We were using the musical Character Matters, by Ron Fink & John Heath at the Bad Wolf Press. It’s a great resource: script, teacher’s guide, CD with songs & intrumental accompaniment. A fun play, with jokes (many of which I had to explain to my ELL kids, which was a good lesson too!). Lively music, with great lyrics — and we could search for the rhyming words to help us memorize.

Of course students had their worries…

“What if we can’t remember our lines?!”

“Who’s going to play the characters?!”

“I’ll be scared! What if we forget our lines?!”

“We’ll never be able to learn all the words to the songs!”

And I had answers:

“Yes, you will. You can do this! Each character only has a few lines…”

“Everyone’s going to have a special character, and I’ll ask you for your favorites.  Oh, and it’s OK if boys play girl-characters & girls play boys-characters!”

“Eeew!” Eyes rolling…

“You won’t be scared cause there’ll be 2 or 3 people playing every role, so you’ll have company.  And if you forget your lines, someone else will remember them & help you out.”

“We’re going to practice.  You learn all kinds of things, so you can learn these songs!”

Of course, I had my own worries… how to get the lines & songs learned & still have time for the dancing! The third leg of any musical is the dancing, and I’m a dance specialist… but how to get it all done?!

And I have to say I was even more worried when I read the teacher’s guide, cause it reflects a bit of dance-phobia — not surprising in our society, but nonetheless!  The teacher’s guide says, “Don’t have the students “dance” while they are singing. Making music of any kind while moving is extremely difficult for anyone of any age to do. Moreover, the students are likely to turn away from the audience during their dance, and that, you will remember, is a no-no.” And then there’s an explanation of why the teacher’s guide never includes the word dance without “quotes.”

Oh well. I’m a dance specialist, dancing is what we do all year & musicals are meant to dance. So off we went, worries & all.

The play has 10 scenes. My 2nd graders learned scenes 1, 2 & 3. My 3rd graders learned 4, 5 & 6. My 4th graders learn 7 through 10. Following suggestions in the teacher’s guide, I didn’t assign parts til about 10 days before our performance, but I did tell kids they could go ahead & learn their favorite part. Some chose & learned a part within a week or so, while others only learned their parts after they’d been in their character group for awhile. Everyone had a special character part & there were lots of kids singing all the lines in the music. Having large clumps of kids sing all the parts helped make the lyrics audible during the occasional dancing turn!

It took a lot of time to get the lines & lyrics down. It was valuable time as we analyzed & memorized the script — really aiming for comprehension, seeking out rhymes & repeats, learning how to practice not only our own lines but the cue lines — but even mid-way through I was wondering how am I going to fit the dancing in?!

But the dancing happened…

• There were 2nd graders who came in at recess a lot, just to dance to the music. This little recess group — all girls — became a dancing chorus during the Goldilocks song. One day Carlos showed up, doing his own favorite hiphop moves on the side, so as we staged the piece, his improv took center stage at the end of Goldilocks.
• During rehearsals, I encouraged them all to move while they were singing — we didn’t do much sitting-down rehearsal & there was no seated singing. As they moved, I encouraged them to watch each other,  copy the best moves & repeat what worked. Pretty soon, some of the songs had a complete set of gestures — lots of mime, acting out the words. But then, an amazing thing happened… as rehearsals progressed, a number of the mime-ish gestures started becoming exaggerated & abstracted. Precisely the process I would use to have them build dance from gesture! We never took the time to talk about what happened, cause we were way too busy, but it was a beautiful process — and so natural!
• For a few songs, I worked with a small group of volunteers (willing to give up recess for a day) to create interactive dances.
• And for a few songs, we choreographed movements for the whole group.

Towards the end, teachers jumped in to help by doing some extra line-rehearsals in the classroom & singing the songs each day. For costumes, I did my usual — telling the kids to wear whatever seemed appropriate for their character without buying anything new. One 2nd grader — Anna — arrived at school on the day of the performance with costumes that she & her mother had more for her whole class: ears for the bears, ears & noses for the wolves! Teachers gave the kids supplies for tiaras…

By the end, all the elements were there. They remembered their lines. They spoke clearly & expressively. They were scared, but they supported each other.  Everyone had a character to play. Oh yes, there were boys playing girl-characters & girls playing boy-characters — by choice. And there was dancing!

