Well, what a busy week in the Primary School. First of all, our youngest school members came for their first dance lessons. We explored what our feet and hands can do and tried different kinds of movement using them. Walking on jelly, tiptoeing past our parents, stomping the ground and floating along like a butterfly were all a lot of fun! We investigated electric fingers and fingers softly picking stars. We also hid away like little mice and opened up like little flowers. We are looking forward to the coming weeks so our little ones can continue to explore how their bodies can move.
K3-grade 2 explored bend, shake and turn and different combinations thereof; and travelling movements and how we can move across the floor in different ways. They were able to play copy cat, which is shaping up to be a popular game. They also investigated how to move to different kinds of music. They are starting to learn the importance of warming up and stretching and Grade 2 has even been blocks of ice, melting a little bit every time they exhale. Improvisation has been met with a great deal of enthusiasm as they leap into different kinds of poses, move around each other in different ways and suddenly change direction.
Grades 3-6 have been looking at the idea that you can take a motif and use and develop it in different ways when working with dance composition. They have been exploring different choreographic principles, such as levels, direction and tempo, while creating their motifs. They have been challenged at times when asked to run their motif backwards, or in canon, or even more shocking, to throw away their steps and start over with completely new ones! Some of the classes have been given key words to develop in their motifs with the reminder that they cannot use mime, so looking for movements that suggest such things as “seashell” and “fruit salad” has been very challenging. The older grades have also enjoyed improvisation, and they are getting faster at coming up with new ideas with only a second or so to show them.
The included clips are a random selection of the week’s doings. Enjoy!