CURRICULUM OUTLINE Main Objective: Students will learn to express themselves through movement and poetry, creating original dances.
Guiding Question: How can words inspire movement and movement inspire words?
OVERVIEW
Session #1 � Dancing Words
Session #2 � Poetry Structures/Dance Structures
Session #3 � Writing Down Dances
Session #4 � Expressing Place
Session #5 � This is Me
Session #6 � Expressing Emotion
Session #7 � Choreography Workshop I
Session #8 � Choreography Workshop II
Session #9 � Rehearsal and Performance Preparation
Session #10 � Culminating Event
Session #1 � Dancing Words
Main Objective: Students will explore how words can inspire movement.
Guiding Question: If a movement were to speak, what would it say?
Activity #1: Warm-up (5 min)
Micro Objective: The weekly warm-up will create a sense of flow to the class and create an opening ritual.
Guiding Question: How can we maximize our movement without hitting our neighbors?
Activity # 2: Nouns � people, places, and things (10 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create movements inspired by nouns.
Guiding Question: How can the same word inspire different movements?
� Present poster board with a pre-written list of people (characters, animals, jobs), places (real and imaginary, environmental), and things (shapes, objects, concepts like time, change, hope. friendship).
� In small groups, students will improvise movement from a word on the list. Each improvisation will be shot and have a clear ending and beginning shape. Switch groups, new word.
� Highlight different movements that were generated from the same word.
� Provide different limitations for each improvisational study i.e. you can only dance with your arms, you must move around the space, you must stay in one space,
Discussion Question: How did it feel to create movements on the spot from words? Did you feel like you had enough/too many ideas?
Activity #3: Verbs � action words (10 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create movements inspired by verbs.
Guiding Question: How does moving from verbs differ from moving from nouns? Are there different ways to interpret the same action word?
� Present poster board of various verbs
� Group across the floor exercise exploring different verbs.
� Establish rules and guidelines for across the floor movement
� Highlight different interpretations.
� Give students limitations � backwards, forwards, levels, body parts, etc.
� Travel with a partner across the floor.
Activity #4: Adjectives � descriptive words (20 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create movements inspired by adjectives.
Guiding Question: How do we create movement from descriptive words?
� Present poster board with adjectives
� Students are divided into small groups.
� Each group explores one adjective chosen from the list.
� Students are encouraged to make decisions and set their dance as a structured improvisation. They should decide their beginning, middle, and end if they are moving together or separate, etc.
� Each group shares their dances.
Discussion Questions: Can you guess the adjective they chose? How did you know? What movements reminded you of that adjective?
Materials: music, posters for nouns, verbs, and adjectives
Vocabulary: nouns, verbs, adjectives, improvisation, interpretation, levels, abstract Session #2 � Poetry Structures/Dance Structures
Main Objective: Students will explore the use of structure in dance and poetry.
Guiding Question: How does the structure of a poem or a dance impact its meaning?
Activity #1: Warm-up (5 min)
Micro Objective: The weekly warm-up will create a sense of flow to the class and create an opening ritual.
Guiding Question: Can we remember the warm-up from last week?
Activity #2: Rhyming Couplets (10 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create short �couplet� dances.
Guiding Question: What is the relationship of the words to the movement?
� Two students go into the middle of the room.
� One student reads the first line of the couplet.
� The other student improvises movement to go with those words.
� They switch roles for the second line of the couplet.
� Model with another pair of students.
� Assign couplets to pairs of students and each group creates a short couplet dance.
� Students are encouraged to memorize the text that goes with their movements.
� These dances are short � work time is only 1-2 minutes, then the dances are all shared one after another. If the language is challenging for the students, feel free to pick the same couplet for all groups.
Discussion Question: Can you see the rhyme in the movement?
Activity #3: ABA (20 min)
Micro Objective: Students will collectively create a dance that follows an ABA structure.
Guiding Question: How do the words help us to remember our movements?
� Select a short ABA poem and read to the students.
� Pick out the significant words in the A and B sections.
� Assign word to different students. Each creates one movement for that word.
� Like an accumulation dance, have each student share their movement with the group, link them together and create the A and B sections of the dance.
� Rehearse in two groups.
� Read the text as the students dance.
Activity #4: Repetition Dances (10 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create short studies of repetition.
Guiding Question: How does repetition emphasize an idea in poetry and in dance?
� This activity should be modeled first before breaking the students into groups. Pick a chunk of text and create an example dance to perform for the students dancing and speaking.
� Pick one poem with a lot of repeated language and assign chunks to groups of students.
