Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

Discovering Russian Folk Dance

Subject Area

Arts Education

Grade(s)

3, 4, 5

Overview

In this lesson, students will learn the Russian folk danceTroika. They will research and gather information on Russian culture and history. Students will create their own rendition of a Russian folk dance using the same organizational pattern and music.

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

    AE17.D.3.18

    Use basic dance terminology to identify the qualites of movement observed or performed in a specific genre, style, or cultural movement practice.

    Unpacked Content

    UP:AE17.D.3.18

    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: Criteria for evaluating dance vary across genres, styles, and cultures.
    EQ: What criteria are used to evaluate dance?

    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 9: Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.
    Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 3 - Dance

    AE17.D.3.21

    Explain how movements in a dance from a culture, society, or community communicate its characteristics and values.

    Unpacked Content

    UP:AE17.D.3.21

    Vocabulary

    • Elements of dance
    • Compare dance relationships to non-dance relationships.
    • Connect dance to written and oral skills.
    • Relate dance to culture, society, and community characteristics and values.
    • Elements of dance
    • Cultural Movement Practices
    • Dance Literacy

    Essential Questions

    EU: Dance literacy includes deep knowledge and perspectives about societal, cultural, historical, and community contexts.
    EQ: How does knowing about societal, cultural, historical and community experiences expand dance literacy?

    Skills Examples

    • Identify appropriate/ inappropriate touch in a dance and compare to other context such as working with friends in a school setting or with siblings at home.
    • Identify the beginning, middle, and end of compositions of dance and music.
    • Isolate and move fractional sections of the body (half, quarter, and whole).
    • Identify purposes of dance, for instance, to tell a story, build community, demonstrate a ritual, experience social interactions, or showcase movement for its own sake.
    • Identify smooth and/or sharp movement within a folk dance.

    Anchor Standards

    Anchor Standard 11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
    Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 4 - Dance

    AE17.D.4.18

    Explain why movement choices from dances of specific genres, styles, or cultures are appropriate in a specific dance.

    Unpacked Content

    UP:AE17.D.4.18

    Vocabulary

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

    Essential Questions

    EU: Criteria for evaluating dance vary across genres, styles, and cultures.
    EQ: What criteria are used to evaluate dance?

    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 9: Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.
    Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 4 - Dance

    AE17.D.4.21

    Explain how and why a dance originates from a culture, society, historical period, or community.

    Unpacked Content

    UP:AE17.D.4.21

    Vocabulary

    • Connect ideas in dance to personal experiences.
    • Elements of Dance
    • Improvisation
    • Choreography
    • Communicate for a specific purpose.
    • Elements of dance
    • Cultural Movement Practices
    • Dance Literacy

    Essential Questions

    EU: Dance literacy includes deep knowledge and perspectives about societal, cultural, historical, and community contexts.
    EQ: How does knowing about societal, cultural, historical and community experiences expand dance literacy?

    Skills Examples

    • Utilize the similarities between the writing process and the choreographic process to create a dance.
    • Attend a presentation (in the community or at a school assembly) that includes dance, and then explain the role of dance in the production.
    • Perform a dance influenced by the Selma Civil Rights March to communicate one's understanding of Alabama state history.
    • Demonstrate how dance impacts choices made in the community.
    • Compare and contrast an American contra dance and a Middle Eastern circle dance.
    • Explain the origins and development of ballet in Europe.
    • Explain the use of strong and delicate energy in work-related activities, such as carpentry or the culinary arts.

    Anchor Standards

    Anchor Standard 11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
    Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Dance

    AE17.D.5.1

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

    Unpacked Content

    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.
    Arts Education (2017) Grade(s): 5 - Dance

    AE17.D.5.21

    Describe how the movement qualities of a dance from a specific genre, style, or culture reflect the ideas and perspectives from which the dance originated.

    Unpacked Content

    UP:AE17.D.5.21

    Vocabulary

    • Dance to communicate purpose
    • Theme
    • Dance Terminology
    • Common skills and processes among the arts disciplines.
    • Dance Terminology
    • Artistic Intent
    • Elements of dance
    • Cultural Movement Practices
    • Dance Literacy

    Essential Questions

    EU: Dance literacy includes deep knowledge and perspectives about societal, cultural, historical, and community contexts.
    EQ: How does knowing about societal, cultural, historical and community experiences expand dance literacy?

    Skills Examples

    • Make the connection between how dance and physical education (healthy eating, drug-free habits, and other physical activities) impact health and learning throughout one's life.
    • Differentiate between various dance styles and genres of the Western theatrical tradition.
    • Demonstrate how various disciplines can be used to present an idea.
    • Explore social injustice by creating and performing a dance about Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • or Harriet Tubman.
    • Examine and use the skills, concepts, and vocabulary that are common to dance and to other content areas.
    • Examine elements of dance, costumes, and musical accompaniment of hip-hop for historical or cultural information.
    • Discuss capoeira and its Afro-Brazilian origin in a period of slavery.
    • Apply dance-related skills, such as alignment and body awareness, while giving a presentation.

    Anchor Standards

    Anchor Standard 11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
    Link to Resource

    CR Resource Type

    Lesson/Unit Plan

    Resource Provider

    The Kennedy Center
    Accessibility

    Accessibility

    Video resources: includes closed captioning or subtitles
    License

    License Type

    Custom
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