Project
Description:
Jessica Runge taught dance to 112 grade five and six students
at Crescent Town Public School in Toronto,
Ontario in May 2004.
Sample
Dance Projects created by Crescent Town Students:
Over
the course of five days, with about twenty-five minutes a day
devoted to this exercise, the students worked in groups of four,
each group creating a different quartet. The exercise was designed
to extend students' movement vocabulary, enhance their specificity
and ability to attend to details with regard to movement, challenge
their movement memorization skills, provide them with opportunities
for creative work and expression as individuals and in groups,
and, in the end, produce unique dance works reflective of their
interests and choices.
Process:
Step One)
For homework, each student chose three movements from every-day
life (such as sitting-down or waving). They graphically depicted
these movements (see example
to the left of this column) and wrote brief descriptions
of them (see description
to the left).
Step
Two) Working in groups of four, each student taught
their three steps to the other three people in their group.
Dance phrases comprised of twelve movements were developed.
Step
Three)
Jessica made copies of the student's pictures and text and,
together with the students, pasted them together in the order
they occured in the twelve-step dances the groups had made
(examples
of the charts created can be found below).
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