Dance Story

This week was the final class of my eight week creative movement class for girls. It was a great ending. We repeated the yoga warm-up from last week and another version of Dancing Group Cactus Pose with Earth Bell. Since it was the last class, I pulled out the scarves and let them free dance for about 10 minutes after the warm-up. While they danced, I called out what I saw - which was awesome because I saw so much of what we had been working on throughout the class. In their free dance they showed axial and locomotor movement, mirroring/joining, contrasting, and levels. I also called out their groupings - a trio over there, a duet up here, a solo! This helped them become more aware of each other and though I desperately tried to direct them to the center together to find a group ending, what ultimately worked was yelling out Final Pose! It was sensational.

I am very proud of what occurred next in our dance class. I asked the girls to gather around the big board. We are going to write a story. Since our theme is nature, I encouraged them to use nature words (reminded them of the list from last week) and laid out the yoga cards to help stimulate ideas. In the round, each girl contributed a sentence. We were able to make it around the group twice. They did a phenomenal job. And the little tough nut participated all the way until she was picked up right at the end of the story. I think her experience in the dance class ended on a good note. I'll never really know, but I think so.

Then I put on music from  Groove Armada's album Vertigo. Great beats and mostly instrumental, great for a dance class and for creative writing exercises. It's also music that I like, personally, and it has been a reliable teaching aide for years. I have actually been using music from this particular album with elementary and junior high kids for about 10 years. Good music is good music.

I gave the girls the scarves - they love using them and the props totally help them to expand their range and palette of movement. Then with the music, I narrated their story, and they danced the story to life. It was awesome! There was a mountain, and snow, and girls playing, and a castle, and a dragon, and a star that came and went, and it was just incredible. And they really did have a beginning, middle, and end.

I am proud of my girls.