What will I do differently next time? I’ll start using the songs for accompaniment to our dance warm-ups earlier in the year, so we’re all familiar with the music sooner — and already dancing to it! But there will definitely be a next time…

If you think of any other tips for me, do let me know!

Each of my 2 classes is a little older this year & more experienced with school.  There’s a whole team pulling for them: teachers, instructional assistants, occupational therapist, physical therapist, tutors, student helpers.  And the team is more consistent now — not so many one-day-only substitute assistants.

The younger class (K-2nd?) has added 3 students, with each new student upsetting the apple-cart of behavior & consistency.  With 9 now, the class is overloaded. Still, our days are better than most of last year & it probably helps that Milly the Wanderer* transitioned to a different program.

The older class (2nd-4th?) is pretty settled, especially since Cedrick the Screamer* was relocated to a class in another school. One of the twins moved from the younger class to the older class, given his readiness to be working in a different group.

We still do many of the activities, or variations on them, that we did last year (BrainDances, obstacle courses, Freeze Dances, props), but some of our new successes have come in the area of dancing & [literally] pulling together…

With the children sitting on stools, I pass out segments of a huge elastic band.  To the simple song of Frere Jacques by Caspar Babypants (Caspar Babypants is Chris Ballew of the The Presidents of the United States of America), we pull & release the band.  On alternating phrases of the music, we pull the band backwards to make it HUGE (“frere Jacques, frere Jacques”) & let it shrink inward to a smaller circle (“dormez vous, dorvez vous”), pull it big again (“sonnez le matin, sonnez le matin”), &. change rhythms in-out-in, out-in-out (“ding, dong, ding… ding, dong, ding”). Lo & behold, they can do it together!  We’ve even tried it standing, which amazingly, was more successful with the littler kiddos than the bigger ones.

Sitting on the floor, with our feet under a parachute, we move together to the song Dust Bunnies (also Caspar Babypants, very soothing & the imagery of the dust bunnies under the bed helps with the feet being under the parachute).  We wiggle toes, kick feet, lift the parachute & see each other underneath, pull it down & see each other over the top… We’ve even extended our repertoire to lifting it, scooting under, sitting on the edge & then kicking our feet.  Or rippling the parachute & taking turns walking across the ripples, one at a time.

Another song that’s been great for taking turns & developing individuality has been Gotta Shake [when the spirit says "shake"].  I start it with one verse, and then I ask each child to take a turn “suggesting” a move.  Some of the kids actually have an idea & can barely contain it, while with others I have to invite them repeatedly, watching for a clear move that we can replicate.  But everyone leads once, and the ideas are getting better & better.

Moving along… today I started the younger class on a few weeks of percussion.  Barely controlled chaos, but I’ve begun to recognize the beginning signs of progress.  It looks like we’re headed into new territory.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t seen the movie Temple Grandin, do.  It’s a must-see!

• 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!

Margret Dietz: A Dancer’s Legacy, by Elizabeth Freeman, Marie Nickell, and Linda Lee Soderstrom, follows Margret’s time under her mentor Mary Wigman… her passion for justice as a survivor of World War II… her years teaching in higher education at the University of Illiinois, University of California, DePauw University, and University of Minnesota, with stops along the way at the American Dance Festival and Connecticut College… her final years of building her own studio & company in Minneapolis.  Her story is interesting, the story of any artist, finding a way to pursue passion throughout a lifetime.

But Margret was a teacher, and this is a book to inspire any teacher.  Her classes were performances, but not just for her.  Within the course of a class, Margret swept & coaxed & nudged & transformed her students from wherever they started to the soaring level of fully committed dancers. A Dancer’s Legacy succeeds best in its descriptions of Margret’s teaching style, and it’s invaluable as a signpost pointing the way to good teaching. I’m glad to be reminded so vividly why I teach dance. It’s all been coming back to me this summer, reading Margret Dietz: A Dancer’s Legacy.

