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Lesson Plan: Using Focus in a Narrative Dance

November 16th, 2008 · ······

Grade Levels: 1-5

Enduring Understanding:  Narrative dance tells a story.  The use of focus supports a story.

Target:  Choreograph narrative dances.  Assessment criteria:  Students’ dance shows a story, including a beginning, middle, and end.

Target:  Use focus to help tell the story.  Assessment criteria:  Students use focus in showing the story.

Context:  Students already completed a lesson on Focus (single focus, multi-focus, and internal focus), including an introduction, explorations, and several improvisational structures using focus.

Warm-up:  Lead a whole-body warm-up, reviewing single focus, multi-focus, and internal focus along the way.

Skill development:  Teach a movement sequence — Walk with multi-focus for 4-8 counts; Focus (single focus) on a designated location & freeze 4 counts;  Maintain single focus in a curving pathway as you turn, as if the point of focus flew around you, 4 counts; Freeze with single focus on one spot, as if the point of focus landed, for 4 counts; repeat.  After several repetitions, add a narrated storyline as students think about what they might be focusing on: first, I was walking along… next, something caught my attention suddenly… then, it moved, and I watched it…

Creating:  Small groups (duets for younger students; trios or quartets for older) use the pattern and add an ending to create a dance that tells a story.  First, generate a list of possible points of focus (e.g., an alien, butterfly, phantom, frog, ghost, monster…).  Groups then choose a point of focus, adjust the original pattern (walk, focus, turn, focus) to their choice, and complete the story by adding an ending: Finally…..

Groups perform their stories, telling the audience what their point of focus is.  Audience members give the performers feedback on how they think the story concluded. [Alternately, ask the audience to identify the use of focus in the dance.]

Conclusion:  Groups assess their own stories for beginning, middle, and ending — or for their use of focus. Review the definition of “narrative dance.”

EALRs: 1.1.1 Understands arts concepts and vocabulary (focus); 1.1.2 Creates movement sequences with a beginning, middle, and end (form); 2.1 Applies previously learned arts concepts, vocabulary, skills and techniques through a creative process; 3.2 Uses the arts to communicate for a specific purpose.

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Taking our show on the road

November 12th, 2008 · ··

I took one dance and 7 dancers on the road last week.  The schedule made a lot of sense.  We were invited to perform a cultural dance at an arts forum; a second opportunity to perform at a professional development conference was two days later.  Small group, recess-time rehearsals, short dance, two quick trips, good experience for the kids, piece o’ cake…

Right.

Ten students were interested. Several dropped out along the way, faced with the burden of choosing Tinikling rehearsal over tetherball at recess.

Permission slips were needed… Kelly and Danique got their grammas to sign almost immediately. I managed to corral our Spanish language interpreter to communicate with Juan’s mother at our start-of-the-year Open House — she signed, volunteered to drive Juan, and was even willing to pick up Steven.  Steven brought in his.  Shay’s permission came in after I said she couldn’t rehearse anymore without it. Janaea, Dayjanique, and Lanisha required the same threats.

Then I visited the space with the officials who were organizing the Arts Forum and discovered they’d changed the timing, so we were scheduled to perform an hour and a half later.  New permissions slips needed.

Costumes seemed like a good idea…  Dresses for the Thursday performance; dark pants & red shirts for Saturday. No one had a red shirt, so I scrounged.

Rides were needed… Danique’s gramma and Juan’s mom could drive. Shay’s mom could drive her, but no one else. Due to district restrictions, I couldn’t drive, but I could ride with my husband as driver.  What a treasure he is! Danique’s gramma would pick up Kelly; Juan’s mom would take Steven. Shay’s mom would take Shay. My husband and I would pick up Janaea, Dayjanique, and Lanisha at one house and take them home to separate houses.

Did I mention that hardly any of the parents return calls? That someone’s phone was disconnected? That one of the phones had a frequent message saying, “This voice mail is not receiving messages at this time”?  That when I called one home, my student answered, saying no one was home, only to reverse herself and put an adult on the phone when she found out it was me?  That one student had moved since returning her emergency form? That one student’s house didn’t show up on Google maps? That Lanisha came into my classroom the morning after I finally talked with her mother, with an expression that mingled awe, admiration, and sheer pleasure, saying, “You called my mom!”

Steven’s mom wanted to see the performance, so I arranged for Juan’s mom to pick them both up for the Arts Forum event. Our Spanish interpreter explained the timing and locations to Juan’s mom. Then, I learned Steven’s mom didn’t want Steven to go to either performance without her, so rides were needed for both events, along with a younger sister.  More communications in Spanish with Juan’s mom. Then, I heard Steven’s mom didn’t want Steven going in any car without proof of the driver’s safety record. By this time, we were communicating with Steven’s mom through an interpreter in Tagalog. Along the way, it was difficult to determine whether it was Steven or Steven’s mom who was reticent. Then, it turned out Steven might not even be home from day care in time to be picked up. Finally, Steven’s mom nixed the whole thing — on the day of the first performance.  Rushed notes in English and phone calls in Spanish went home to Juan’s mom, to tell her NOT to pick up Steven and his mom.