� Have each group create dance that reflects the rhythm of the language.
� Have student speak while dancing to emphasize the rhythm of the poem.
� Encourage students to repeat movements as it flows with the language.
� Share dances and review vocabulary.
Session #3 � Writing Down Dances
Main Objective: Students will review dances they have created and create written responses.
Guiding Question: What different types of movements are associated with different levels?
Activity #1: Warm-up (5 min)
Micro Objective: The weekly warm-up will create a sense of flow to the class and ritual.
Guiding Question: Can we add words to our warm-up?
Activity #2: Water Dances (15 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create improvisational dances from a poem.
Guiding Question: How can we find new movements from our classmates?
� Working with the book Water Dances, students will improvise as the text is being read
� Read a chunk of text, students move to stillness, and then continue reading
� Try with different music and in different groups
� Show the picture first to add to the inspiration
� Observers write down words that describe the movement
� Create another improvisation from the words that observers wrote down
Activity #3: Small Group Projects (20 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create dances inspired by one of the poems from Water Dances.
Guiding Question: How can you memorize the words and the movements?
� Put students into 4 groups
� Each group picks a few lines of a poem and choreographs a dance to it with the same structure as the improvisation. One person speaks, the others move.
� Students should alternate speakers and try to memorize the lines of the poem.
� Encourage students to set their movement so they can do it the same ever time. In this way it differs from the improvisation we just did. This is choreographed.
� Share and reflect
Activity #4: Writing Projects (5 min)
Micro Objective: Students will begin a writing project that they will continue with their teachers between now and the next residency session.
Guiding Question: What image from the Water Dances book stood out to you?
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Students will write a poem in the form of the Water Dance poems.
Materials: music, Water Dances, photocopies of selected poems
Vocabulary: cascade, various water words, inspiration, inspired, memorization, recitation, alternate
Session #4 � Expressing Place
Main Objective: Students will create poems and dances that express a sense of place.
Guiding Question: How does a dance create an environment?
Activity #1: Warm-up (5 min)
Micro Objective: The weekly warm-up will create a sense of flow to the class and ritual.
Guiding Question: How can we add a sense of place to the warm-up? Can we change our formation?
Activity # 2: Sculptures and Stillness (10 min)
Micro Objective: Students will embody words in the poems the water poems they have written.
Guiding Question: How can you create a feeling of movement in stillness?
� Working individually, students will choreograph 3 still shapes for 3 words in their poems.
� Several dancers will take the space and be guided to transition slowly from one shape to the other while saying their words. They can play with how they speak and how they transition from shape to shape.
� Switch groups.
� Discussion: Which shapes/words stood out the most? Why?
Activity #3: Pathway Solos (10 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create dances that map out their poems.
Guiding Question: How can you turn your words into a drawing and that drawing into a dance?
� Draw a pathway that describes the place and journey of your poem.
� All students find starting position in the space that works with the drawing.
� With your drawing, walk the pathway of the drawing.
� Find three moments on the pathway to add your sculptures and words from activity #2.
� Students perform pathway solos in small groups.
Activity #4: Embodying your Poems (20 min)
Micro Objective: Students will create dances collaboratively from the poems that they wrote over the week.
Guiding Question: How can we work together to combine our creative ideas?
� Divide students in small groups
� Students share poems and drawing with one another, 3 words and corresponding sculpture shapes.
� Students select at least one element from each student � their poem, drawing, or their words and sculptures.
� Combine into one dance.
� Emphasis is on working together to make creative decisions and creating something that expresses the ideas of the entire group.
Session #5 � This is Me
Main Objective: Students will explore a sense of self in their dances and their poems.
Guiding Question: What does it mean to express a point of view?
Activity #1: Warm-up (5 min)
Micro Objective: The weekly warm-up will create a sense of flow to the class and ritual.
Guiding Question: How can we be individuals in the warm-up?
Activity #2: Mirrors (10 min)
Micro Objective: Students will practice mirroring their partner and being a mirror.
Guiding Question: How can you make it look like there is no one initiating the movement?
� In pairs, students take turns being the leader and the follower with the focus on trying to move at the exact same time.
� Cue students as to how they can be successful at moving in unison with their partner
� Try without any leader at all � how can you stay together then?
� Discuss challenges and results.
Activity #3: Call and Response (25 min)
Micro Objective: Students will practice giving and taking movement and words that describe themselves.
Guiding Question: What about this movement or word says, �This is Me?�
� Students select three words � one adjective, one verb, and one noun that say: �This Me.�
� Students write down three words on paper and choreograph a movement or short sequence that reflects each word.
