The older students have jumped into Dance quickly this year.  Our “newbies” are fitting in very quickly and it has been nice to see them already contributing.

The students in grades 7-10 have been revisiting safe practices with warm up and cool downs, and by request the relaxation exercise – where students lie on their backs and visualise themselves floating or melting – has made a comeback this year.  As in the upper primary school, students have started working with motif, developing a group of steps around a key word (later to become the expressive intent) and learning how to retrograde, canon, or reframe it with different directions or tempos. The students’ tasks this year continue to be aimed at composing dances in groups which are then performed; right now they are working with form and structure of dance to help them further develop their composition skills when they begin choreographing in earnest.

The IGCSE students have come back raring to go.  Like their counterparts not taking dance for IGCSE, they are also working on motif with the idea of developing one into a full scale dance. They will be spending some time considering what genre they want to perform for their exams and starting to plan that the choreography.

Our DP Dance student (the first one!!!) has been working on strengthening and toning, technique and control in her motif work. She has been observing different structures of dance and identifying the main features that go towards that structure – this will help prepare her for her Dance Analysis Task. The DP Dance exams require the student choreograph for a group of students other than herself, and she is working on the outline of this dance. She is also expected to perform a dance provided by an outside choreographer and we are investigating the different options supplied by dance companies out there.  Finally, she has to investigate two different genre of World Dance, comparing and contrasting them and discussions are underway as to which two genre she will pick.  She has to do a two year programme in one, so the next few months will be intense!

The enclosed clips are a random selection taken over the last two weeks. Enjoy!