At the last minute, it became apparent I didn’t just need permission for kids to ride in private cars… I needed copies of driver’s licenses and insurance.  I enlisted another teacher to pick up Kelly. So Danique came with her gramma, Shay came with her mom, Jose’s mom brought him, and my husband and I picked up Janaea, Dayjanique, and Lanisha.  Steven couldn’t come. The performance at the Arts Forum went splendidly, with dancers adjusting to the new space on the spur of the moment and improvising around the hole left by Steven.  The audience warmed to them along the way, and it sounded like thunderous applause to the kids by the time they finished.

Two nights later, my husband and I picked up Janaea, Dayjanique, and Lanisha again (we clocked 80 miles that day), and Danique got there with her gramma. Kelly was gone to California… Shay called and said she couldn’t come… Juan didn’t show up. We rechoreographed to cover the missing: Kelly, Shay, and Juan.  At the last moment, Juan showed up, too late to change anything.  Waiting to perform, my kids were a bundle of nerves, alternately leaping down the hallways and tussling with each other noisily.  In position backstage, they were beside themselves, with Juan doubled up from a mysterious stomach pain (butterflies?) and the girls doing high kicks — but amazingly, quiet.  Onstage, they danced their hearts out — not polished like the other studio groups that were performing, but fresh, excited, and very present.

In their own words:  “It was very fun. This year was our first year that we showed this performance to adults. We was afraid but we did it. We was happy for the dance. It was the best performance. Tinikling was the best time of our life.”

…it wasn’t a piece o’ cake, but their excitement was delicious!

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Daily challenges to classroom management

October 29th, 2008 · ····

Ten minutes into my first class on Monday morning this week (5th grade), Rasheedah let out a bloodcurdling scream. I stopped class to see whether we needed 911. We didn’t. No one had touched her, but apparently, during an exploration of strength and stomping, she thought Cammie was chasing her and reacted as if a huge spider had dropped from the ceiling.

I reminded her — and the class — about some of our agreements (nixing unexpected physical contact and outdoor voices). Then, we changed course — to using our focus and moving safely in the space together.

On Tuesday we were 20 minutes into the class before another bloodcurdling shriek from Rasheedah brought us to another abrupt stop. This time, nerves rattled, I asked her to sit down and collect herself.

What I must remember is that this is an improvement for Rasheedah over last year.  New to our school mid-year, she would develop mysterious, can’t-dance ailments daily and insist on sitting out. This year she’s actively involved! Perhaps we’ll find a middle ground soon…

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Time: another essential ingredient

October 21st, 2008 · ····

Imagine a perfect schedule for teaching.  I have one.

Every student in the school takes dance, kindergarten through 5th grade (except one, but that’s another story). I get to know them as they grow, and they accept dance (and me), almost like air.  When new students come in, as they always do, they’re swept along by the breeze, and the shock at having dance class as part of the required curriculum fades quickly.

Classes last 40 minutes — not quite enough time for a full progression, but certainly enough for concept development. Meet daily, so we can pick up where we left off. Ten school days in a row, so skills can grow, and ideas can deepen. It’s enough to introduce a topic and pursue it. Or enough to glance across elements and interweave them. Enough to add a video observation, a little time to journaling, choreograph, and rehearse for informal performance.

After 10 classes (2 weeks), half of the school goes away, to PE, and the other half comes my way, to Dance. The rotation happens every month.

There are some downsides:   Five classes per day would be better than six — less rushed and better planned. There’s always more to do — things I intended, but couldn’t get to. On the Monday that classes come back from PE, it’s always chaotic, as students reacclimate to the focus and flow of a dance class.  Several classes are back-to-back, with not even a minute for reorientation.

But that’s nitpicking.  My schedule allows kids to refine their coordination, explore and build concepts, express ideas, develop creative and social skills through improvisation, choreograph, create, be playful, and generally do a lot of dancing.  It’s better than I ever would have imagined.

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Congratulations, Mary Easter!

October 19th, 2008 · ······

“The liberal arts virtues of problem solving and intellectual discipline and self-reflection and critical deliberation are rarely better tested or better witnessed than they are in dance.”

