Time: 6-8 weeks
This unit is designed to help students develop an awareness of various dancers, choreographers, dance companies, and dance styles.
Sample Topic: "Dance in the Media"
Suggested Resources:
Starter List of Activities
1. Introductory Activities
Pick a video from which to take a movement combination (i.e., sequence of steps/actions) and teach it in slow motion to use as a warm-up. Slow dances in videos featuring slow pop songs may also be used.
Ask students with what types of popular dances they are familiar. Where do students see these dances? What kind of music is often associated with dance that students see in the media? Explore dances that the students think are great, and dances that students do not like. Ask students to explain their reasons for these opinions. Encourage the use of dance terminology related to the elements of dance.
Have students watch commercials that include dance. Ask how dance is used and why an advertiser might use this form.
Use a process for Responding to Arts Expressions to learn about and respond to popular dance videos.
Explore movements typically associated with popular music in the media, such as rap or hip hop. Encourage students to try the movements at different speeds and with different effort levels to see if students can create their own movement interpretations.
Watch and explore movement combinations from such films as “West Side Story”, “Grease”, or “Centre Stage”.
Discuss actions, body, dynamics, and space in dance videos, commercials, and/or dance in film.
Talk about different types of popular dance and analyze how the dancers use the body. Do some types of dance use the upper or lower body more or less than other types of dance? Explore the movements, using them in various body zones.
Explore the different kinds of jumps such as leap, hop, jump (i.e., from two feet to two feet), sissone (i.e., from two feet to land on one foot), and assemble (i.e., from one foot to land on two feet). Find ways to give the jumps pop dance characteristics.
Listen to popular music and find a few rhythm patterns. Recreate them using traditional, found, or homemade instruments.
2. Main Activities
Invite a local dance artist from a dance studio or high school to demonstrate current popular dances. Have students pick some of those movements to combine with students' own ideas to make a pop dance.
Using a process such as Planning for Students' Dance Making, have students work in small groups to create their own dances incorporating the popular movements explored. Ensure that the music is appropriate.
Have students make public service announcements using dance. Students could make a dance about an upcoming event in the school or community, or about the choosing of a smoke-free/drugs-free lifestyle. Create backdrops and signs for the announcements and videotape the dances.
Explore issues, consequences, and solutions. Then, make a dance that represents the social issue (e.g., bullying). Teachers might divide the class and have each group represent a positive solution or a student perspective on the issue.
Discuss a negative example of dance in the media and brainstorm ways that it could have been better presented; for example, a rock video that uses stereotypical portrayals of teenagers or women. As a class, recreate the new, more improved version.
Make a pop dance using music made by the students. Make sure the dance includes a beginning, middle, and end position. Use this opportunity to discuss how the various elements of dance can be used effectively in pop dances. Discuss how the music influences the qualities of the movements.
Watch a pop video and have students recall as many pathways as students can from the video. Pathways can be formed with any body part, on the floor or in the air. Make a dance emphasizing these pathways.
Have students note the different kinds of formations that are used in dance videos. In groups, students can explore these formations by thinking about how to move in and through them. Ask students to find different ways of moving forward, back, sideways, and diagonally. With this information, have students create a dance of their own.
Explore the differences in dance movements in hip hop and alternative music videos. Create a contrasting dance showing these differences.
3. Concluding Activities
Invite younger students to view the students as they demonstrate the dances learned. Invite younger students to join the students and learn the new dances.
Have students write down some of their favourite movements and explain why students like the movements.
Have students choose a popular dance to which to respond and study. Then, learn the dance.
Divide the class in half and perform the dances. Have students note what they saw (e.g., elements of dance or representation of pop dance). Then, students can rework and refine their dances based on the feedback.
Perform the dances at pep rallies, assemblies, and sports events.
Watch more pop videos and discuss how the movements reflect or do not reflect today's society.
Learn about a pop dancer (e.g., Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, and others) and where she/he learned to dance.
Have students try to find information on the Internet about pop dance choreographers, such as Tina Landon or Wade Robson.
Teacher Information:
At each grade, students should experience a mini-unit or unit of study that uses a dancer, choreographer, company, dance form, or cultural heritage style as its focal point.
The following is one way that a dance artist study unit or mini-unit can be conducted. This suggestion uses the Canadian dance artist Margie Gillis as a focus. Other dance artists include:
- Peggy Baker
- Karen Kain
- Veronica Tennant
- David Earle
- Danny Grossman
- James Kudelka
- Ginette Laurin.
Sample Topic: "Dancer/Choreographer – Margie Gillis"
Suggested Resources:
Starter List of Activities
1. Introductory Activities
Invite a local dancer or dance group to visit the classroom to show the students their dance and to discuss their work and training. Ask the dancers to talk about the role and work of the choreographer.
Ask a local dancer to come in and do a warm-up using a similar form of dance used by the choreographer the class plans to study (e.g., jazz or modern). Ask the dancer to explain why he or she chose that warm-up, which body parts were used, and how.
Write a class letter to a Canadian dancer or organization, such as The Margie Gillis Dance Foundation, requesting information and/or posters about Margie Gillis and her work.
The class and/or teacher may write to dance companies and choreographers for information and/or order books on interlibrary loan. Dance Saskatchewan Incorporated in Saskatoon has an excellent library of dance resources, as does Dance Collection Danse in Toronto . Consult the bibliography for contact information for these two organizations and others.
Some dance companies or performance centres may have old posters from past performances that the centres may be willing to give to the class to display.
2. Main Activities
Use a process for Responding to Arts Expressions described to examine appropriate excerpts from one of Margie Gillis' pieces.
Read stories about Margie Gilllis or select excerpts in which she talks about how she began dancing and what has influenced her work.
Put a picture of Margie Gillis on a piece of poster board with space to answer questions such as:
Put the posters up around the classroom and school.
Pick one of Gillis' pieces to view and examine appropriate excerpts. Guide students to make a dance response to Gillis' piece. Refer to the Responding to Arts Expressions and the Planning for Students' Dance Making section.
Watch videos of dances and ask the students to list descriptive words under the headings body, actions, dynamics, relationships, and space. Explore these words and select some from the list to use as starting points to create a dance.
Take a piece of music that Gillis (or another choreographer) has used, identify the rhythm pattern, learn it on a drum, and create a dance to it. Try to find any information on what the choreographer had to say about the music and how it influenced her/him.
Examine pathways predominantly used in a selected piece. Discuss why Gillis or the choreographer (if different) might have chosen them. Create a dance using these pathways.
Choose a set of pictures of a particular dance and have students practise making these shapes with students' own bodies. Ask students to add transitions and then movements between the shapes to create a dance phrase sequence.
Use a few motif symbols (see Labanotation motifs) or descriptive writing to create visual art pieces inspired by movement and dance. Ask students to try to convey a sense of movement in their art works.
3. Concluding Activities
Display pictures of dancers in the classroom along with any information that students have researched. A certain space may be designated for a choreographer, dancer, teacher, or company.
View an excerpt from a dance video in which Gillis is discussing her work.
Compare and contrast Gillis' work to the students' dance responses to it.
Have students start to keep a journal of the information and movements learned while studying Margie Gillis. For example, students might use descriptive words for different actions, levels, turns, falls, and leaps. In Grade 3, students can begin keeping a dance journal to record their observations and dance-making ideas.
Have the students show dance phrases to a partner who states what message or feelings partners saw in the dance phrases.
Invite a cultural heritage dance artist into the classroom to talk about his or her training and dance-making process.
Study the awards and honours that Margie Gillis has received.