Dancing up a Storm!

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

- Friedrich  Nietzsche

Coordinated or clumsy, graceful or gauche, according to the Australian Curriculum, "Through Dance, students represent, question and celebrate human experience, using the body as the instrument and movement as the medium for personal, social, emotional, spiritual and physical communication" (ACARA, 2015).

Gabrielle Roth: Project Happiness

From the fairy stories so often explored through ballet, to the kindergarten favourite Mrs Bunny, Deans, Meiners and Young (2012) note the importance of early childhood curricula in establishing "foundations for dance as a lifelong activity" (p. 129).

As the "most totally embodied of art forms", dance promotes learning through "kinaesthetic exploration, cognitive processing, aesthetic experimentation and social engagement" (Deans et al., 2012, p. 128). As such, exploration and representation of the self, social, space and stories are all interconnected.

As affirmed by the video footage provided, Cone and Cone (2012) highlight the integration of body and mind; the interplay between cognitive and kinaesthetic learning. For younger children, this might involve increasing awareness of body parts: joints and muscles, for example, and what they can do, forming locomotor and non-locomotor; symmetrical and asymmetrical movements. Dances such as The Hokey Pokey, Johnny Works With One Hammer and Dr Knickerbocker (performed here by the ubiquitous Wiggles!) can help begin this exploration:

As in drama, 'play' is an important foundation for dance, a motivator and an attitude for teacher and student alike, facilitating exploration, imagination and uninhibited expression.

Tom interpreting a song from Matilda: The Musical.

Though validating students' own stories, Dunn and Wright (2015) note that the teacher should not be "afraid to introduce, design and support rich new learning contexts that might be outside of the children's existing cultural and environmental experience" (p. 231). Indigenous cultural dance, underpinned by intergenerational storytelling, can be an inspiring example and itself become a motivational teaching and learning tool as we see here in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Western Australia:

This video also demonstrates an awareness of rhythm and tempo, which can be regulated through a drum or tambourine. "An instrument in the class is vital for not only establishing energy", write Deans et al. (2012, p. 131).

Indigenous traditional clapping sticks can provide a guide and focus for dancers.

Spatial relationships are as important as social connections , as the dancer occupies a personal space within a general space that is often shared.

If dancing is expression through movement (choreographed or not), surely anyone can do it. I won't describe my efforts at 'dancing my name', other than to say my friend Gillian Howell can collaboratively create a pretty 'mean' alphabet dance herself:

Further Questions...

How to engage boys in particular?
How to help self-conscious students feel comfortable?
Does interest in dance become overtaken by structured competitive sport? If so, what are the reasons and how can we overcome them?

Vikki

References:

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2015). The Australian Curriculum. Retrieved from www.australiancurriculum.edu.au

Cone, T. & Cone, S. (2012). Teaching children dance. Canberra, ACT: Human Kinetics.

Deans, J., Meiners, J. & Young, S. (2012). Dance: Art embodied. In C. Sinclair, N. Jeannert & J. O'Toole (Eds), Education in the arts. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Dunn, J. & Wright, S. (2015). Signs, meaning and embodiment: Learning and pedagogy in the early years. In M.Fleming, L. Bresler & J. O'Toole (Eds), The Routledge international handbook of the arts and education. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.