— Robert A. Oden, Jr., President, Carleton College

When I graduated from Carleton College, a student could major in music or visual art, but not dance. Dance was a PE elective. We had to take PE for six terms, but we could only take the same elective twice, so after two terms dancing, I had to audit dance and take another PE elective for credit.  As it happened, the woman who taught modern dance — Linda Osborne — was a professional dancer from Minneapolis, commuting south for the teaching gig in Carleton’s PE department. She danced with Choreogram Dance Company, founded and directed by Margret Dietz, who danced with Mary Wigman before WW II.  Linda was a persuasive teacher. It didn’t take long before there was a car, driving to the city each Friday, for technique and choreography class with Margret Dietz herself, at Choreogram’s studio.

Nowadays Carleton College allows a major in dance — thanks to Mary M. Easter, who was the driver on those weekly trips to Minneapolis. A faculty wife at the time, she pursued her art with vision and persistence over the years — along with forging a place for her art at Carleton.  So definitively that Carleton’s president perceived through her work the embodiment in dance of all the thinking processes most valued in education.

Problem solving, intellectual discipline, self-reflection, and critical deliberation.

Evidently, Mary’s retiring this year, leaving a beautiful legacy.

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Space — an invitation to dance

October 11th, 2008 · ····

A wide expanse. A clear, clean wooden floor. Sunlight from four high windows. The space invites movement.  Kids rush in, sliding and cartwheeling. When it’s time to dance, they explode in all directions, running, dodging, leaping, careening almost out of control but mostly not. A few pick their way carefully through the channels of space that open between moving bodies. Others fly into and through the clear patches of space that open and close around them.

A remodel three years ago gave my students a dance space, complete with a gym floor and a soundproof removable wall for converting the studio to a stage. It doesn’t quite offer 64 square feet per child, but it’s wide open. Big enough that the school district installed a clock on each end, in preparation for some future day when academics trump art. But for now, this space tells time in all directions and invites bodies to move and dance.

And the result?  the “performance outcome”?  Children who can do small-group choreography without coming to blows… who can explore the almost-out-of-control end of the energy spectrum… who can dance circle and line dances without bumping the walls… who can incorporate general space into their dances…  children who can learn to leap and love it.

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Space — getting along without it

September 28th, 2008 · ······

Dance requires space. Paradoxically, in order to make dance happen at all, dance educators spend a lot of energy trying to convincing people that it can happen in almost no space. And that’s somewhat true…

When I taught 6th grade, my students danced between desks and leapt down the hallway between classrooms. On Friday afternoons, we would push the big research tables in the library to one side. And we mastered the trick of sliding all desks snug against the classroom walls, with chairs stashed underneath or on top. Pyschologically, the conversion from furniture-filled space to a small clear spot in the middle of the floor seemed to create an expanse.

But space does determines outcome. I taught for eight years in a portable classroom. With 25-30 students in a class, it was big enough for students to sit in their own personal 20 square-foot territory, just 4 feet from the next child. If they were careful, they could move without touching or bumping, but if everyone actually held their arms out horizontally, they’d start whacking each other. Lying down all at once was out of the question. Even on the diagonal, two leaps were the limit.  Of course, 30 students are bound to include a percentage who move with abandon, despite the space limits, so there was a lot of management required.

The old classroom portable -- 25 square feet per child

The old classroom portable -- 25 square feet per child

And dance skills?  The kids developed an aptitude for moving in a confined space without bumping. This skill was most apparent when we moved to a large space for performance, where they clumped together and moved around each other like ants on an anthill, with a vast emptiness in all directions around their clump. It was an odd dance, weaving in and out of the alleys and channels between bodies.

After 8 years of confinement, my school started a remodel, intended to remove all portable classrooms. The Opportunity-to-Learn Standards for Arts Education, developed by the Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, say “the space must be large enough to accommodate all students of a class moving at the same time. At least 65 square feet per child is needed for dance activity space.”  I was so glad to be able to cite an actual publication as I began the fight for real space to dance in!

More to come… a real space…

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First week of school: managing dancers

September 7th, 2008 · ····

Whew!  and this was only a three-day week.

We started Wednesday, and by Friday, we’d covered enough logistics (fire drills, emergency drills, shoe drills, bandaid, bathroom, and tissue drills) to dance!  What a relief.

5th graders — “The Hustle” went over big, providing a quick application for concepts — self and general space and direction changes.  Most of them have been dancing since kindergarten — and then there’s two or three newcomers, for whom it’s the first time ever.  The new kids get swept right along.

Meanwhile, in addition to “The Hustle,” 3rd & 4th graders are learning how to communicate two levels of attention: Perfect Attention (including listening ears, focused eyes, quiet body, crossed legs, straight back) and Relaxed Listening (including quiet body, mouth, and focused eyes).  And their understanding of the basic elements of paying attention deepens…

A highlight: The new kid Alex astonished his two partners with strong, quick, sharp moves, clear shapes, and total concentration.  Tight fists punching the air powerfully but harmlessly.  They were stunned and admiring.

