Finals are over, and the fall semester is done. We finished two full creative-work units, with lessons on the elements and group choreography projects — working mostly on the element of Space, with locomotor and axial movement, directions and facings, levels, and symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes. Two choreography projects is considerably less than I would like to have done in one semester... but that was at least partly due to letting students have the time they felt they needed to perfect their first projects to their satisfaction, so perhaps that fits in with the ethic of "less is more"; and I was able to fit in some other creative-work lessons between projects, which I hope to build on further.
As for the technical side, we completed three different short dances, learning some basic jazz technique and a bit about Katherine Dunham as well as some traditional / historical jazz in the form of Lindy hop and Big Apple. A large contingent of dancers (nearly 40) got daring enough to perform in front of most of the school in the Hallowe'en Thriller flashmob, and a couple dozen of them are preparing to perform the Lindy hop piece for the whole school at the next assembly — not bad for beginners!
Along the way, I think we've managed to establish a classroom community where students feel safe to dance, create, and take risks in front of each other — definitely a good start, and something to build on as I work on moving them into making meaning with dance...
One happy problem I had this first semester was around how to tweak my daily participation rubric to differentiate among my (huge majority of) students who fully participate to their best ability every day. While I was at EOSA, my classes were small — never more than 25, and mostly between twelve and twenty — so it was relatively simple to evaluate each student on fulfilling the learning targets at the end of each class. Then last year, in a school where most students expected any class within the PE program meant free play, so few made the effort to participate in the lessons that differentiation was easy — my problem was just getting enough students to participate enough to pass my class. Now that I am in a school where students have the expectation of coming prepared and staying focused on class, I started to wonder if too many of my students were earning A's (if that is a problem, it is certainly a more pleasant problem to have!). After checking with some dance teacher colleagues and finding that my very simple rubric does accord with theirs, I solved the dilemma by deciding not to worry about it too much... At least not this year, as we're getting the program off the ground and all the classes are Beginning Dance, it's really okay for the majority of students to be able to succeed just by doing what they're supposed to do, to the best of their abilities, every day (and there are always written work and choreography projects to help differentiate). I can always tweak the rubric to make it harder for more advanced levels...next year!
So now we are on to spring semester... Since we ended the fall semester doing technique for performance finals, we are starting this one with creative work — moving on to the element of Time with tempo variations. As usual in the spring, I have plans to teach a lot of world / multicultural dance forms — I always include a little Baile Folklórico and a little African-Haitian or Congolese, along with some Polynesian; it appears the three forms the students are most interested in are Brazilian Samba, Hawai'ian hula, and (this one surprised me) classical ballet, so we will most certainly cover those. I would like to get in a lot more creative work — contrasts, some work on choreographic forms, something that will lead to a collaborative dance for each class that they can perform at our informal concert at the end of the year, as well as the choreography final (I usually give them a narrative form project for that one)... so much to cover in so little time! Well, we'll see how it goes — I have to keep reminding myself that my curriculum at EOSA didn't really get settled for a few years, so whatever happens here, it is a good start.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
getting the point…
I can tell kids that dance is learned through daily practice until I'm blue in the face, but usually they just have to figure it out for themselves... In a dance journal reflection on her first semester in Dance, one of my students wrote: “the first quarter I started off pretty bad, but now I have been improving, participating every day. Well, I don’t know… when you really do participate the dances stick to you – when you just watch the class you may know the moves but you’re just not able to dance it.” Priceless!
Sunday, January 11, 2015
end-of-semester dance practice
Since I decided against a fall semester choreography final (because of the inconvenient timing of winter break), this week the dance classes have been practicing all four dance sequences we have learned over the semester. Students will choose their one best dance to perform for the final, in small-to-medium groups. The dances we learned are:
1. Basic jazz — the vocabulary of jazz squares, pivots, pas de bourées, and kick ball-changes that are the standard building blocks of so much musical theater choreography. I like to set my jazz dances to classic Motown; this year it is Marvin Gaye's version of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" (a bit of a dance joke, since our first step is a grapevine).
2. Michael Jackson's Thriller, which we performed at Hallowe'en — and which I keep reminding them is a jazz dance, choreographed in Fosse style.
