The lesson is based on “Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes.

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me–
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

Warm-up
A word-driven improvisational warm-up
This is an improvisational structure I learned from Thom Cobb during an NDEO National Conference session (was it in Providence, Rhode Island?) – Thank you, Tom! It’s served my students & myself very well over the years!
Teach a sequence of words for students to respond to in succession, discussing elements of movement to focus each response. For example:
“Space” – students make a shape using full extension in whatever direction they choose
“Time” – students either run in place or move in sloooooooow motion
“Energy” – students either punch or float in self space
“4 shapes” – students make shapes from high to low with 4 percussive drum beats
“Balloons” – students rise from low to high with delicate, floating energy
“Locomotor high & low” – students travel in general space for 8 counts
“Forest picture snap” – students take any frozen shape that would be part of a forest scene (rock, bush, tree, animal, whatever!)
“Wind” – only the boys swirl, twist, & turn through general space while girls hold their shape
“Lightning” – only the girls move sharply, with angular shapes & electric moves among the frozen shapes of the boys
“Mud” – everyone moves with slow, strong, smooth moves as if stuck in the mud
“Popcorn” – everyone explodes once
“Sneak back home” – everyone moves back to their starting place with quick sneaky focus
“Melting ice cream” – slowly sinking downward
“Exclamation point!” – explode into a frozen ending shape
Use whatever words evoke the qualities of movement you want…

Exploration
Examining the first stanza of “Dance Variations” by Langston Hughes for words that suggest movement:
1. Read the poem
2. Check for unfamiliar vocabulary & clarify new vocabulary with synonyms
3. Highlight words that suggest movement
4. Students explore various ways to express the words, individually, on cue
5. Choose a favorite three words or phrases & create a phrase (as a whole class or individually, or not at all, depending on the time)

Skill Development
Teach a phrase of choreography built on 3 words or images from the second stanza, modeling with an explanation of how the movements were chosen to express the words. Create a sequence appropriate for your students; how specific you are on details of the choreography will depend on your students.
For example,
Model of a choreography sequence from “Dream Variations”
Music: “Spring Rain” by Michael Powers ~30 seconds
“Quick day” – “For quick day, I use focuses with sharp & sustained energy to express the way African Americans were watchful & careful during the day.”
8 counts: sharp focus 1, focus 2, hold 3, sharp focus 4, slowly scan for danger 5, 6, 7, 8
8 counts: repeat
“Rest” – “To show resting, I take 8 counts to change from a fearful outward focus to a more relaxed shape with an inward focus.”
8 counts: turn with a slow focus & arm gesture
8 counts: rest head on arms to one side
“Night coming tenderly” – “For night coming tenderly, I trace an arc over my head with my arm, thinking about how the sky looks at sunset, and then I sink gently to the floor.”
8 counts: arc with arm over the head for sunset
8 counts: sink gently to the floor
Practice & repeat to cement the sequence of the phrase, with smooth transitions. Rehearse with the words as cues, or not.

Choreography
Now it’s their turn… with a partner, students choose 3 words, images, or phrases from the first stanza, create a movement phrase to express each image or phrase, and practice their phrase. If you have time, they can add the choreographed phrase you taught them as an ending to their own.

Cool-down
Have students watch each other’s choreography. Several pairs can perform at once; if they add the learned choreography, each pair will do that second, and it will probably be performed in a kind of canon, with each pair doing the same final moves at different times.
Ask the audience to watch for & identify words or phrases they see from the poem.
Or else have the dancers identify one of their images & explain how they chose to express it with movement (either verbally or in writing).

*Langston Hughes 1902-1967     Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929-1968     Alvin Ailey 1931-1989

It’s great to be able to look up & see the world again, in the aftermath of performance…

…which came off just fine. Students were higher than kites. Teachers & principal loved it. Parents’ comments were hugely favorable — and they put ALL the chairs away at the end, which must mean something!

I always like the afternoon performance better, when the kids perform for each other. It’s a long performance because it takes awhile for all the classes to get on & off the stage from the audience.  But not only are the kids hugely appreciative of each other [have you ever watched the quiet enrapture of a kid-audience during "Show & Tell"? ...they hang on every word, no matter what the topic!] but they’re a much quieter, more polite audience than their parents.  I also like it better because ALL the kids are there performing.

At night we get a good turn-out, but our demographics are such that it runs about 35% in the primary grades & up to 90% at the intermediate level.  The non-attendees come from families with small children, folks who don’t understand English, religions that don’t believe in dance & music, or parents with night work…

But the evening performance is just plain noisy. Note to self: don’t release the kindergarteners to their parents next year after they perform, because the parents don’t supervise them & they hang on the edge of the stage chatting noisily through the whole thing! Send them back to their classroom like the rest of the classes, to watch videos & play games until it all ends.

But it’s over now — except for the 3 dances that I need to rerecord in order to get a video without the single child in each dance for whom I don’t have permission to video.

On to other things… report cards, submitting scores for the 5th grade assessments, sorting through all the materials in my classroom that wound up in a tangle by the end of the performance… and the world out there beyond the classroom!

• Play is a central condition for learning.
• There are & have always been teachers who know that play is central to learning.

