Tomorrow’s the last day of classes. With my 4th & 5th graders, we’ll watch the Dance Day video & I’ll give them their summer assignment. Here it is…
Summer homework
Learn a dance, get some exercise & celebrate Dance Day on July 31!
Go to www.dizzyfeetfoundation.org & click on the Dance Day video, where Napoleon & Tabitha (choreographers) teach a hip-hop routine. Play it as many times as you need to & practice until you can do it with them!
Evidently my school sits in the most diverse zip code in the country! Here’s a video…
No wonder it’s such a great place to work!
And today I’m honored to be the featured interviewee! Check out my interview for more questions than you ever thought to have about me!
And while you’re there, take a look around. 4 dancers is a blog about so many aspects of dance — news from all around, glimpses of many styles, perspectives from teachers, dancers, students… I don’t know where Catherine finds all her material, but I’m glad she does!
The 1st grade dance was based on number sense, in 3 parts:
I. Groups of students grew from low to high, counting from 1-10 in various languages, including Spanish, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Somali, Cambodian, Arabic, Laotian, Tagalog, Cham, Korean, and English. It was usually their home language, but a few had a language from martial arts, and by the end of rehearsals, almost everyone joined in on the Spanish. One boy didn’t know which language he belonged with until he heard the numbers; several students went home & asked their grandmas to teach them.
II. Each student wore a shirt with a big number from 1-100. They performed a 16-count dance sequence alternating with an improvisational interlude of finding a partner, comparing their numbers & making low or high shapes to show the greater than/less than relationship. Music: Eric Chappelle, Dancing Digits, Music for Creative Dance, v. 3.
III. Singing CountBounce from Greg & Steve’s Kids in Action CD, students danced a 16-count pattern for the chorus & made number shapes with a partner & solo, ending in multi-place numbers in small groups.
Here are some of their reflective responses after watching a video of their work (the writing is first-draft, with best-guess spelling!):*
* Ethnic background, as identified by the family, shows if your cursor hovers over the sample.
We have fun on stage! I was danceing with the music! I was happy when I was danceing with joy!
I felt nervous because there was a lot of student and I am making number 7 and my number was 30 I was awsome.
I was number 56 and I work hard to complete my dance I dida good job
It was awsome because I got to spin my leg around my two hands and my other feet. and I saw my baby couziz was crying. I was number forty-eight. I saw alot of student at the performance. The audieance gave us a great aplause for us and the performance was really fun I saw my mom my sister and my baby couzin.
I felt nurvese before and then when we started to dance I felt better and how I can do better is I can not be nervese and scared.
I feel happy when I shine on the stage with my best 95 shirt. My best part was comparing number with the partner.
My nuber is 10 when we have to make small shape we crall very small and when we need to make big shap we stcrech are feet and hand and I feell very happy for parent to look at me
First, a rush of relief — the performances came off fantastically!
Then, the rush of all the “to-do’s” that have been piling up… scheduling for next year, plans for end-of-year activities & events, grades for report cards, & post-performance reflections.
Here are some of kindergarten responses after watching a video of their work (the writing is first-draft, with best-guess spelling!):*
* Ethnic background, as identified by the family, shows if your cursor hovers over the sample.
We danced on the stage! I am have fun
We danced on the stage! I was happy about to dance with my frens
We danced on the stage! I felt proud I danced on the stage we did alot of dancedis! we did alot of dance is to showe are femily!
We danced on the stage! I felt nurves
We danced on the stage! I felt proud of myself! and I saw my baby casin and my antie!
Performance is one Tuesday-full of rehearsals away now. This week my feedback turned from critical eye ["there's noise onstage!," "the glaciers need to be slower & stronger!," "watch each other!," "don't play tag on stage!"] to enthusiastic cheerleader ["fabulous job!," "your timing was perfect!," "yes!," "I'm really noticing fantastic shapes!"]. The only way for them to be more successful than they are at this point is by believing in themselves.
The kids are getting psyched…
It’s the end of the year. Although I’m too busy to be blogging about it, we’re turning a lot of corners!
“Can we practice our part of the dance during recess?” Corner turned: kids are taking ownership in their upcoming performance.
“What are we going to wear?” Corner turned: they’re starting to think like an ensemble.*
“I know my part!” Corner turned: they know their parts!
