Creative Process of our Dance 

Over the course of our dance sessions we have been exploring the art of creative dance and gaining ideas that will allow us to teach this art form  in a primary school setting. The initial process of our performance began by learning the ten basic skills of dance. After doing this we then used them to create our own dance within our groups. As we reflected on previous sessions we found that music and dance can be integrated perfectly with each other as music provides us with a rhythm in which we can create movement from. We also agreed that music can influence certain types of movements and actions; for example hip hop and R&B can be used in street dance, whereas classical music can be used in ballet routines. We also found that another way to create dance moves was by using a visual stimulus. For example, in our groups we were asked to think of two objects that remind us of christmas and use them to create a dance move. Once every group had created their moves we put them altogether to create the beginning of our dance sequence.

From a teaching perspective I felt this activity achieved the following experiences and outcomes:

After creating our dance moves within our groups we then had incorporate it all together and perform it as one full dance. Although we had a teacher, the dance was designed solely by us as students. Therefore we were able to express our own ideas rather than having to copy other peoples’. As a result of this, it was interesting to see that we were still able to present a flowing performance without any professional assistance. Our first attempt was videoed to allow us to see our efforts and finalised performance.

Analysis of our Dance 

Once we videoed our dance we were able to watch it back. I felt being able to receive this visual feedback really helped my performance as it enabled me to physically see my strengths and weaknesses. One particular issue was timing, as it became evident that not everyone was performing moves in a synchronised manner. As well as this we were able to point out minor issues such as posture and facial expressions. Therefore by becoming aware of these issues we could improve them to make our dance more aesthetically pleasing.

Dance and music can be very easily linked when creating lesson plans. Creative dance does not need to be seasonally inspired; a dance can be created using any type of music such as music the children have created themselves or a style of music they have been focussing their interests on. It is also a good idea to explore which types of dance flow with different pieces of music, as well as being able to discover music and dances of different cultures. However it is important to understand that teachers are not alone and if they do not feel totally confident in teaching dance to pupils, they can utilise help from outside sources through the use of creative partnerships.

Creative partnerships occur when a wide variety of professionals work together to try and make educational approaches more interesting by stimulating thinking. Staff, non classroom based staff, visiting specialists and parents are all people who can be involved in creative partnerships. Creative partnerships have been used within education to target issues such as attendance and attainment. For example, a parkour project within a secondary school in Kilmarnock solely targeted pupils with poor attendance or social difficulties. It was agreed by the pupils and teaching staff that participation in this project was only allowed to those who fully attended school. As a result of this the pupils’ attendance dramatically improved whilst other pupils benefited from the social, emotional and mental aspects from working in a group (Project Parkour – The Journey, 2015). Thus exemplifying the success and need for creative partnerships within education.

Creative Partnerships in Local Authorities

• STEM
• Arts Development Officers
• GIRFEC Manager
• Numeracy and Literacy Officers
• Creative Learning Networks

References

https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/expressive-arts-eo.pdf

Project Parkour – The Journey 2015. (2015).Available at: https://vimeo.com/125287507 [Accessed 28 Nov. 2017].

Our lecture today focused on the concept of creative dance. According to Cone, (2009) creative dance should be fun, safe, meaningful and a child led activity. Safety can be assured through the right preparation such as warming up muscle groups and ensuring the children have a safe space to perform. Also by allowing the children to lead an activity enables them to use their imagination and develop an appreciation for their creativity and ideas. Creative dance should also be recognised as a fun activity that can be used to enhance other subjects such as music and drama. Following this concept, I feel that integrating these expressive arts can help with child development. For example drama and dance can be used within health and wellbeing lessons as children can use these art forms to express emotions and feelings.

According to Smith-Autard, (2002) we as teachers should follow the midway model for dance in schools. The midway model focusses on both the process and the product by combining educational and professional ideas together.

This Can Be Achieved  By:

• Resources
• Visual Stimulus
• An idea of safe and technical dance
• Attending CPDS
• Seeking out those who are employed to deliver dance in your authority for ideas

It is important we deliver dance to children as it is part of the curriculum and can increase the wellbeing of children. As well as this dance can improve children’s self-esteem, confidence and enable them to work cooperatively within a group.

I have found that by participating in the dance workshops has enabled me with the confidence to work with other people because the task is very relaxing and enjoyable. I felt I was able to transfer this over to my micro teaching activity for the next workshop as it involved me speaking to the full class regarding a task I would like them to perform. Therefore, I feel children also deserve to be given the opportunity to use dance to develop their own self-esteem and self confidence. Thus by doing this will enable to transfer these new skills into other curricular subjects through interdisciplinary learning. Our micro teaching activity was based on the story of “Prince Cinders”.

