Jamie-Lee's Dance ePortfolio 

This week we learnt about Indigenous Dance and in particular, discussed the respect you must take when implementing a teaching program about Indigenous Dance. Aboriginal and Torres-Strait Islander cultures are extremely diverse and dynamic. For them, “dance is a unique aspect of ceremonies which is learnt and passed down from one generation to another. To dance is to be knowledgeable about the stories of the ancestral heroes” (Australian Government, 2008). Indigenous dance comes from within, it is in their spirit and they dance according to the pulse of life whether that be in themselves or the pulse of their environment and their connection with it.

 

Traditional Indigenous dance “varies in expression and style, depending on the region from which it comes” and can include many forms such as storytelling, rituals, entertainment and may combine with other art forms such as drama and visual arts (NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2001 & Fenwick J, 2014). “Sacred dances are performed for ceremonial purposes and participatory dances convey stories about life, spirituality and culture” (NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2001).

 

Aboriginal Elders are the custodians of dances and it is inappropriate to perform traditional dances without seeking permission first. In class, Jacqui felt that it would be inappropriate for her to teach us Indigenous dance due to this and believes that you should seek out Aboriginal or T.S.I elders/community members to come into the classroom and teach movement.

The Australian Council of the Arts, (2007) is a document that explains the protocols behind the use, reproduction, filming and intricacies of Indigenous art. They state that “Indigenous people have the right to practice and revitalise their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature (The Australian Council of the Arts, 2007, p3). Put plainly, Indigenous people have “the right to be recognised as the primary guardians and interpreters of their cultures" (The Australian Council of the Arts, 2007, p8).

 

Jacqui showed us a group called the Chooky Dancers or Djuki Mala. They are a dance group that forge together different cultural traditions and contemporary forms of dance. Despite the group exploring contemporary experiences, they maintain their identity as Yolngu people and ensure they respect their traditional culture. 

The group are a part of the The Indigenous traditional Dance Project (ITDP) which is an Arts and Cultural Community Development project that has been running in the NT for the past 7 years in various locations.  ITDP promotes cultural maintenance and exchange in relation to traditional dance. One of their main objectives is “to showcase traditional Indigenous dance to a mainstream audience in order to foster broader understanding of Indigenous cultural values and spirituality” (Artback NT, 2014). The Artback NT website had a great teaching resource. Although it is aimed at Secondary School students, you could use some of the prompts and activities and adapt them to your upper year’s primary students to assist in the teaching of Indigenous Dance.

 

The music used in today's class are:

Chris Cawthray, 2001, Move – Music For Creative Movement + Modern Dance, iTunes [Download], Available at www.apple.com/aus/itunes/ (Accessed 30 August 2011).

 

Didgeridoo Aboriginal Dreamtime, 2010, Didgeridoo with Nature Sounds, iTunes [Download], Available at www.apple.com/aus/itunes/ (Accessed 30 August 2014)

 

In my class I would use mostly instrumental music when doing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance. This would help students find the pulse easier. 

 

Warm up

• For the warm up we sat in our own space and became attuned to our bodies. Jacqui asked us to notice our breathing and then feel our pulse. I think this connects with what was aforementioned about the pulse and as Rank (2014, p85) says “pulse provides a constant in an ever-changing world. In the natural world, the pulse is life”.

• After we felt our pulse for a little while, we had to externalise the pulse by tapping a hand on our chest and maintain a constant beat. Jacqui then used music sticks to tap a pulse and we tapped our hand in correspondence. To further extend this idea, Jacqui got us on our feet and we moved our feet to the pulse of music. Safe movement practices was emphasised through the use of soft knees. We then moved around the room in a circle first stepping the beat, then a step hop then step hop-hop as we shunted around the room to the pulse.

• After we had done that for a while, we stopped and did a few body rolls to further warm up our body. We then rolled up as small as we could as Jacqui told a story of a seed growing into a gum tree. We then acted as a seed growing into a big tree and emphasised the various levels as we contrasted between the seed and the growing tree.

It was through this activity that we began to connect movements to the way you can approach the teaching of country, culture and place rather than replicating Aboriginal and T.S.I dance. After listening to a story about gum trees I started to consider the significant connection Indigenous Australians have to the land. A tree is not just a tree it is an essential source for transport, hunting tools, food gathering and musical instruments.

• We then broke up into small groups and given the theme of trees. Jacqui used scaffolding and prompted ideas such as the traditional use of trees, environmental, science or what they mean to you. This meant each group would approach the activity from different angles.