Back to June of 1972. Having just graduated from college, I was working as a summer intern in Washington, D.C. when news came of Margret’s death — so early, so young, as she was finally working with her own company. I finished the summer & returned to Minneapolis to capture what I could of Margret’s influence from those who’d worked most closely with her, among others whose lives changed directions when they met her.

I love summer reading …what more could I ask than a return to where I came from & a reminder of why I’m here? But I think this is summer reading for others too, even if meeting Margret for the first time. The photographs are fabulous, and the descriptions of excellent teaching work for any subject, where you can arrive as a novice & experience the joy of success.

Thanks to my sister, for finding the book & bringing it to 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!

Next week I’ll start my 7^th month of teaching dance to 16 students with autism, without the help of extra time for planning or professional development. Fortunately, we’ve come a long way, with me grateful for every stray scrap of advice and inspiration that’s come my way.  Thanks especially to a small email network of colleagues who are venturing along the same path, as well as a couple good books (by Temple Grandin & Ellen Notbohm).

I work with two classes of 8 students, one with 1^st-3^rd graders and the other with kindergarten-1^st graders. The two classes are so different ~ the older group having developed some skills in verbal & visual communication, while the younger group are just learning to communicate!

So, where have we gone in our explorations…?  The older group can venture in many directions now, each child in his or her own way.  What keeps us going best is the usual delicate balance between familiar routines, new & exciting props, and gradual challenges.

Explorations that have succeeded and continue to grow include:

• The BrainDance: First thing each day we progress through the coordination patterns of the BrainDance, often using the prop of the day (foam bats, stretchy bands, body bags).
• Taking turns: We use short foams bats as clappers and have clapping conversations one-on-one. Depending on the child, I still say “my turn/your turn,” or I ask the child to initiate the conversation, or the child responds to my initiation.  None of the students need an instructional assistant to guide their hands anymore, and one boy is very adept at copying my rhythm. They also take turns on…
• Following a pathway: They’ve progressed from picking up the plastic marker spots and flapping them against the floor to stepping on or over each spot on the way across the floor. I’ve added hula-hoops-in-stands for crawling through along the way, and lately they’ve been practicing jumping over cardboard boxes (instead of stomping on them).
• Beach balls: All but two of the kiddos have learned to blow up and deflate their own beach ball – and are motivated to do it even when it’s hard and takes awhile!  Once the beach balls are inflated, we do the BrainDance, a Freeze Dance, solo toss-and-catch, one-on-one toss-and-catch (with me… not with each other so far), solo dribbling with our feet, and toss-through-a-hoop or into-a-bucket.
• Foam bats: BrainDance, Clapping Conversations (see Taking turns above), rhythmic patterns with music.
• Body sox:  Boy, are these ever a hit! They’ve all learned to lay them out to insert their feet like a sleeping bag. Using the bags, we’ve explored body parts (feeling them push from inside the bag), levels, shapes, smooth&sharp energy, and stationary/(carefully!) traveling moves. At first, I taught them to keep their head out, but as they’ve grown familiar with the body sox, I let them choose — head in or out.  The kids are even getting used to folding them when we’re done.
• Hullabaloo: This is an extension of an electronic game one of their teachers had. Instead of the little spot-markers in the game, we use brightly colored plastic circles, and instead of the electronic directions (that are fast and hard-to-understand), I call & demonstrate different ways to travel from one color-spot to another, using whatever concept I’m emphasizing for the day (body parts, locomotor skills, levels, directions, shapes…).
• Percussion instruments: We practice starting & stopping on cue (stopping is a vague concept for some of them!), beating a match-the-words rhythm (“Pizza, I like pizza, pepperoni pizza, and cheese!” with “shhh” and a “quiet” gesture of a finger to the  lips on pauses between the words), and taking turns playing solos ~~ as well as let-it-rip play-as-you-like intervals.
• Yoga: Using pictures, we have a progression that starts standing and ends with the “Do Nothing Doll” ~~ with each of them lying down while I circulate to gently lift and shake their relaxed arms as a way of saying goodbye each day.

