Storytelling Through Dance

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

3, 4, 5

Overview

In this lesson, students will pantomime a variety of scenarios.  They will analyze The Nutcracker and identify how the characters tell a story through dance.  They will re-enact a scene from The Nutcracker. Students will emotionally and physically tell a story through dance and pantomime.

Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 3 - Dance

AE17.D.3.17

Identify specific context cues from movement that relate to the main idea of the dance using basic dance terminology.

UP:AE17.D.3.17

Vocabulary

  • Identify patterns of movement to improve dance phrase.
  • Compare and contrast a variety of dance genres or styles.
  • Utilize dance terminology.
  • Identify movement relating to main idea.
  • Identify qualities of movement in genre: specific, style, or cultural dance.

Essential Questions

EU: Dance is interpreted by considering intent, meaning, and artistic expression as communicated through the use of body, elements of dance, dance technique, dance structure, and context.
EQ: How is dance interpreted?

Skills Examples

  • Explore and perform a variety of canons that include patterns of movement.
  • Identify recurring movements in Swan Lake.
  • Compare and contrast ballet and tap dance styles, focusing on the quality of movement in each style.
  • Compare and contrast modern dance and ballet, focusing on contract with the floor.
  • Create a dance phrase that tells a popular nursery rhyme and identify the movements using simple dance terminology.
  • Interpret a dance as sad because all of the movements are heavy and sustained.
  • View a live or recorded cultural dance and list the different qualities of movement [i.e., slash, punch, float, sink (Labon efforts)].
  • Discuss how ballet uses bound movements of the torso with free movements performed by the arms and legs.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 4 - Dance

AE17.D.4.15

Identify patterns of movement that illustrate style or intent in dance works.

UP:AE17.D.4.15

Vocabulary

  • Identify patterns of movement illustrating style or intent.
  • Genre
  • Style
  • Cultural Movement Practices

Essential Questions

EU: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
EQ: How is dance understood?

Skills Examples

  • View a recorded dance work and identify patterns of movement and hypothesis the choreographer's intent.
  • View the rooftop dance in Mary Poppins and discuss how the repeated movements create style.
  • Compare the different modern dance techniques such as Martha Graham and Isadora Duncan.
  • List the differences ballet adagio and ballet allegro.
  • List the differences in two styles of hip-hop dance.
  • Select a section of a popular children's book, create a short dance phrase that tells the story of the section and explain how the movements helps the audience understand the story.
  • Explain why facial expressions are essential in Indian Classical dance.
  • Discuss how in some African dance movements relate to physical labor.
  • Explore and discuss ballet pantomime gestures.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Dance

AE17.D.5.17

Explain how the movements in a dance communicate the main idea of a dance using basic dance terminology.

UP:AE17.D.5.17

Vocabulary

  • Describe/ demonstrate recurring movement phrases and discuss why they are used in dance.
  • Identify qualities of movement that enhance the artistic intent of a dance in a specific style or cultural practice.
  • Use dance terminology to describe how certain movements help tell a story in a dance.
  • Create criteria that makes a dance artistic and meaningful. Relate the criteria to the elements of dance.

Essential Questions

EU: Dance is interpreted by considering intent, meaning, and artistic expression as communicated through the use of body, elements of dance, dance technique, dance structure, and context.
EQ: How is dance interpreted?

Skills Examples

  • Discuss how the motion of rowing a boat could be used in a dance about boats or traveling by water.
  • Perform a dance phrase exemplifying a mother rocking her baby multiple times in a dance to communicate a nurturing environment.
  • View Jose Limon's There is a Time with its recurring circles in a relation to the cycles of time.
  • Use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast a dance that the students are familiar with and a dance that are not familiar (i.e., cupid shuffle and the African Highlife).
  • Watch a clip from the ballet Sleeping Beauty and discuss what movements are performed that tell the audience she falls asleep.
  • Discuss as a class what qualities make a good dance, create a class rubric and use the rubric to evaluate a professional dance work.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.

CR Resource Type

Lesson/Unit Plan

Resource Provider

Other

License Type

CUSTOM

Resource Provider other

The Kennedy Center
https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-reso…

Custom License Type (URL)

https://www.kennedy-center.org/terms-conditions/

Approved Date

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