BC Education - Dance 11 and 12

Performance 12: 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 with sensitivity to the expressive elements of music
evaluate improvisation as a tool for refining performance
use established criteria to reflect on and refine dance performances from a range of context s
justify their artistic choices in performance

Suggested Instructional Strategies

Invite music performance students to play music with changes in the elements of expression (e.g., dynamics, articulation, tempo) while dance students improvise. Following the activity, ask dance students to suggest how the expression affected their movements and the creative possibilities for composition.
Show video clips of dance duets from a variety of context s (e.g., ballet, musical theatre, modern, ballroom), and provide students with guided-response sheets to focus their viewing. Invite students, as a class or in groups, to discuss the differences in relationships established in the choreography, the differences between the roles of the dancers, and how these aspects are related.
Have students create movement sequences for a selection of music that contains contrast s (e.g., in timbre, texture, phrasing) and present them to the class. Discuss the effects from the perspectives of audience and performer.
Ask each student to prepare a dance lesson to teach to the class, to another performance class, to younger students, or to parents. Encourage students to focus on exploration and improvisation (e.g., lead-and-follow activities), direct instruction (e.g., using the language process), creating, sharing, and reflection.
Suggest that each student create a solo to be used as an audition piece. Set up a mock audition that includes a panel of judges (students and teacher) who ask the performers prepared questions regarding artistic choices (use of stagecraft, choice of music, and application of the elements and principles of movement).
To work on specific performance skills, invite dancers from the community to lead an activity that uses improvisation. Afterward, ask students to articulate their successes and frustrations and to reflect on the potential of this approach for refining performance skills.

Suggested Assessment Strategies

As students create solos to be used as audition pieces, develop criteria for assessment and feedback with the class (e.g., length, given dance genre, style, context ). In assessing each mock audition, the panel of judges might consider the following questions:
- Did the performer complete the solo within the predetermined time?
- Did the movement have a clear relationship to the music?
- Did the performer choose enough variety to showcase strengths and abilities?
- How have the principles of design been used?
- Did the stagecraft elements detract from or add to the piece?
- Was there a complex use of the elements of movement ?
Additional criteria might include:
- effective contact with the audience
- stage presence
- clarity of movement
- effective, expressive movement
Ask students in groups to perform prepared pieces and then explain their artistic choices to the class. Afterward, conference with each group, posing questions to help them articulate and reflect on their choices and their awareness of the range of creative possibilities. Questions might include:
- What did you want the audience to feel as you made your entrance?
- What did you do to create that desired effect?
- How did you prepare offstage for your performance?
- Did you try to create a particular effect on the audience using any of the following: focus , timing, a prop, or a costume?
- If you are portraying a particular emotion, how do you generate and channel that energy?
- Did you do any research or special training to prepare for this performance?
- How did you work with the other dancers to create the choreographer's desired effect?
- What idea or feeling did you want the audience to leave with? What did you do to ensure that?