12-13, 7th grade
The dance session takes place in a large empty classroom.
Tambourine and rap stick for teacher to play rhythms, in addition to taped music and tape recorder
The students will learn that they can dance within a large group without bumping in to each other,while differentiating between moving in personal and general space.
1. The students enter the room and sit in the chairs that are arranged in a semi-circle. After role has been taken, the students are asked to quietly put their chairs up on the tables and to find a space that they would like to work in. The teacher asks them to put their arms out and to twist their torsos to make sure they have enough space to move in. If they don't have enough space they need to move so that they aren't hitting anyone with their arms.
2. The students are asked told that the space they are standing in is their home, and when they hear the tambourine they are to move away from home and run to the empty spaces. When they hear the sound stop, they are to freeze in place, and when they here the word home, they are to return to home. The teacher gives these command in a random order until all of the students are performing these tasks without bumping into one another.
3. The students are asked to return to home again. They are asked to stand in parallel position with their arms down at their sides, and to make sure that when they bend their knees that their knees are going directly over the middle of each foot.
4. The teacher turns on some music with a strong beat to begin the warm-up, which consists of body part isolations of the head, shoulders, spine, hips, knees, and ankles; full body circles using a lunge; plies in forth position to experience weight shift; swinging of the entire body, swinging arms combination;swing legs combination; swinging down in the sagittal plane to open arms, while twisting the torso to one side; shaking body parts to relieve muscle tension; and rolling the spine down from the head to the tail and form the tail to the head.
1. The students are asked to form a circle. The teacher tells the students that she has wet paint on the bottom of her shoes. She asks them if they can see the foot prints that are made as she walks into the circle. She then tells them that she is going to make a letter of the alphabet with her feet, and asks them to guess which letter it is. Each student is then given the opportunity to make a letter in the middle of the circle while the other guess which letter it is.
2. The students are asked to return home again. The teacher talks about the pathways they have just made on the floor and in general space. She tells them that they can also make pathways in their own personal space with body parts if they imagine that other parts of their body have paint on them. The teacher asks them to spell out their first name by painting in the air with different body parts.
1. The teacher tells the students that they are going to choreography a dance by putting together the material that they have just generated. They are instructed to do their name sequence, then choose a letter to walk the pathway of, then to repeat the name sequence then to run to an empty space in the room and freeze in an ending shape.
2. The teacher splits the class in half to have one group observe the other group dancing. The teacher asks each group what they saw while the other group was dancing.
3. The teacher asks the students to get in their places to rehearse the tango dance that they have been learning, reminding them to keep there eyes open while they are dancing so that they can look for the empty spaces, wont bump into anyone and to notice the pathways they are making in the dance.
Angela McDonnell
Teachers College
Columbia University
November 1993