At the recent Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest in Washington D.C. (April 26-28), Tiffany Hinano Hill, a student at Oregon School for the Deaf, represented Oregon State. As the first contestant to use sign language to express a poem, Hill challenged the judges’ concept of Poetry Out Loud, clearly demonstrating the expressive power and […]
Entries Tagged as 'performance'
Poetry Out Loud: in American Sign Language
April 27th, 2009 · Comments Off · Uncategorized
Tags:culture·diversity·performance
Classroom management: space vs. energy
April 16th, 2009 · Comments Off · Uncategorized
Spring break may still be on my mind, but it ends quickly. Immediately following spring break, we start choreographing dances for the End-of-Year Performance. The assessments I did before spring break fulfill State requirements and provide data for evaluation of my own performance. But the End-of-Year Performance is for parents, the staff, and especially the […]
Tags:behavior·chaos·choreography·curriculum integration·getting started·management·obstacles·performance·primary·students·teaching
Contagious fun: Liverpool Street Subway Station Dance
March 3rd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Uncategorized
And the whole point was to infect people with dance: Liverpool Street Subway Station Dance, on January 15, 2009 and the creative impulse behind it Watch both videos!
Tags:culture·music·performance
The dance cliché — tiresome? or useful?
January 29th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Uncategorized
It depends upon who’s using it. This dance is a cliché, with verbal descriptions and video examples, tickled my brain. Clearly, dance clichés aren’t any choreographer’s goal — confirmed by the number of videos in the discussion which have been disabled (presumably because it’s not a forum in which anyone would want to find their […]
Cultural dances for kids from many cultures
January 6th, 2009 · Comments Off · Uncategorized
Cultural diversity? My classes provide a good visual definition: Students who were born or whose parents were born in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia. More who moved from Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, California. Some born here in Washington State. Students who speak English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Cham, Tagalog, Amharic, Somalian, Cambodian, […]
Creating closure by performing early
December 20th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Uncategorized
I’m not good at creating closure. Much as I know that the best last thing in class is to guide kids to acknowledge and reflect on the topic of the day, I’m too often going full steam ahead at the moment when class should end. We finish with a flourish, and they rush out the […]
And the winners are…
December 2nd, 2008 · 2 Comments · Uncategorized
Check out the contest winners for Dance Your PhD… I’m so glad there are scientists who wanted to dance their theses. I wish the choreography was on the same level as the science probably is. But that would take… more dance education, wouldn’t it?!
Tags:choreography·curriculum integration·higher ed·performance
Dance & curriculum integration — advanced course
November 20th, 2008 · Comments Off · Uncategorized
News item from my daughter — You can dance your PhD!
Lesson Plan: Using Focus in a Narrative Dance
November 16th, 2008 · Comments Off · Lesson Plans
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 […]
Tags:choreography·curriculum·focus·lesson plans·performance·reading·teaching
Taking our show on the road
November 12th, 2008 · Comments Off · Uncategorized
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 […]