� Movements should be set � choreographed � and the same every time they execute them.
� In partners, students have a dialogue back and forth with their movements and words.
� Play with different ways of structuring the dialogue.
� Students can begin to copy each other�s movements and words in addition to just speaking/dancing their own.
� Learn all the movements and words and put them together into a choreographed sequence/sentence fragment to perform for the class.
� Share dances with words spoken.
Activity #4: Writing Assignment to complete over the week (5 min)
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Write a �This is Me� poem using the three words from activity #3.
Materials: paper, music
Vocabulary: unison, mirror, leader, follower, dialogue, call and response
Session #6 � Expressing Emotion
Main Objective: Students will explore the way dance can express different emotions, images, and ideas through the energy of the movement
Guiding Question: How can we show feelings in our body movements?
Activity #1: Warm-up (5 min)
Micro Objective: The weekly warm-up will create a sense of flow to the class and ritual.
Guiding Question: How can we express emotion in the warm-up?
Activity #2: Energy Improvisation (10 min)
Micro Objective: To explore moving with different energies freely in the space
Guiding Question: What are examples of different energy we can put into our dancing?
� Guided structured improvisation moving with different energies: sustained, choppy, heavy, light/soft, floaty, reachy, falling, climbing, electric, sad, happy, bouncy, jittery
Activity #3: This is Me Poems Improvisations (10 min)
Micro Objective: Students will dance the feeling of various student poems.
Guiding Question: How can we change the energy in our movement dramatically?
� A small group of students will come into the space and find a starting shape.
� A student will read their �This is Me� poem (several times) as dancers interpret the energy and emotion of the words in an improvisation.�
� Repeat for 5-6 poems.
� Highlight variations and ways to express feeling with dynamics.
Activity #4: This is Us Dance (20 min)
Micro Objective: Students will work in partners to create dances that express the emotion of their poems.
Guiding Question: How can you combine the two texts?
� Working with a partner, students will combine their two poems and create a dance that expresses the emotion of the two poems.
� Use structures from previous dances or create a new structure to guide the students through their choreography. Mirrors, Call and Response, Floor Patterns, Sculptures, etc.
� Encourage students to use variations of speed, level, and size.
� Share dances and practice constructive criticism.
Materials: Poems and music
Vocabulary: energy, emotion, dynamics, variation
Session #7 � Choreography Workshop I
Main Objective: Students will begin choreographic projects for the culminating event.
Guiding Question: How do you make choices about what to put in your dance?
Activity #1: Rehearsal of WARM-UP DANCE (5 min)
Micro Objective: Students will review warm-up dance, preparing students to perform it on stage.
Guiding Question: What can we teach the audience about warming up for dance?
Activity #2: Partner Choreography (40 min)
Micro Objective: Students will choreograph dances with a partner.
Guiding Question: How do you make compromises and work together with your partner towards making creative decisions?
Discussion Question: How did students make the choices they made? Which choices were more effective? How did you work together with your partner?
WRITING ASSIGNMENT: The final writing assignment will be connected with the small group dance projects for the culminating event.
Materials: music selections
Vocabulary: collaboration, sharing, audience rules, focus, decision-making
Session #8 � Choreography Workshop II
Main Objective: Students will further develop choreographic and poetry projects in preparation for culminating event.
Guiding Question: How do we remember movement?
Activity #1: Group Work (20 min)
Micro Objective: Students revise and develop their dance projects from last week.
Guiding Questions: How can we improve upon our dances? How will we incorporate our poetry into the dance?
Activity #2: Rehearsal Process (25 min)
Micro Objective: Students will review and repeat dances so that they may perform with confidence.
Guiding Question: What is a performance and what is expected of you? What is a rehearsal process?
Materials: music selections, multi-art materials to be integrated into final performance
Vocabulary: rehearsal, repetition (starting and ending positions), performance (presence, focus)
Session #9 � Rehearsal and Performance Preparation
Main Objective: Students will practice a structured rehearsal process in preparation for final performance.
Guiding Question: How can you stay focused when performing on stage?
Activity: Finalize Performance Material and Rehearse Transitions (45 min)
Micro Objective: Practice makes perfect!
Guiding Question: How can transitions be made to feel and look fun?
� Set performance order of group dances and partner dances
� Create clear transitions, (beginning, middles, and ends)
� Work on attention to detail
� Prepare multi-art materials that will be part of culminating event such as drawings, word walls, verbal introductions, etc.
Materials: final music selections, multi-art materials for culminating event (drawings, poetry, vocab list, etc.)
Vocabulary: transition