3. Hip hop — I always tell students I don't teach much hip hop per se, even though they all want to learn it, because "you know more than I do"; but I did reconstruct a one-minute bit of choreography from one of EOSA's dance festival pieces, which we worked on for a week.
4. Last but certainly not least, Lindy hop and Big Apple, which we worked on just before the break. I am particularly fond of these historical social dances because I learned and performed them while dancing with Westwind Folk Ensemble — our Lindy hop teacher/choreographer was a student of Frankie Manning, so I can say I'm only two steps away from the source (I also learned a great deal about traditional jazz dance from some invaluable workshops with Karen Hubbard of the University of North Carolina at a couple of NDEO conferences).
Conflicted as I have been about finishing the semester with only two choreography projects under our belts, it has actually been a very joyful week in my class (especially considering the typical stresses of the week before final exams). These kids are hungry to learn dance steps and sequences, and have been practicing them with great enthusiasm. At our last session on Friday in my 5th period class, after running through all the dances once I asked the class "we have time to run one again, which shall we do?" They all yelled eagerly "Lindy hop!" So we ran it again, and they immediately asked "can we do it one more time?" "Well, it's a two-and-a-half minute dance and we have two minutes until time to pack up and get dressed, but... Okay!" Lindy hop fiends — It's a joy to watch them dance!
1. Basic jazz — the vocabulary of jazz squares, pivots, pas de bourées, and kick ball-changes that are the standard building blocks of so much musical theater choreography. I like to set my jazz dances to classic Motown; this year it is Marvin Gaye's version of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" (a bit of a dance joke, since our first step is a grapevine).
2. Michael Jackson's Thriller, which we performed at Hallowe'en — and which I keep reminding them is a jazz dance, choreographed in Fosse style.
3. Hip hop — I always tell students I don't teach much hip hop per se, even though they all want to learn it, because "you know more than I do"; but I did reconstruct a one-minute bit of choreography from one of EOSA's dance festival pieces, which we worked on for a week.
4. Last but certainly not least, Lindy hop and Big Apple, which we worked on just before the break. I am particularly fond of these historical social dances because I learned and performed them while dancing with Westwind Folk Ensemble — our Lindy hop teacher/choreographer was a student of Frankie Manning, so I can say I'm only two steps away from the source (I also learned a great deal about traditional jazz dance from some invaluable workshops with Karen Hubbard of the University of North Carolina at a couple of NDEO conferences).
Conflicted as I have been about finishing the semester with only two choreography projects under our belts, it has actually been a very joyful week in my class (especially considering the typical stresses of the week before final exams). These kids are hungry to learn dance steps and sequences, and have been practicing them with great enthusiasm. At our last session on Friday in my 5th period class, after running through all the dances once I asked the class "we have time to run one again, which shall we do?" They all yelled eagerly "Lindy hop!" So we ran it again, and they immediately asked "can we do it one more time?" "Well, it's a two-and-a-half minute dance and we have two minutes until time to pack up and get dressed, but... Okay!" Lindy hop fiends — It's a joy to watch them dance!
Thursday, December 25, 2014
decorating the dance room
Happy Solstice and happy new year (and whatever else you celebrate)!
My gift to myself has been to gradually decorate the dance room — for decades I have been collecting photos, mostly cut out of magazines, waiting for the chance to use them to adorn a dance studio. Many had been on the walls at EOSA, but came down when that program dissolved... Now I finally have walls to decorate again!
It is a bit of a laborious process — since the buildings are brand-new, we are not allowed to use tape, staples, nails, or anything else except blue painters' tape, so I have to cut out multiple little circles of painters' tape for the back of each picture. I have been using Tuesday afternoons, when the break-dance club is meeting in the room, to decorate. It's going slowly, and I've made just a dent in that blank-walls feeling, but it is a start...
Last week I finished the "dance ancestors" wall (the most important, of course!). My selection is skewed toward the photos that have appeared in my dance magazines over the years, so I'm a bit chagrined, as a longtime Hawkins dancer and a recent devotee of Duncan dance, that I have so relatively few pictures of Isadora Duncan and Erick Hawkins (I had to find a picture of Erick online, as the only ones in my collection were of Erick and Martha together) — not to mention only one small photo of Alvin Ailey. But it is good to have a representative sample of some of our ancestors, at any rate.
