BC Education -Fine Arts K to 7

Creating, Presenting, and Responding in Dance

Three broad, interrelated approaches apply to all fine arts classes. These are creating (students create their own dances, dramas, music compositions, or visual images), presenting (students prepare and perform or exhibit a dance, drama, musical selection, or visual images), and responding (to live, recorded, or print presentations and exhibitions).

Note: The following information is adapted with permission from Arts Education (Curriculum Guides for Grade 1-5), Saskatchewan Education, September 1991.

Creating Dance

The creative process of exploration, selection, combination, refinement, and reflection allows students to be active learners. As they create, students are experiencing, gaining knowledge, experimenting, and facilitating at the same time. Often, too, there is a social dimension as students work with partners or in groups. Both process and product are valued: students need opportunities to practise taking creative risks, alone and in groups, without always having to aim for a predetermined quality standard.

To facilitate students' creative development, teachers play an interactive role through coaching, guiding, and discussion with students at all stages of the creative process. Depending on the particular requirements and students' prior experiences, teachers may at first need to develop activities that are more structured in order to allow students to gain confidence with dance skills and processes. Once students become familiar with these skills and processes, activities can become less teacher-directed.

The suggestions listed in the Creating Dance chart can help teachers structure creation activities for dance. In practice, these activities will vary in sophistication and scope according to the time available and the developmental level of students.

Creating Dance
Establish a warm, accepting, and non-judgmental atmosphere in which students feel safe and free to take creative risks. Show enthusiasm. Join with students in the activities when appropriate to help establish trust.
Set ground rules to keep the lesson running smoothly. For example, ask students to start and stop on a signal from the teacher and set the boundaries of the dance space.
Begin with an appropriate warmup and conclude with a cooldown.
Provide opportunities for individual and group creation activities.
Use a variety of stimuli to inspire students' imaginations and assist in the creative process (e.g., pictures, scent, music, poetry, stories). Use a variety of images to encourage students to explore several possibilities. However, remember that imagery can also limit students' creative exploration; be careful when asking them to ³be² something, since this can result in superficial or stereotypical mimicry.
Provide a context or motivation for composition (e.g., a current theme or issue, a given historical or cultural context). Use themes and topics of interest and relevance to students.
Coach students while they move, being clear and loud enough so that they can hear. Say words in a manner that conveys their meaning, encouraging students to respond in a particular way (e.g., s-t-r-e-e-e-e-e-e-t-c-h).
Guide students as they create. Assist them as they:

decide on a focus (e.g., expressing a feeling or an idea, matching sounds with visual images, interpreting a poem or story, exploring specific elements of movement or a particular dance style, transforming a previously choreographed work, solving a given problem)
explore movement possibilities
select and sequence movements
apply the principles of design to develop choreographic forms
consider roles such as gender, culture, and status
select or design music and stagecraft
explore and develop notation processes
refine and evaluate
Use visual aids and other representations to convey ideas when appropriate.
Use a range of accompaniment (e.g., recorded or live music, percussion instruments, found instruments, student-created accompaniment, body percussion, and soundscapes).
Encourage the value of stillness where appropriate. Stillness is not a state of ³not doing,² but can have equal validity in the choreography.
Use repetition. Students gain satisfaction and confidence from learning a phrase of movement and repeating it.
Discuss objectives and establish criteria for assessment.
Provide opportunities for students to reflect on and assess their work.
Allow time for students to respond to their peers' work.
Help students extend and redirect their experiences. Encourage them to share their creation with their dance mentors, to refine and rehearse their work for performance, to view dances that illustrate the same elements and principles they use, to attend live performances, to adapt or expand their original ideas to create new compositions, to polish their compositions for performance, or to apply their creation to other fine arts disciplines (e.g., use a dance choreography as a stimulus for music composition).

