Discovering Russian Folk Dance

Learning Resource Type

Classroom Resource

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CR Resource Type

Lesson/Unit Plan

Resource Provider

The Kennedy Center

License Type

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

Custom License Type (URL)

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

Accessibility

Video resources: includes closed captioning or subtitles

Approved Date

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