I also made a good start on a world dance wall, although it can certainly grow (I may need to do more searching for images, as the photos from dance magazines heavily favor ballet and modern dance)...
And, when we were working on the symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes project, I made it a priority to get my "shapes" posters up on the wall, along with an elements of dance poster...
I have so many more photos and so many more walls to decorate — but it feels good to have this much done!
My gift to myself has been to gradually decorate the dance room — for decades I have been collecting photos, mostly cut out of magazines, waiting for the chance to use them to adorn a dance studio. Many had been on the walls at EOSA, but came down when that program dissolved... Now I finally have walls to decorate again!
It is a bit of a laborious process — since the buildings are brand-new, we are not allowed to use tape, staples, nails, or anything else except blue painters' tape, so I have to cut out multiple little circles of painters' tape for the back of each picture. I have been using Tuesday afternoons, when the break-dance club is meeting in the room, to decorate. It's going slowly, and I've made just a dent in that blank-walls feeling, but it is a start...
Last week I finished the "dance ancestors" wall (the most important, of course!). My selection is skewed toward the photos that have appeared in my dance magazines over the years, so I'm a bit chagrined, as a longtime Hawkins dancer and a recent devotee of Duncan dance, that I have so relatively few pictures of Isadora Duncan and Erick Hawkins (I had to find a picture of Erick online, as the only ones in my collection were of Erick and Martha together) — not to mention only one small photo of Alvin Ailey. But it is good to have a representative sample of some of our ancestors, at any rate.
I also made a good start on a world dance wall, although it can certainly grow (I may need to do more searching for images, as the photos from dance magazines heavily favor ballet and modern dance)...
And, when we were working on the symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes project, I made it a priority to get my "shapes" posters up on the wall, along with an elements of dance poster...
I have so many more photos and so many more walls to decorate — but it feels good to have this much done!
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
pre-winter break creative work
This past week we worked on a few different (though related) concepts. We started out on Monday with the map activity — a tried-and-true lesson I learned at a workshop many years ago and have been using successfully ever since. This time we began the same as usual — draw a beginning and ending point; connect them with a pathway including straight lines, curved lines, and a zig zag; try various locomotor movements on your pathway — but when we came to adding the stopping places for still shapes and axial movements, I introduced the LOD (Language of Dance) symbols for turn, spring, and still shape. It worked well, and we had just enough time to show the resulting solos in three groups each class.
On Tuesday, we focused more on the LOD notation. I started them off with a freeze dance emphasizing traveling, turning, and a lot of variations on opening / closing, expanding / contracting, folding in / reaching out, etc. to give them a handle on what is meant by extension and flexion. I then explained to them about various forms of notation and LOD in particular, gave them the symbols for traveling, flexion, and extension to add to the three we had learned the day before (I had all 6 symbols taped to the mirror), and showed on the whiteboard how to arrange the symbols into a timeline. On backs of the maps from the day before (to save paper), students created a timeline using at least one of each of the six symbols, then took a few minutes to turn their notation into movement. They showed their solos to one partner, who followed along with the notation, and then discussed what they noticed.
Wednesday and Thursday, because of exit exam diagnostic testing (always with the testing!), we were missing all of the sophomores — about half the population of all of my dance classes — so I wanted to do a two-day project just for the juniors and seniors (and the few freshmen I have this year). I wanted to try something that we might get to next year in higher-level classes (which the seniors would miss out on), and I also wanted to do something with pairs; so I looked through my notes and found an accumulate-a-duet lesson, which I was able to adapt for my beginners... Here's how it went:
On Wednesday, we warmed up with a brief freeze dance, again using reaching, folding, turning, traveling, jumping, and still shapes. We then began a sequence of seven elements — we tried each element in multiple ways before adding it to the sequence, repeating the entire sequence with each addition. The seven elements were:
1. make a fabulous shape
2. look somewhere in the room and travel to it
3. reach out, then fold in
4. do a signature movement (your favorite move, the one you would do forever if you could only do one!)
5. a turn
6. a spring or jump (any air movement)
7. a variation of your fabulous shape
After practicing the sequence until it was settled, we then did some editing: remove any two of your seven elements, but keep the other five in the same order ("when you write an essay, you do a rough draft first then edit out all the fluff — dances need to be edited, too!"). This being a short Wednesday, we didn't have much time for showing — the homework was to remember the edited five-element phrase for the next day.
