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Workshops
for Students and Teachers
Student
Dance Workshops.
Up to 40 minutes in duration, up to 25 students in workshop.
They include the following types of workshops...
1) Creative Dance (K-12)
This workshop works from the premise that many popular American
dances were created by children and teenagers. Students learn
how to create dance steps based on sports and casual postures,
including soccer and baseball steps and minimalist "standing
around" gestural steps. Through examples developed in front
of the group under the guidance of Idy and Bob, students quickly
learn how to count out a step and how to fit it to music. They
are then divided into groups of three or four students, each
student creating his or her own dance step which is then taught
to the other members of the group. The steps are assembled into
a dance which is performed at the end of the workshop.
2)
"Creating Student Movement Reports" Using
Arts-Integrated Movement/Dance (K-12)
This workshop helps students and teachers understand how they
can create a "movement report", in much the same way
that students can create oral reports or art-drawing reports.
A curriculum topic is chosen ahead of time and the dance artists
bring to the workshop movement assignments relating to the curriculum
topic. These can include "Eight movements about the importance
of the Nile flooding in Ancient Egypt" or "Eight movements
about the atmosphere, gravity, temperature and surface of Mars".
Movements are noted by the group "scribe", rehearsed
and put to music for a performance at the end of the workshop(s).
3)
Social and Ballroom Dance. (K-12)
Students learn basic social dance steps. Students can learn
a selection from foxtrot, waltz, basic swing/jitterbug, Latin
dance, and line dancing. Emphasis is on coordination and listening
to the music. Students are allowed to select their own partners
regardless of gender, and are taught the partner dances as "left
footed" part and the "right footed" part, according
to which foot they begin the dance pattern on. (In younger grades
many boys would rather dance with other boys, girls with other
girls. Surprisingly students are much more comfortable and happy
with this arrangement than with making them dance boys with
girls.)
Teacher
Arts-Integrated Movement Workshop
Up to one-hour duration, for to 12 teachers
in workshop.
This
workshop provides teachers with methods and experience at helping
their students create "movement reports". Teachers
routinely assign students to create oral reports, visual arts
reports, and written reports. "Movement Reports" are
no more difficult and they not only engage students who find
movement an easier venue for expression than words and writing,
but they engage all students in a way of thinking that is both
academically specific and creative.
For a Movement Report students are given a description of a
curriculum topic. It can be a historical event, a scientific
fact, or even figurative language types. Students then collect
information and facts about the topic. Facts, and later, movements
are recorded on paper by the "scribe" of the group.
A
simple Movement Report can be developed, constructed and performed
in a single class period. More complex reports, with either
greater detail or greater scope, may take six or eight class
periods to research, develop, rehearse and perform.
Throughout
the process the teacher's task is to ask questions such as "What's
important about this fact? What are its characteristics? How
do you describe it? What makes it interesting and worth learning
about? Why are we learning about this?"
After
students have collected information and facts, they then begin
creating simple movements to represent up to eight pieces of
information and facts. Movements are usually simple, perhaps
a student making waving motions with their hands to represent
the rising waters of the Nile. Or someone moving slowly to represent
the intense gravity of a planet. Or someone moving their arms
to represent the chewing motions of an herbivore dinosaur's
jaws.
As
students show the movements they are creating, the teacher continues
asking questions such as "What exactly does that represent?
Why are you using that movement to represent that?" If
the facts are accurately understood and represented, however
abstractly, the movement is accepted as valid.
However,
if the student's movements are inaccurate, the teacher may ask,
"Are you sure the Ancient Egyptians used motors on their
boats? Perhaps we should find a book that tells us what kind
of power they used to move their boats up the Nile."
What
should be noted, however, is that a teacher doesn't need to
be an artist to assist students in creating reports involving
visual arts. And a teacher doesn't need to be a professional
writer to help students with written reports.
In
that same way, a teacher doesn't need to be a dancer to help
students create Movement Reports, which bring students to think
of their subject material with a depth and insight different
and unique from other types of study.
When
the four to eight movements of a group have been vetted for
accuracy of information and understanding, the students begin
putting the movements together to make a dance. Some groups
will repeat them while standing in place, some groups may create
tableaus with movements and shapes, some groups may create elaborate
shifting patterns with their movements.
As
the pieces come together, non-descript or abstract or classical
music can be added. And, when the group knows their movements,
the report is presented.
Get
a FREE Workshop ($200 Value) !!
Get
a FREE Dance Workshop or Teacher Development Workshop when booking
"Roots of American Dance"
for the 2003-04 school year and you pay your deposit before December
1, 2003.
The FREE Student Dance Workshop or Teacher Development Workshop
must take place the same day as the performance(s) of Roots of
American Dance
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Kamikaze