Kindergarteners — Take 28. Add colored spots for them to sit on. Arrange them in order, so as to learn their names, keep them spaced, and get their attention.  Do it again the next day. Then do it again.  By Friday, it’s clear that only 5 or 6 of them are ready to learn within a group of 28 — sitting proudly on the proper colored spot!

Everyday, a different kindergartener asks plaintively, “Is it time to go home?” And while I say “no,” I think “YES!” Whew.

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Heart o’ gold

August 24th, 2008 · ··

I’m going to miss Jamal! He graduated, and he won’t be back this year. He was on my mind as I drove to school the other day to get ready.

When he arrived in my class two years ago, he was in 4th grade and surly. New school, new classmates, new teacher… and dance?!? His pants were low and long — and he didn’t join in. Face withdrawn, angry, resentful. Even later, after he changed, he arrived with a daily attitude: “Prove to me I want to be here!”

It wasn’t hard. He wanted to be there. Front row in the Chinese ribbon dance, tracing clear circles and figure eights. Leader in his group of four in Pata Pata. Front row in the warm-up assessment. Director of his rhythm section. One of the finest in the 5th grade composition for the end of the year.

More than his daily about-faces and more than his full-out dancing spirit, though, I’m going to miss his astonishing sportsmanship — modeling a good heart and encouraging other kids. Asked to demonstrate a field day race of putting on and taking off ridiculous clothes, he sped through t-shirt, pants, shoes, and raced to the end while his opponent struggled with an inside-out shirt and lost her head in a sleeve. Jamal waited patiently in order to pull her sharply across the tug-of-war line — and immediately reached out to shake her hand with a genuine congratulatory smile on a race well run.

I’m going to miss Jamal. I hope they can see through his defiant swagger in middle school.

*The name here isn’t really his, but the spirit is.

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Blue eyes, brown eyes

August 19th, 2008 · ···

Yesterday was the first day back. Not students, but professional development. Professional development has become problematic for me. As a dance educator, it’s rarely for me. If kernels of wisdom and ideas for new approaches were fish, then I drag my net through a lot of water in order to catch a few I can keep. Yesterday, there was one big fish…

In a workshop with Dr. Martha Bireda on “Student and Family Empowerment,” I was among 50 some teachers. Asked whether we had seen the video “A Class Divided,” maybe six raised their hands. If she’d asked whether we’d heard the story behind the video, I would guess all of us had. Most teachers, most people, have heard of the lessons that took place in a 3rd grade class in Iowa in the late ‘60s, involving blue eyes & brown eyes. In teaching her all-white youngsters about discrimination & stereotyping, teacher Jane Elliot devised the blue eye/brown eye experience, during which those children with blue eyes were privileged members of the class, while their brown-eyed classmates were branded as slow, mean, and troublesome. Going into the experience with her excited, happy students, she was clear about its purpose: “Let’s try this…” The students debriefed at the end of the day, and the second day, roles were reversed. People who know of the lesson sequence probably also know that within 15 minutes of the beginning of the experiment, students were displaying serious emotional responses, and by the end of the day, both behaviors and cognitive abilities of the children had changed.

Yesterday I saw video footage of the third year of Ms. Elliot’s lesson, which was aired on Frontline as “A Class Divided.” It was stunning. Hearing results of the blue-eye/brown-eye lesson doesn’t measure up to seeing them. Teacher education programs should never settle for informing pre-service teachers about the results; they should show the documentary.

To understand, you must see the children respond emotionally to their experience of being demeaned, faced with limitations and low expectations. These were privileged children who were just “trying on” discrimination, but their faces and bodies spoke anger, humiliation, frustration, powerlessness, resentment, withdrawal, disbelief, and aggression.

And the big fish for me? I’ve seen these faces in my classroom. My students aren’t trying it on. This is their life. They have no relief.

So what do I do? What can dance education do, in response? Dance class, complete with the license it gives students to be creative, improvisational, somewhat rowdy, and highly energetic, is often an opportunity to express or purge negative feelings. But in order to get there, students have to be willing to be vulnerable enough to create and improvise, and to corral their feelings enough to be rowdy and use their energy within safe parameters. So this is my frame as I plan my starting lessons, map my curriculum for the year, and fine-tune classroom management. To plan classes so I can really see my students’ faces… to create activities that bring everyone along… to keep the students that show these faces in class. To try to help. And to help them understand what they’re experiencing.

Another good point of yesterday: meeting & greeting all the folks I spend my year, but not my summer, with – the adults that people my building and whom I depend upon all year for moments of sanity, chances for venting, opportunities to problem-solve. They’re good people, and I depend on them. We share a path.

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