On Thursday, we started with a very brief recap, for students to remember their phrases (and for any who were absent to catch up). Then they got into pairs, and the assignment was to combine their two five-element phrases into one duet phrase no longer than the originals (or not much longer — I did give them the leeway to have from five to seven elements). I asked them to practice their phrases until they were really "in their bodies," because we would be fooling around with them further. We showed the duets two or three at a time, then I asked the pairs to separate (go across the room from your partner so you're not tempted to worry about shat s/he's doing").
With the partners on their own, I gave them a few choreographic devices to manipulate the phrases: size ("do it tiny... do it humongous"); tempo ("do it as fast as you can safely... start slow-motion and speed up to hyperspeed"); level ("as best you can, do it sitting down... on your tiptoes or jumping"); with different energies ("do it as if you've gone to the moon and you only weigh 20 pounds... now as if you weigh 600 pounds"); retrograde ("do it in reverse order"); and embellishment ("do it with fancy arms..."). I gave them a couple of minutes to revise their phrase using the devices they had just tried, then they showed them to their partners and discussed what surprised them in their different choices.
In general, the students did pretty well with all of the lessons. My fifth-period class in particular did some beautifully uninhibited work on Wednesday (when there were just the few juniors and seniors in class) — when we tried on a few fabulous shapes, many of them did low-level shapes without being asked (something I don't see much with beginning classes), and then continued the pattern with the traveling, crawling, rolling and spiderwalking across the floor. All in all, it felt good to be able to get a few days of creative work into them before winter break, and I hope we will be able to continue some of these concepts as we go along.
On Tuesday, we focused more on the LOD notation. I started them off with a freeze dance emphasizing traveling, turning, and a lot of variations on opening / closing, expanding / contracting, folding in / reaching out, etc. to give them a handle on what is meant by extension and flexion. I then explained to them about various forms of notation and LOD in particular, gave them the symbols for traveling, flexion, and extension to add to the three we had learned the day before (I had all 6 symbols taped to the mirror), and showed on the whiteboard how to arrange the symbols into a timeline. On backs of the maps from the day before (to save paper), students created a timeline using at least one of each of the six symbols, then took a few minutes to turn their notation into movement. They showed their solos to one partner, who followed along with the notation, and then discussed what they noticed.
Wednesday and Thursday, because of exit exam diagnostic testing (always with the testing!), we were missing all of the sophomores — about half the population of all of my dance classes — so I wanted to do a two-day project just for the juniors and seniors (and the few freshmen I have this year). I wanted to try something that we might get to next year in higher-level classes (which the seniors would miss out on), and I also wanted to do something with pairs; so I looked through my notes and found an accumulate-a-duet lesson, which I was able to adapt for my beginners... Here's how it went:
On Wednesday, we warmed up with a brief freeze dance, again using reaching, folding, turning, traveling, jumping, and still shapes. We then began a sequence of seven elements — we tried each element in multiple ways before adding it to the sequence, repeating the entire sequence with each addition. The seven elements were:
1. make a fabulous shape
2. look somewhere in the room and travel to it
3. reach out, then fold in
4. do a signature movement (your favorite move, the one you would do forever if you could only do one!)
5. a turn
6. a spring or jump (any air movement)
7. a variation of your fabulous shape
After practicing the sequence until it was settled, we then did some editing: remove any two of your seven elements, but keep the other five in the same order ("when you write an essay, you do a rough draft first then edit out all the fluff — dances need to be edited, too!"). This being a short Wednesday, we didn't have much time for showing — the homework was to remember the edited five-element phrase for the next day.
On Thursday, we started with a very brief recap, for students to remember their phrases (and for any who were absent to catch up). Then they got into pairs, and the assignment was to combine their two five-element phrases into one duet phrase no longer than the originals (or not much longer — I did give them the leeway to have from five to seven elements). I asked them to practice their phrases until they were really "in their bodies," because we would be fooling around with them further. We showed the duets two or three at a time, then I asked the pairs to separate (go across the room from your partner so you're not tempted to worry about shat s/he's doing").
