BC Education - Dance 11 and 12

Performance 11: Creation and Composition

This sub-organizer contains the following sections:

Prescribed Learning Outcomes
Suggested Instructional Strategies
Suggested Assessment Strategies
Recommended Learning Resources

Prescribed Learning Outcomes

It is expected that students will:

move in response to the expressive elements of music
demonstrate abilities to improvise within a given structure
evaluate the structure, style, and meaning in dance in terms of:
- technical and aesthetic use of the elements of movement
- dance genre and technique
- use of roles
- choreographic form and design
- use of stagecraft
identify artistic choices available to performers in presenting choreography

Suggested Instructional Strategies

Play examples of music in and metres and have students take turns leading various improvisational lead-and-follow activities for each. Ask them to identify the rhythmic patterns and accented beats and to consider how their movements relate to these elements of music. Repeat using other metres.
Invite students to improvise freely by moving in general space to a given focus point. Change focus points throughout the improvisation. Have students add variety by introducing different effort qualities, levels, and so on.
Use imagery to guide students as they improvise. (e.g., You are slashing through the jungle with a machete while being annoyed by wispy spider webs.) Invite students to take turns providing the imagery.
Call out individual body parts and ask students to improvise with that part in isolation. Add more parts until the whole body is moving.
Have a group of students perform a prepared piece. Ask the performers to provide a description of the artistic choices they made in the performance (e.g., in terms of emotional quality, focus , gender and culture roles, relationships between dancers and the audience, costumes, timing) without showing it to the audience. After the performance, challenge the audience to work in groups to create descriptions of the dancers' artistic choices, using the same aspects. Post these around the classroom and have groups attempt to identify the performers' statement.
As a class, brainstorm criteria for assessing a given performance piece. Encourage students to consider any special criteria based on the dance style or genre, as well as on the context . (e.g., Are the performers students or professionals? Is this a work-in-progress or a polished performance?) Have students evaluate the performance according to the criteria and discuss their findings.

Suggested Assessment Strategies

Have half the class observe as the other half improvises in response to a given element of music (e.g., melody, rhythm). Ask the audience to provide feedback on:
- diversity of movement (e.g., variety in rhythm, body parts used, levels)
- appropriate dynamics
- risk taking in offering different interpretations
- working within the boundaries of the task
To provide individual performers with opportunities to justify their artistic choices, have each performer respond to questions and statements such as:
- What worked well?
- What would you do differently in another performance?
- What would help you?
- How did you feel about your performance?
- What inspires the particular kind of energy needed for this piece?
- Discuss your decisions regarding props, timing, and focus .
- How did you want the audience to respond?
- What did you do to create that desired effect?
- What do you love about dancing?
Collect students' responses and look for evidence that they are able to understand and articulate their artistic choices.
After students have brainstormed criteria for assessing a given performance piece, have them use the criteria to evaluate performances. Criteria might include:
- accuracy in technique
- effective use of props
- evidence of consistent and appropriate styling
After students have viewed performances in a number of genres, pose questions such as:
- What do you already know about these genres?
- What are the expectations of each genre?
- How have your expectations changed after watching the performances?
- What did you learn about the different or similar uses of elements of movement in the genres?