Dance Your Feelings

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

3, 4, 5

Overview

Students will watch Erika Malone demonstrate how to choreograph a dance based on their emotions.  They will perform the dance with Erika while watching a video.  After watching the video, the students can choreograph their own dance based on their emotions. 

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

AE17.D.3.4

Create a dance phrase that communicates an idea or feeling and discuss the effect of the movement choices.

UP:AE17.D.3.4

Vocabulary

  • prompts
  • use elements of dance
  • movement problem
  • choreographic devices
  • structure
  • dance phrase
  • concept and inspirations for choreography
  • feedback and revision
  • dance study
  • notation
  • dance phrase

Essential Questions

EU: The elements of dance, dance structures, and choreographic devices serve as both a foundation and a departure point for choreographers.
EQ: What influences choice-making in creating choreography?

Skills Examples

  • Use a variety of prompts for inspiration (i.e., music/ sound, text, objects, images, notation, observed dance experiences).
  • Find a way to travel across the floor only using a low level.
  • Select a choreographic device and create a dance phrase (i.e., retrograde, scramble/ deconstruct, transposition, inversion, or fragment).
  • Create a short movement phrase and perform with "sad" emotion then "happy" emotion. Discuss how the movement changed.
  • Discuss and use peer feedback or instructor feedback.
  • Create a floor map, using different colors for different levels of movement.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
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.4.1

Identify ideas for choreography generated from a variety of prompts and source materials.

UP:AE17.D.4.1

Vocabulary

  • choreography
  • prompts
  • movement problem
  • elements of dance
  • choreographic devices
  • dance study
  • artistic intent
  • dance phrase

Essential Questions

EU: Choreographers use a variety of sources as inspiration and transform concepts and ideas into movement for artistic expression.
EQ: Where do choreographers get ideas for dances?

Skills Examples

  • Use music, sound, text, objects, images, notation, observed dance, or experiences to create a dance phrase.
  • Perform a dance phrase using three different levels.
  • Perform a dance phrase that alters the timing of the movement.
  • Create a trio from a solo by performing movements in a three-part canon.
  • Create a dance based on the maid idea of "water" or "fire" and explain how the movement choices that were made express your topic.
  • After performing short dance study, reflect on possible changes that could have been made and use peer feedback to revise movement.
  • Draw a formation or pathway of dancers using symbols.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Dance

AE17.D.5.1

Develop content for choreography using ideas generated from a variety of prompts.

UP:AE17.D.5.1

Vocabulary

  • choreography
  • prompts
  • movement problems
  • choreography
  • elements of dance
  • choreographic devices
  • structure
  • codified movement
  • style
  • dance study
  • concept and inspiration for choreography
  • dance study
  • feedback and revise
  • notate

Essential Questions

EU: Choreographers use a variety of sources as inspiration and transform concepts and ideas into movement for artistic expression.
EQ: Where do choreographers get ideas for dances?

Skills Examples

  • Create movement from spoken word, text, poetry, images, or nature.
  • Create a dance with a beginning, middle, and end that includes zigzag pathways and changes in energy.
  • Manipulate movement by utilizing choreographic devices such as retrograde, mirroring, or transposition.
  • Utilize ballet movement to create a story.
  • At the end of a dance study, reflect in a journal what changes were made during the process, why were they made, and what was the end result.
  • Record changes in choreography in a dance journal.

Anchor Standards

Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

CR Resource Type

Audio/Video

Resource Provider

The Kennedy Center

License Type

Custom

Accessibility

Audio resources: includes a transcript or subtitles
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