With the partners on their own, I gave them a few choreographic devices to manipulate the phrases: size ("do it tiny... do it humongous"); tempo ("do it as fast as you can safely... start slow-motion and speed up to hyperspeed"); level ("as best you can, do it sitting down... on your tiptoes or jumping"); with different energies ("do it as if you've gone to the moon and you only weigh 20 pounds... now as if you weigh 600 pounds"); retrograde ("do it in reverse order"); and embellishment ("do it with fancy arms..."). I gave them a couple of minutes to revise their phrase using the devices they had just tried, then they showed them to their partners and discussed what surprised them in their different choices.
In general, the students did pretty well with all of the lessons. My fifth-period class in particular did some beautifully uninhibited work on Wednesday (when there were just the few juniors and seniors in class) — when we tried on a few fabulous shapes, many of them did low-level shapes without being asked (something I don't see much with beginning classes), and then continued the pattern with the traveling, crawling, rolling and spiderwalking across the floor. All in all, it felt good to be able to get a few days of creative work into them before winter break, and I hope we will be able to continue some of these concepts as we go along.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
End-of-semester dilemma
Planning the end of this semester turned out to be a bit of a dilemma for me. Coming from Oakland, I was used to having two weeks after winter break before finals — ample time for a few improv lessons and a final choreography project. Most of my years at EOSA, my fall semester final was a dance mapping and notation project: after leading in with the map activity then practice describing steps and movements, groups would notate their own choreography using dance vocabulary, musical beats, and pattern maps.
After attending a wonderful workshop on the Language of Dance (LOD) this fall, I got excited about trying the project in a whole new way. In the workshop, we learned a few basic LOD symbols (shape, travel, turn, spring, flexion, extension, stillness) and how to use them in a timeline; we then created solos by arranging the symbols as a starting point. It was an engaging new way of working for me, so I planned to try turning that notation part of my usual assignment upside-down — instead of first choreographing steps and then notating them with descriptions, my students would arrange the LOD symbols to build their dances, and only then fill out the movement physically. I was anxious to try out the project in a whole new way...
Unfortunately, my new district starts and finishes the school year (and fall semester) one week earlier, leaving only one week after winter break to prepare for finals. It just felt too weird to me to have a two-week vacation in the middle of a creative work / choreography project; to top it off, I would also be missing all of my sophomores (about half the students in all my dance classes) for testing during two days of this week, making it even harder to feel that we had time to do a notation and mapping project justice. So I somewhat reluctantly decided to switch gears entirely and have a performance final instead, letting students choose one or two of the dance styles we have studied this semester (basic jazz, the Thriller jazz dance, and Lindy hop / Big Apple) to perform in class — which they could easily review in the one week after break. In the meantime, we could still work on some of the mapping and LOD concepts this week.
What feels uncomfortable for me in this is that I’ve only gotten my classes through two choreography projects this semester. There are a number of reasons for that — for one, we started the school year two weeks late, then took an extra two weeks out of the curriculum to work on the Thriller dance (which was entirely worth it, both for making the program visible and for student buy-in); we also took longer on both creative work units than I have in the past, for the sake of allowing enough time to not rush the choreography — but in that “technique vs. creative work” dichotomy, the creative work seemed to be falling behind.
On the other hand, what came out of the dilemma was perhaps a new way of thinking about teaching creative dance and improvisation for me. In the past, the bulk of my creative dance lessons have been connected to a few elements, as lead-ins to group choreography projects; but this week, we were able to do four days of creative work for its own sake, not tied to a project, and that actually felt very freeing. We did dance mapping and a brief introduction to the LOD symbols and timeline (which I hope to return to in small ways throughout the year), as well as a two-day duets project for the small classes while the sophomores were out testing (more about all those lessons in the next post). I now think that this is a direction that I can and should explore further — while I surely will continue to teach creative work units, with specific lessons leading into choreography projects, I am intrigued by the possibility of introducing more elements and more creative dance work into the “in-between” times. Perhaps this will turn out to be a new way of finding opportunities to infuse creative work into the curriculum!