When I have time, perhaps I’ll elaborate on the connection between dance & play, but for now, it seems too obvious to dwell on.  I have classes to plan for tomorrow, and it’s more important to make them playful than to explain how.

play or engaged learning? both!

So I started with my new groups on Monday, we worked through four 30-minutes classes, and they performed Thursday afternoon. There were only two classes that met 4 times before the assembly, so those were the classes that performed. My only regret was that the process had to be fairly prescribed — with more time, the kids could have had much more input in the choreographic process!

Grades: 3rd & 5th grade

Teaching points
Choreographers can build a dance from the ideas and images of words.  Choreographers use diminution and expansion as strategies for building dances. Choreographers use canon as a strategy for building dances.
Dancers rehearse in order to do their best in performance.

Targets:

• Build a movement phrase based on a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Manipulate the phrase using diminution & expansion.
• Learn & practice the use of canon.
• Rehearse & perform a short dance including the original & manipulated phrases.

Lesson 1 : Choreographers can build a dance from the ideas and images of words.

• Identify the teaching point.
• Warm up using a yoga sequence that progresses through named yoga shapes. This is a warm-up my students already know, so it was an easy way to introduce the idea of building a dance based on words.  The yoga sequence goes like this: mountain, tree, bird, woodchopper, big X & spiral (this is a transition, not an identifiable yoga shape), boat, V-sit, slide, whale, snake, cat, child, swallow, downward dog, mountain, moon, bow & arrow & eagle. The shapes come from a few books I have on yoga-for-kids — this one & several others that seem to be out-of-print — but there are various books with named shapes.
• Go over the quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I used different quotes for the 3rd & 5th graders:
  • We must combine the toughness of serpents and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart. [3rd grade]
    
  • We have learned to fly in air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together like brothers. [5th grade]

3rd graders' quote

5th graders' quote

• Highlight the main words & learn movements for them.  I used movements based on American Sign Language, cause it was early Monday morning, and my creative juices had not begun to flow. I checked on a website for some basic signs, using synonyms for signs that I couldn’t replicate from the website or signs that didn’t seem to fit the dance phrase.
• Practice the sequence together.  [I asked the 3rd graders to word with a partner to make up their own movements for the words serpent, dove & heart, so most of the gestures were in unison, while those three varied among the duets.]
• Have students break into smaller groups & practice the sequence together.
• Homework:  Learn the sequence, so we can play with it tomorrow!

Lesson 2: Choreographers use diminution and expansion as strategies for building dances.

Beginning to manipulate the sequence

• Identify today’s teaching point.
• Explore a key dance element related to the movement sequence.   For the 3rd graders & their quote about “toughness” & “softness,” I lead students through an exploration of powerful & delicate effort actions — punch, float, press, glide — both with & without their voices (shouting “powerful” & whispering “delicate”).  The 5th graders worked on the details of the basic phrase, so when they performed in unison, it would really be unison.
• Practice the sequence with music.
• Explain diminution & diminish the long sequence to a short one, by highlighting 4 key words, e.g. tough, mind, tender, heart for the 3rd graders.  Practice the shortened phrase.
• Explain expansion & expand the shortened phrase spatially, either making the gestures larger or abstracting them by turning or moving them through space.  Practice the expanded [short] phrase.
• Create a sequence, combining all the versions: twice through the full sequence, twice through the shorter phrase, twice through the expanded short phrase. [The 5th grade sequence was a little different -- 2 full sequences, then the expanded short phrase 4 times.] Practice.
• Homework: Practice the diminished, expanded phrase.

Lesson 3: Choreographers use canon as a strategy for building dances.

• Practice the dance thusfar with music & narration.
• Introduce the use of canon.  I show students two video exemplars… I use the short broom dance at the beginning of Stomp Out Loud, in which the dancers have unison moves, everyone’s different rhythms, and some moves they do in canon.  I watch the kids to identify what the dancers are doing… unison, different, or canon (the canon section’s short but clear).  I also show them Bourrée from Mark Morris’s Falling Down Stairs. Bourrée has a section of unison hand gestures, a floor section [for which I introduce the concept of the costume designer & ask the kids to notice the costumes, cause I know they're going to think they're a little weird], & a canon section of hand gestures.
• Practice the diminished, expanded phrase in canon, multiple ways (this group leads, that group leads, 8-count offset, 4-count offset) — for as much time as possible, so they get comfortable.
• Add a canon section to the end of the sequence so far & practice.
• Create an ending to the dance, if there’s time.

the 3rd graders' dance sequence

the final class before the assembly

Lesson 4: Dancers rehearse in order to do their best in performance.

• Day of performance!  Set the stage for doing our best…
• Rehearse, fix the ending, practice the canon, run the whole dance several times, answer questions, troubleshoot problems… My 5th graders decided they wanted to end by improvise the ending by using any of the gestures from the dance sequence.
• Videotape the 3rd graders to catch one version without the boy who doesn’t have permission to be videotaped for the school’s website.
• Many congratulations and much encouragement…

The performance went fine, with a volunteer videotaping.  I like the fact that the kids really knew & understood the quotes after working with them so thoroughly. When I get a chance, the videotape will be uploaded to the website, and I’ll link to it here.  It could be awhile…

Meanwhile… if I haven’t made the process clear & you’re interested, just ask!  And if you have a good idea for MLK Day, do share!

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!

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.