and be familiar with the steps, at the same time, allows for the teacher to spot mistakes and give feedback on individuals.

We then learnt some choreography to 'You Can't Stop the Beat'. The focus was on timing, characterisation and performance.

How we learnt the steps to a song in just an hour: I think this is a fantastic way for teachers to help break-down the steps, one which we can employ in our future lessons:

• Break up into rows.
• Teach dance steps.
• Students line up in rows of 6 behind a leader at one end of the dance studio.
• Teacher to repeat and demonstrate the first step of the song.
• Play music and allow students who are first in line to dance towards the other end of studio.
• When all steps have been rehearsed and students, teacher puts all the dance steps together.

Half the class then performed the dance to the other half, which was good as it allowed you to pick up good techniques from the others in your class, while at the same time there was safety in numbers.

During lecture, we explored:
SPACE: Where, Dimensions (forwards, backwards, up, down), Pathways (curved, linear, zig zag)
TIME: When, Tempo, Duration, Rhythm, Beat
DYNAMICS: How, Quality (Swinging, Lyrical, Sustained Movement, Vibratory, Percussive), Movement, Force

Dance Warm Ups

Having just ended our Professional Experience, I was geared up for the Creative Arts Dance and Music classes. In my prac school, my supervising teacher was the dance coordinator and was heavily involved in the SCHOOL SPECTACULAR and WAKAKIRRI dance competitions.She had personally cheographed the songs and I saw how students from Years 3 to 6, both boys and girls really enjoyed the whole experience. I was amazed that the students were able to remember the moves and actions. The actions were so sophisticated! I wondered if I would be able to teach dance in the future!It was wonderful for me to watch the dance group dance together during rehearsals, as it was so joyful and free.
When people dance together, it is "the ultimate in aesthetic and visible rendering of coming together, being in one another's heads and bodies, and joining in mutual support and interdependency" (Heath, 2001, p. 14 from Ewing, 2010).
During the first dance lecture, we watched a Hyundai Ad by Pilobolus Dance Company. It was such an amazing ad!

I was excited to learn more that I can implement in the school context – and during the dance workshop, we were taught many activities. I thought that it was pretty similar to some of the Drama workshop’s techniques, in that we made use of free-walking, freezing, levels and the like.
IN THE WORKSHOP, this is what we learnt:
The aim during a warm up is to:

• Increase the body’s core temperature
• Increase heart rate
• Increase blood flow
• Improve muscle resilience

Some warm-up activities for creative dance include:
Chain Tag

• Good for cardiovascular
• One person as tag – the rest of the students traverse around the room using movements the teacher calls out e.g. bounce, walk backwards, twirl etc.
• Once students are tagged they link to form a chain and move in sync with each other to try and tag the other students

Huggy *

• Free walk around, being aware of space around. Teacher will call out “Huggy *″  and students must form groups with the people closest to them based on the number and instructions given by teacher
• Student forms shapes according to the teacher e.g. “Huggy 3, low height, square”

As conclusion for this post, I’d like to share a video of my favourite flash mob. Sound of Music at Antwerp Train Station. I absolutely love how dance brings people together. It knows no bounds. It’s in itself a language.