After attending a wonderful workshop on the Language of Dance (LOD) this fall, I got excited about trying the project in a whole new way. In the workshop, we learned a few basic LOD symbols (shape, travel, turn, spring, flexion, extension, stillness) and how to use them in a timeline; we then created solos by arranging the symbols as a starting point. It was an engaging new way of working for me, so I planned to try turning that notation part of my usual assignment upside-down — instead of first choreographing steps and then notating them with descriptions, my students would arrange the LOD symbols to build their dances, and only then fill out the movement physically. I was anxious to try out the project in a whole new way...
Unfortunately, my new district starts and finishes the school year (and fall semester) one week earlier, leaving only one week after winter break to prepare for finals. It just felt too weird to me to have a two-week vacation in the middle of a creative work / choreography project; to top it off, I would also be missing all of my sophomores (about half the students in all my dance classes) for testing during two days of this week, making it even harder to feel that we had time to do a notation and mapping project justice. So I somewhat reluctantly decided to switch gears entirely and have a performance final instead, letting students choose one or two of the dance styles we have studied this semester (basic jazz, the Thriller jazz dance, and Lindy hop / Big Apple) to perform in class — which they could easily review in the one week after break. In the meantime, we could still work on some of the mapping and LOD concepts this week.
What feels uncomfortable for me in this is that I’ve only gotten my classes through two choreography projects this semester. There are a number of reasons for that — for one, we started the school year two weeks late, then took an extra two weeks out of the curriculum to work on the Thriller dance (which was entirely worth it, both for making the program visible and for student buy-in); we also took longer on both creative work units than I have in the past, for the sake of allowing enough time to not rush the choreography — but in that “technique vs. creative work” dichotomy, the creative work seemed to be falling behind.
On the other hand, what came out of the dilemma was perhaps a new way of thinking about teaching creative dance and improvisation for me. In the past, the bulk of my creative dance lessons have been connected to a few elements, as lead-ins to group choreography projects; but this week, we were able to do four days of creative work for its own sake, not tied to a project, and that actually felt very freeing. We did dance mapping and a brief introduction to the LOD symbols and timeline (which I hope to return to in small ways throughout the year), as well as a two-day duets project for the small classes while the sophomores were out testing (more about all those lessons in the next post). I now think that this is a direction that I can and should explore further — while I surely will continue to teach creative work units, with specific lessons leading into choreography projects, I am intrigued by the possibility of introducing more elements and more creative dance work into the “in-between” times. Perhaps this will turn out to be a new way of finding opportunities to infuse creative work into the curriculum!
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
learning about cultural appropriation
We're currently in our historical social dances unit, and today I showed the segment from the old (and ever-useful) PBS series "Dancing" on the Lindy hop and the Savoy Ballroom. I love this one — it was made at a time when they could still get two of Lindy hop's real pioneers, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, to talk onscreen about the dance and their own experiences (and then I get to tell my students that, while I never got to study with Frankie Manning myself, I did learn from one of his students... Always nice when you can pull out that dance family tree!).
There's a section in which the narrator speaks of how the dance changed once it was taken up and taught in (white) dance studios — with accompanying archival footage making it obvious how this wild, grounded, lightning-fast African-derived dance was tamed into something bouncy, upright, rigid, and contained. At the end, when I asked students to share what they had noticed or felt was significant, T____ spoke up (I'm paraphrasing here, of course): "I thought it was interesting how when the white people took the dance, they made it all stiff and completely different from what it was... It was as if they liked the style but they didn't like the way the people who made it were, so they took parts and changed it into their own thing..." Good observation, of course — and all I could think of when she was saying this was wow, what a great introduction to the whole concept of cultural appropriation! I hope this will be the first of many more interesting discussions...
There's a section in which the narrator speaks of how the dance changed once it was taken up and taught in (white) dance studios — with accompanying archival footage making it obvious how this wild, grounded, lightning-fast African-derived dance was tamed into something bouncy, upright, rigid, and contained. At the end, when I asked students to share what they had noticed or felt was significant, T____ spoke up (I'm paraphrasing here, of course): "I thought it was interesting how when the white people took the dance, they made it all stiff and completely different from what it was... It was as if they liked the style but they didn't like the way the people who made it were, so they took parts and changed it into their own thing..." Good observation, of course — and all I could think of when she was saying this was wow, what a great introduction to the whole concept of cultural appropriation! I hope this will be the first of many more interesting discussions...
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