We all still suffer some from Carter’s screaming tantrums whenever things don’t quite follow his expectations (some weeks it happens every day), or Aldrin’s obsession with aggravating Spencer by touching & poking him.  But each week we work together now I’m delighted to see their improvement – with gratitude for the consistent support of their instructional aids (always with us) and the work of their classroom teacher — it’s great to see them dance & grow!

This year, however, I’ve been putting on music & just telling the kids to dance.  Well, not exactly.  But I’ve been teaching my 1st & 2nd graders how to improvise without much structure, and we all seem to be loving it.

Why my change of heart?  Several reasons –

• …in order to get them to listen to classical music.  There’s a wonderful woman who visits monthly as a volunteer, in order to introduce all 350 of our kids (class by class) to composers of classical music — Bach… Beethoven… Tchaikovsky & The Nutcracker for Christmas… and she’s provided sets of classical music CDs for the classroom teachers.  But with all the academic demands on teacher-time, there’s not a lot of follow-up, developing relationships between the kids and their newly-found composer friends.  So this year, I decided to help them make a connection. Of course, with its dynamic changes, classical music is so good at inviting movement!  In order for students to actually listen to the music, though, listening & responding have to be the focus.
• …in order to set the kids free as dancers.  I keep the instructions minimal (safety first!) & we reflect without judgment.
• …in order to firmly establish the connection between dance & playfulness.
• …in order to prepare them for really understanding how to improvise their way through a performance mishap — and life!

I was also prodded into these adventures with improvisation by attending a workshop given by the late Becky Ellis at the National Dance Education Organization conference in New York City last June.  As a dance educator for many years in Utah, Becky Ellis loved teaching the boys dance classes at Brigham Young University & recently had traveled to several conferences in order to share her work. She was a convincing advocate for using improvisation to encourage children’s — and especially boys’ — natural creativity, rhythm, and impulses for movement.  I’m grateful that I was able to see her group & hear about her methods before she passed away in late summer.

So, inspired by Becky Ellis, I spent some time at the beginning of the year concentrating on improvisation. Having established the format, I use it at least once a week, adding improvisational strategies as we go.

Grades: 1st-2nd grade, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be adjusted for any age. [Each lesson below is 30 minutes; if you're lucky enough to have more time in each session, adjust & count your blessings!]

Teaching points: Dancers think about what their body is doing. Dancers use improvisation to practice & improve.  Dancers reflect (think back) on their dancing. [Timing for this lesson: just after the basics for dance classes are established.]

Targets:

• Improvise in response to music
• Improvise with other people
• Learn & use strategies for improvisation: paying attention, playing with other dancers, becoming conscious of your movements
• Reflect on the improvisation

Lesson 1 :  Dancers think about what their body is doing.

• Talk about how every art form has its tools, and the body is a dancer’s tool. Introduce the body parts, by naming, isolating & moving eyes, fingers, toes, knees, shoulders…
• Pause Dance with Body Parts… introduce dancing & freezing on cues from the music (music=dance; silence=freeze), emphasizing & thinking about isolated parts for each segment of music.
• Model mirroring while “thinking” out loud. Work with a student as a partner & talk out loud about your decisions… “let’s see, I’ve been moving my arms, so now I’ll move my feet for awhile.  Whoops! I moved too fast & he couldn’t stay with me, I better slow down a little.  Oh, that’s an interesting shape he’s making — I wouldn’t have guessed it would look like that from the way it feels…”
• Student partners mirror each other silently in self space, noticing their thoughts. After a turn leading, ask the leader to tell his/her partner what s/he was thinking about.

Lesson 2: Dancers use improvisation to practice & improve.