Here Is The Template For Our Lesson Plan

Overall the participation from the rest of the class was excellent, as everyone engaged well with the group activities. However, reflecting on how we delivered our lesson I felt like we need to be assertive when we ask for a task to be completed in silence. Also we need to ensure that our positioning in class is better so that all groups can see us. Despite this, I feeling children would benefit from micro teaching activities as it would allow us, as teachers, to gain a better understanding of how well they have grasped the concept knowledge of a text. As well as this, it enables children to build on their planning and preparation skills as they would be required to prepare the lesson prior to delivering it to the class.

Having participated in both workshops, I feel as a group we are able to make connections that will allow us to create integrated arts programmes. For instance if we wished to expand our micro teaching activity by taking a scene from the book, in which Prince Cinders goes to the a ball, we could ask the students to create a dance that has to be performed at the ball. Taking this into a primary school context, this dance could be performed in a safe space such as the gym hall that would enable the children to move freely. As the children are performing a dance it would also be very easy to incorporate music and drama into this lesson plan; we felt children could build on drama techniques such as improvisation as different styles of music could be played and the children would have to come up with a dance that flows with that music on the spot. Art could also be included in this lesson plan as children could create ball gowns and suits for the ball using a range of materials.

References

Cone, P. (2009) Journal of Dance Education. Following their Lead: Supporting Children’s Ideas for Creating Dances. Vol. 9(3), pp.81-89

Smith-Autard, J. M. (2002) The art of dance in education. 2nd ed. London: A. & C. Black.

As part of our drama inputs we had to conduct a micro teaching activity, which involved working in groups to create a drama lesson from a book we had chosen. For this week however I only participated in other groups drama lessons.

The first group based their drama lesson on the story of “The Gruffalo”. Their first task used the drama technique of role on the wall as one group member read a few pages of the book, whilst another gave each group a picture of the mouse and the gruffalo.   We were then asked to write what we thought of the characters by writing words outside of each character and then write what the character thought of themselves by writing words inside each character. As a group we felt this task should have been done later in the story for the character of the gruffalo as this character was not introduced until later in the story.  Another drama technique they incorporated into their lesson was thought tunnel. Two members of the group pretended to be the character of the mouse and the Gruffalo and asked two groups to create a thought tunnel for each of them. We then had to say what we thought of that character as they walked through the thought tunnel. Finally they third technique they used was flash forward. After we finished the book the group asked us to create a flash forward of what would happen next. Our group used a mime to show that the animals of the forrest no longer spoke to the mouse after his cunning behaviour and so the mouse was left lonely.

After the group had conducted their lesson they were asked to reflect on their lesson plan, to which the concluded that the participation was higher than they had expected. However they also agreed that timing was an issue as this was supposed to be a 20 minute lesson but it did not end until 35 minutes past. We were then asked, as teachers of drama, to use this to understand that things will not always go as planned but to ensure this does not put us off from creating these tasks. However I feel this lesson should be remembered in all expressive arts programmes. It is important to understand that great pieces of art take time and effort and so children should never feel rushed to produce something the care for or feel proud of. For example creative dances take a lot of preparation and practice before they can be performed in front of an audience. Also art sometimes requires a lot of time if a lot of detail is required, whilst other tasks such as composing a piece of music requires a great deal of editing that absorbs a lot of time and effort.

Our second input ties in with our micro teaching activity as we were being taught how to play string instruments from Greenmill Primary pupils. There is evidence to suggest that there is a huge attainment gap within Scottish schools. Research shows that children from areas of low deprivation are almost twice as likely to assess as performing well, or very well, compared to those living in areas of high deprivation (jrf.org.uk, 2014). Therefore this project was created through the Scottish Attainment Challenge to prove that attainment can be raised through creativity. Pupils become involved in this project when they reach p4 and continue playing their instrument to p7. By engaging with this workshop I was able to speak to a child who had been involved in this project for two years. I chose to join a pupil who played they violin and was inspired by his confidence and eagerness to teach me about his instrument. He was able to demonstrate how he held his bow and as I attempted it, he would correct me in a constructive and encouraging manner. The pupil also played each note for me to allow me to listen to the differentiated sounds of each string. The pupil also described and demonstrated games that they play within the classroom to help with their fluency when playing their instruments. I feel the micro teaching activity was a great idea for both us as students and the primary school children as it allows the pupils to share their knowledge and therefore consolidate it. Also by doing this the pupils are becoming more confident individuals as well as gaining skills such as discipline, team work, note reading skills and oral awareness (Greenmill Primary School Strings Project, 2016).

