Week 13 - Dance

The focus of this week's workshop was using a stimulus for the basis of a dance piece incorporating aspects from other KLAs (English/literacy). We explored in the lecture how different stimuli  (visual, kinaesthetic, auditory, tactile and ideational) have the ability to stir students' creativity. We looked at the book 'Henry & Amy' by Stephen Michael King.

In the book Henry is a quirky unorthodox sort of character who does what he likes without much care for what other people think of him. In contrast, Amy is very sensible and well organised. In the story the two extremes of their characters balance each other out. We began by going through some warm-up activities including a great 'chinese whispers' game which involved students forming a line, they then had to pass on a short dance sequence that either represented the character of Henry or Amy, to the next person in the line. The final person was required to perform what they believed was passed on to them, and it was fascinating seeing the way people interpreted the original move.

Finally we were asked to split into groups and choreograph an original dance routine based on either Henry, Amy or a combination of both. My group chose a combination of both characters. I found this workshop thoroughly interesting and useful and i am beginning to see how using quality children's literature as a starting point can lead to rich learning experiences in other KLAs including creative arts and dance more specifically.