• Hollie, Jenna, Anne and I decided we would express the ways people use trees. We started by illustrating using trees for shade, then moving to using trees for a hammock and then for a cubby house. Through our expressive piece, we could illustrate how the use of trees and the environment has changed over time. You could further develop the idea of how the Indigenous communities thank Mother Earth for the resources she provides and that they don’t take more than they need. Our movement design used locomotive elements as we transitioned between stillness that resulted in a tableau of each use of trees.

• The other groups expressed the seasons and lifecycle of trees through their dance design. They used a lot of swinging movements in unison and falling movements to represent the trees returning to the earth.

 

This activity corresponds with Level 1 and 2 for The Arts where it says “Using ideas and concepts taken from themes, scenarios, narratives and visual stimuli, they experiment with ways of expressing and communicating ideas and feelings to particular audiences or for particular purposes”. In this case the theme was trees and we were to communicate a particular idea that would be discussed with the class following the performance. Through the discussion it covered the Cross-Curricular Organising Idea number 3 “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have unique belief systems and are spiritually connected to the land, sea, sky and waterways”.

 

In my classroom, I would use dance to explore a key idea such as hunting culture, family life, animals and the environment. I would give students a theme like Jacqui did and ask students to represent their understandings through movements. The discussion that occurred afterwards was important in delving deeper into those ideas and also required us to evaluate one another’s choice of movements and our own interpretations. This approach to teaching Indigenous dance focuses on the spiritual and environmental elements of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. Rather than teaching students how to do Indigenous dance, Jacqui was using kinaesthetic learning tools to teach culture, people and place.

 

• A game Jacqui suggested was to get students to move around the room and then make a tableau of various scenes that may tell a story eg a kangaroo looking, an Indigenous Australian foraging or hunting. In my classroom I would use a piece of music that had relatively steady pulse so it would be easy for students to transition from locomotion into stillness. Students would have to improvise quickly and work with their peers to formulate a tableau. You could extend this game by requiring students to use GLEFTS in succession eg use gesture to illustrate a brolga, use locomotion to illustrate an Indigenous woman weaving.

 

Body of Lesson

Jacqui used Dreamtime task cards to help us experiment with ways of expressing and communicating ideas that linked in with Indigenous culture. Dreamtime stories are creation stories that narrate how a particular thing came to be. When using Dreamtime stories, it is important to look for Indigenous authors. Using task cards allows for various modifications such as group or individual work, rotation of activities, the teacher can change the expressive intentions and choreographic devices students must approach, incorporate the use of props and also gives great material for discussion about the dance selection process (ISARE).

 

• My group got given the story of The Southern Cross. As a group we improvised the movements that would illustrate the characters (4 daughters, Conduk and Mululu) in the story. We used a lot of gesture and locomotion to illustrate the journey the girls went on to get to their father. We used turns as Jenna rolled on the floor and when we spun around to become the stars in the sky. We used falling and stillness when we found out Mululu had died. We used props including chairs, scarves and a long piece of material to help us tell the story. We arranged the performance area into three parts to help show the beginning, middle and end of the story. It was difficult because there were more characters than people to perform but as we refined our dance we were able to effectively tell the Dreamtime story. In evaluating our performance, the rest of the class understood the story prior to us sharing the actual story which is a positive that they could interpret our movements successfully.

This activity was helpful in showing us how we can use Dreamtime stories to prompt students to interpret and design their own movements for. It explores country, people and place through exploration rather than replication of a traditional dance. I would like to use this approach in my classroom by linking literacy with dance and using children’s story books of Dreamtime stories as a stimulus for movement. You can then discuss with students how the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people use their bodies to tell stories and talk about the significance of dance regarding passing down tales.  

 

This activity lends itself to the AusVels for the Arts Level 5 and Level 6 whereby students “begin to research, and with guidance, analyse arts works to interpret and compare key features, symbols and cultural characteristics of arts works in a range of contemporary and traditional forms from different historic, social and cultural contexts” and “communicate ideas and understandings about themselves and others, incorporating influences from their own and other cultures and times.”

 

To further the exploration of Indigenous Dance, Bangarra Dance Organisation could be used to show how the Indigenous people connect dance with stories. Bangarra’s ancient and contemporary stories, songs and dances influence their work in a process of rekindling and honouring language and customs. This concept is important for students to understand.

The Bangarra site has an education resource section where it has videos of various stories such as the Moth.  In this dance, the moth emerges and transforms, reflecting the human lifecycle and the passing on of knowledge.  Moth represents the resilience of the spirit of Indigenous Australians. It then gives various prompts and questions to ask students before, during and after viewing. This is an extremely valuable website and would be very helpful in planning your own lessons. It also gives links to the curriculum. I would use this resource to complement the exploration of Dreamtime stories. That way students can analyse the various ways we can use our bodies to tell a story and the multiple interpretations that stem from one story.