I feel both workshops today could be linked when using them within a classroom setting. For example, the music of the string orchestra could be incorporated into a drama that pupils were creating in the style of a backing track. This would allow all of the children to incorporate their talents and combine them to make one performance. The string orchestra would work well as backing track for the drama as the music could be used to create atmosphere and mood within the performance. This could also create an opportunity to allow the children to compose their own music to go along with the drama. Thus the children will be more enthusiastic as they are creating something themselves. Finally I feel art could also be integrated into this expressive arts programme as the children could use colour and shape to express the tone of the music being played by the orchestra.

References

Greenmill Primary School String Project. (2016). Available at: https://vimeo.com/176221212 [Accessed 16 Nov. 2017].

Jrf.org.uk. (2017). CLOSING THE ATTAINMENT GAP IN SCOTTISH EDUCATION. [online] Available at: https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/education-attainment-scotland-full.pdf [Accessed 28 Nov. 2017].

Prior to beginning our new drama lesson we were reminded that every lesson should link back to previous learning. For example our last drama input involved using different drama techniques to convey the story of “The Dragon”. To recap, we had discovered that the dragon was flying too low over our village and we as villagers felt terrified by this. An idea that we felt could follow our initial encounter with the dragon could be through the style of a literacy lesson, as we could write a letter to the dragon. However I feel this would be an excellent way to incorporate other expressive arts programmes into this lesson as the children could use music to compose a song to welcome the dragon to their village. As well as this, other subjects such as art could be used throughout this lesson as the children could use different materials to design the dragons cave.

As we began our drama lesson it became apparent to me that most drama lessons come from story books. For instance, we were learning new drama techniques today using the story “The tunnel”.

I feel this lesson would achieve the following experiences and outcomes: 

The first technique we learned was Role on the Wall: This involved drawing a character on a piece of paper. We then had to write what we thought of the character around the outskirts of the character, followed by writing what the character thinks of themselves inside the character. For this task we read to a certain point in the story and was then asked to draw the characters of the brother and sister. Initially we wrote that that the brother was tormenting and a bully and the sister felt intimidated and scared. However after reading the rest of the story we returned to this task and were asked to write what we thought of the character now. Through discussion with our groups we had all agreed that our views had changed. It was then apparent by the end of the story that the sister was in fact quite courageous and that the brother was appreciative of his younger sister.

The second technique we learned was Flashback and Flash forward: Which is a technique used in drama to show what has lead up to a particular moment, how it could be resolved or how it could lead up to other challenges (Farmer, 2014).  For instance we used flashback to convey why the brother and sister did not get on and used flash forward to show how their relationship had changed by the end of the story.

The third technique we learned was Mime: This involves displaying an action or emotion without words, using only gesture, expression and movement. It was also highlighted to us that in drama it is very common for people to switch gender roles. I think this would useful to interpret into a drama lesson as it would allow the children to think differently about themselves as that character and could possibly enable them to empathise with each other. We used mime to create a scene of what we thought would happen next in the story. It was very interesting to see how differently people interpreted the book but yet how they all still seemed to tie into the story. We then had a person from the group explain what was happening in our mime.

The fourth technique we used was Thought Tracking: This is usually performed as a still frame where a character steps forward and says how they feel. As well as this, the other character can say an opposing argument. We used this technique to convey the brothers thoughts on his sister whilst another group performed this task from the sisters perspective.

The final drama technique we were introduced to was Vox Pop: This is where the teacher usually plays the role of the interviewer and asks the pupils how they feel while they’re in role.

Our second input involved us going over our dance routine that we had been creating over a series of inputs. Prior to this we were reminded of the importance to stretch our muscles, especially when doing these types of activities with primary school children. To warm up we played games such as highland tig, which is a fun way for children to warm up their bodies without putting too much strain on them. This week involved finding ways to incorporate each groups dance routine into the finalised piece.

I feel drama is an excellent way to introduce dance to pupils as dance can tell as story in the same way that drama can. For example in the story we covered in drama, the brother is turned to stone by witches. Dance could be incorporated in this scene as we could get the pupils to create a dance to follow the incantation of the spell. I could ask the pupils to consider their arm movements and their body stance whilst casting the spell. Finally once the spell is complete and the boy is turned to stone, the witches could perform a victory dance as their spell has worked. This would also allow the children to build on their understanding of the ten basic skills of creative dance.

References

Farmer, D. (2014). Flashbacks and Flash Forwards. [online] Drama Resource. Available at: https://dramaresource.com/flashbacks-and-flash-forwards/ [Accessed 15 Nov. 2017].