Full rehearsals started yesterday. That’s 50 kids onstage at a time,** with the stage open. We’re working on spacing, timing, order, sequence, details… fixing parts and running the whole. Meanwhile, our whole schedule is in an upheaval, to accommodate this week’s standardized testing schedule and next week’s need to give every group a chance on the full stage.
I was especially worried about the schedule change for the autism classes. They’re none too flexible. But what a surprise!
I have the youngest, most difficult group this week, and they’ve been fabulous! Their instructional assistants & I have been amazed — so pleased. They’ve been participating more than ever, each one joining in here and there throughout the class — and occasionally all together! Is it because morning’s a better time? Is it because I’ve finally found the rhythm they need [structure/free dance/structure/free dance/structure/free dance/goodbye song)? Or is it because we've come a long way since the beginning of the year, and they're making [HUGE] progress?
Probably all of the above. But what a major corner to have turned!
*We don’t do costumes, except for agreeing within each class on what general colors to wear — always a range of colors, so they can wear something they already have.
**Two classes of kids (e.g., both 1st grade classes) perform together, so that we still have a solid showing in the evening, when many kids/families can’t attend because of families at home, religious restrictions, second jobs…
Last night I saw this year’s final performance of “Keeping the Faith,” a stunning performance by 21 women using dance, spoken word & visual art to shed light on their lives and selves. One of the most moving performances I’ve ever attended, it was well worth a 3-hour commute to the rural setting of Mission Creek Correctional Center for Women, where these women live just now.
Led by Artistic Director Pat Graney & a team of artists & volunteers, the performers worked for 3 months using Michael Jackson & his music as inspiration to dig in the soil of their own lives. Unearthing the rocks of abuse & abandonment that brought them to incarceration, the program uses hope & the creative process to cultivate confidence, self-acceptance, patience & forgiveness in their place. The culminating performance is a fragile but beautiful blossom, not only for the performers but for the audience fortunate enough to witness the event.
Today is Mother’s Day, and it’s impossible to ignore the fact that most of these women are mothers. Some were abandoned by their own mothers. All seem acutely aware of their absence from their own children’s lives. As they examine the events in their lives that brought them here, they express the hope that their futures will hold new patterns. As I listened & watched… as the performance plays in my mind today… I can’t help but wonder what we on the outside are doing to help them undo the effects of what was done to them as children & mothers, to help them be the mothers they want to be, to prevent their children from suffering in similar ways.
The voices of these mothers shed new perspective on the lives of one or two of my own students, living with relatives while their own mothers are struggling with addiction or serving time.
On what dance can do for them, if I can do it right…
And on the power of the arts — in both education & transformation.
Thanks to Pat & her team of artists. And to these women, for doing the heavy lifting!
I teach dance, the least understood and least represented of Washington State’s legislated content areas. I teach dance because it engages children physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially, providing them with visible and felt experiences of learning. Dance has the power to touch and change all students: boys and girls, children from English-speaking and non-English-speaking families, students from wealth or poverty, with normal or different bodies. Creating a dance draws a student into the creative process, of transforming idea into form and feeling into motion. Dancing together provides students with experiences of community, examples of diversity, and models for collaboration. As they learn and grow in dance class, they grow in self-assuredness, as well as their understanding of themselves as individuals and cultural beings.
I know the power of dance because it worked in my own life. I only began to dance seriously after I had graduated from an academically-oriented private liberal arts college, with a degree in Asian Studies. Despite academic success as a student, I felt that I only began to learn when I began to dance, and for the next 10 years, dance provided a rich education for me. I teach it now, in the public schools, because every child deserves to be so engaged, to learn to use the body as an instrument of expression, and to understand the power of dance as an expression of community and culture.
by Randy Barron, a dance educator who is putting his own classroom experiences into the blog Classroom Choreography…
At the end of a short Classroom Choreography residency in Arizona, I asked students to reflect in writing on their experiences making dances about poetry.
One of my 5th grade students (a boy!) said on his closing reflection, “I learned that dance is not just movement, it’s a way of life.” Those words did not pass my lips during the four days; that was his own interpretation.
A 5th grade girl, painfully shy, not well accepted among her classmates, and barely able to write simple sentences, said this about her experience: “I lerned to overcom my Fears.” (sic) Her teachers, the school staff, and I were all in tears when we read this. Dance opened a door for her that might not have been unlocked for years, if at all.
We MUST get dance to ALL children.