Dance : Exploring shapes

What is dance?-my version

Our tutor asked us to define what dance is and the answer I have come up with is as follows. To me dance is a way of expressing myself in the chaos in and around my world through expressions and movements, allowing me to losing myself in the moment and  in doing so finding the stillness and silence from within  me thereby discovering  a part of my real self.

What is creative dance?

Creative dance involves using the body to express and enhance inner thoughts and feelings using different techniques and sometimes incorporating aspects of different art forms. It requires the involvement of physical, emotional, intellectual and aesthetical aspects of self (Gibson & Ewing,2011, p.35).

Why creative dance?

It would enable the children to

·       Enjoy creative movement

·       Understand their bodies, feel comfortable with it and confident in their own skin

·       Express ideas and feelings through individual and collaborative movements

·       Apply artistic elements like time, shape, energy and structure to their movement.

-(Gibson & Ewing,p.38)

In today’s tutorial we examined the following videos:

Dance like your ol’ man – Chunky Move, Hyundai car advertisement – Pilobolus dance company, Rock Lobster – school performance. And we went through the following questions to analyse the dance elements in it.

·       How were the elements of Dance used in each piece?

·       What was the style and purpose?

·       How would you describe the quality of the movement of the female dancer?

·       What shapes did the dancers use?

·       What is the intent of the piece?

Today we did warm up exercises( to physically prepare the body and focus the mind on the upcoming lesson) and experimented with concept of musical statues with guided improvisation, an action created from stimulus- with two feet no hands, 2 hands one foot, no hands no feet, and making free letter shapes using the body. This had a focus on the element of SPACE, in particular –shape i.e., shape of the group and the individual dancer. We discussed whether the movements were light and effortless? Or whether it included pushing, swinging, turning or rolling actions?

Ideas for teaching

Taken further the lesson of exploring shapes can be extended to explore geometrical shapes, levels, contrasts etc.

References

Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts. Palgrave MacMillan: Melbourne.