• Warm up with mirroring, either with teacher as leader, or in duets.
• Introduce “improvisation“  — improvising is making up a dance as you go along, without planning it beforehand. Talk about how dancers improvise in order to play with movement, to get ideas, to improve their dancing.
• Set up a few basic rules for improvisation: start with a shape at the beginning of the dance, change moves as the music changes, always look for empty space & don’t touch anyone else, make a shape & hold it when the music ends.
• Let’s do an improvisation! Choose music with some dynamic changes, classical or a movie soundtrack. Start the music when they’re in a still shape, let them continue as long as it’s productive (30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on the group), fade the music & encourage them to find their final shape.
• Reflection — “Make a circle with room for everyone by the time I count from 5 to 1.”  [This may take a few tries at first -- if they're jostling to be next to you or a friend, redo it, reminding them that we're an ensemble (a group working toward a single purpose), and our purpose is to make a circle, not sit next to a particular person.  Sometimes we have to redo it 4 or 5 times at first.]  Then reflect aloud about what you saw, usually without names: “I noticed one dancer who seemed to be thinking about how his arms were moving when the music started … I saw another dancer who was going really slowly when the music got quiet…” Ask a few dancers to share what they saw, without names ["What kinds of moves did you see? Do you remember how the music changed?  What happened then?"]
• If there’s time, do a more structured improvisation, such as a Body Part Statue/Sculptor:  Some students are statues, some are sculptors.  A sculptor moves one body part on a statue & then copies the statue.  The sculptor then stays as the frozen statue, while the student who had been frozen becomes a sculptor and travels around looking for a statue to change.  [Anne Green Gilbert's books, Creative Dance for All Ages & Brain-Compatible Dance Education, are chock-a-block with improvisational structures. If you don't have them, get them.]
• Reflection: Have them tell their partner how they decided which body part to move on their partner, whether they moved different parts on different partners, and/or how it feels to “make it up as you go along.”

Lesson 3: Dancers reflect (think back) on their dancing.

• Introduce body shapes — round, twisted, straight, angular. Try them out by naming & making them.  Then generate a short list of what kinds of things are round, twisted, straight & angular, writing them on the board.
• Let’s do an improvisation! again with the same simple structure (starting shape, moving into empty space without touching, changing moves with the music, ending in a shape), but ask them this time to think about what shapes they’re seeing & making.
• 5 counts to a circle & reflect… Talk about how dancers not only think about their bodies while they dancing & improvising, they also reflect or think back on their dancing afterward in order to improve.  Again, I model by making a few comments & then turn it over: What kinds of shapes did you see & make?  How could we make better shapes?
• Let’s do another improvisation, and see if it will be even better!
• Another circle reflection… was it better? how? why not?
• If there’s time, do a more structured improvisation, in which statues make fabulous shapes & travelers copy the shapes. At the end, ask them to show a shape they remember seeing & copying, and have the class describe the shape.

Continuing…

By now, “Let’s do an improvisation!” is established as a way of responding to music with movement, with a circle reflection following the improvisation.

It’s an activity that can be added to any class, encouraging them to add whatever new dance element we’ve been working on to their consciousness as they improvise.  Working on levels, I asked them to think about changing levels and/or being on a different level from other people. They’ve added stillness & slow motion as a variation. Sometimes we choose a theme, such as spiders, or toys in a toy shop, or I show them a piece of visual art to generate a main idea. One particularly good improvisation was generated by a painting of an underwater scene, using the elements of size/range (think big sea creatures, small sea creatures), speed & relationship (traveling in schools or darting in & around each other). They’ve also learned some improvisational strategies — for example, if they don’t know quite what to do, they can copy someone else [without bothering them!] — or do the opposite from someone.

Sometimes I use the phrase at the beginning to warm up, sometimes as a last creative activity, but the response to “let’s do an improvisation” is always positive.

Frommers says, “Each Sunday there’s a fair called Merida en Domingo. The main plaza and a section of Calle 60 from El Centro to Parque Santa Lucia close to traffic. Parents come with their children to stroll around and take in the scene. At 11am in front of the Palacio del Gobierno, musicians play everything from jazz to classical and folk music. There’s a lull in the midafternoon, and then the plaza fills up again as people walk around and visit with friends. Around 7pm, a large band starts playing manbos, rumbas, and cha-chas with great enthusiasm; you may see 1,000 people dancing in the street.”

And the Moon Handbook says, “Music is heard all over Merida, and dancing is a way of life. Sunday is a wonderful day in Merida. Be sure to catch one of the many free performances throughout the day. The most popular is folkloric dancing presented in front of the Palacio Municipal.”

It sounds like Sunday in Merida’s not to be missed. For even a day, I’ll be glad to try a city where dancing is a way of life…