**Creating Dance**
	Establish a warm, accepting, and non-judgmental atmosphere in which students feel safe and free to take creative risks. Show enthusiasm. Join with students in the activities when appropriate to help establish trust.
	Set ground rules to keep the lesson running smoothly. For example, ask students to start and stop on a signal from the teacher and set the boundaries of the dance space.
	Begin with an appropriate warmup and conclude with a cooldown.
	Provide opportunities for individual and group creation activities.
	Use a variety of stimuli to inspire students' imaginations and assist in the creative process (e.g., pictures, scent, music, poetry, stories). Use a variety of images to encourage students to explore several possibilities. However, remember that imagery can also limit students' creative exploration; be careful when asking them to ³be² something, since this can result in superficial or stereotypical mimicry.
	Provide a context or motivation for composition (e.g., a current theme or issue, a given historical or cultural context). Use themes and topics of interest and relevance to students.
	Coach students while they move, being clear and loud enough so that they can hear. Say words in a manner that conveys their meaning, encouraging students to respond in a particular way (e.g., s-t-r-e-e-e-e-e-e-t-c-h).
	Guide students as they create. Assist them as they: decide on a focus (e.g., expressing a feeling or an idea, matching sounds with visual images, interpreting a poem or story, exploring specific elements of movement or a particular dance style, transforming a previously choreographed work, solving a given problem) explore movement possibilities select and sequence movements apply the principles of design to develop choreographic forms consider roles such as gender, culture, and status select or design music and stagecraft explore and develop notation processes refine and evaluate
	Use visual aids and other representations to convey ideas when appropriate.
	Use a range of accompaniment (e.g., recorded or live music, percussion instruments, found instruments, student-created accompaniment, body percussion, and soundscapes).
	Encourage the value of stillness where appropriate. Stillness is not a state of ³not doing,² but can have equal validity in the choreography.
	Use repetition. Students gain satisfaction and confidence from learning a phrase of movement and repeating it.
	Discuss objectives and establish criteria for assessment.
	Provide opportunities for students to reflect on and assess their work.
	Allow time for students to respond to their peers' work.
	Help students extend and redirect their experiences. Encourage them to share their creation with their dance mentors, to refine and rehearse their work for performance, to view dances that illustrate the same elements and principles they use, to attend live performances, to adapt or expand their original ideas to create new compositions, to polish their compositions for performance, or to apply their creation to other fine arts disciplines (e.g., use a dance choreography as a stimulus for music composition).

Presenting and Performing Dance

One of the most efficient and effective ways to learn about dance is to experience it through informal presentation or formal performance. Presentation and performance allow students to develop their abilities in the three areas common to all fine arts curricula: skills and techniques, expression and creation, and context. By presenting or performing their own and others' work, students can shape and refine their ideas and integrate their knowledge and attitudes with their technical skills.

Students gain personal satisfaction and accomplishment when they are given opportunities to prepare, polish, and present or perform their own work. Presentation or performance for peers, parents, or the public provides a focus and an end point to the creative problem-solving process. When their work is to be presented or performed, it is important for students to be involved in the selection and decision-making process. All students, not just the most able ones, must be given opportunities to present or perform.

Note: In the suggested strategies in this IRP, the terms presentation and performance are often used interchangeably. In practice, the teacher, sometimes in consultation with students, will determine the level of formality appropriate to the situation.

When designing activities related to presentation and performance, consider opportunities for students to develop and apply their knowledge and skills related to the following:

appropriate warmup and cooldown activities

techniques appropriate to each style

following the choreographer, and directing the ensemble themselves as appropriate

maintaining individual roles within the ensemble; respecting others' contributions

interpretation and effect

performance skills and etiquette (as appropriate to the given situation)

commitment to the rehearsal process (including individual and ensemble, and out-of-class practice as appropriate)

organization and implementation of the performance format

application and, where appropriate, design of stagecraft elements (e.g., sound, video, lighting, sets, costumes, staging)

Revised: July 8, 1998

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