Jamie-Lee's Dance ePortfolio 

Warm up

• The warm up was a simple yet effective task that required us to walk and skip different pathways (zig-zag, curved and square, forwards and backwards) as well as skipping in various accents which placed emphasis on different movements. An example of this is when we skipped like a ballerina would – pointed toes and knees high.

• An interesting point to make is that students cannot skip if they cannot hop and cannot hop if they cannot balance on one leg.

• We performed floor and axial patterns through moving in various energies (percussive and collapsing) as we bounded and sunk down into a ball and rolled from one position to another.

• Jacqui asked us to incorporate a movement that contrasted the levels of high, medium and low. After collapsing we would have to jump up to accentuate height.

• This activity covered the three elements of movement: Time, Space and Energy.

• An activity that illustrated the emphasis different people place on certain movements was Whispers whereby students are all in a line facing the same way, one student performs a move and that movement gets passed along the line. By the time the movement reaches the last person, generally it has been altered in some way. This also demonstrates how the small details in movements or the emphasis on movements such as high and low or hands facing each other can be lost in the rehearsal process. The activity would be beneficial to illustrate this notion to students prior to the rehearsal process so students gain an understanding of the stress placed in finer details in a production.

 

Body of Lesson 

• The main part of the lesson required us to make a phrase using Gesture, Locomotion, Elevation, Falling, Turning and Stillness (GLEFTS) by incorporating the elements of movement (Time, Space and Energy). The initial stage was very broad in the expressive intention because we could produce any type of movements we chose with no emphasis placed on the ‘why’.

• After producing a short series of movements in a small group we reflected on the dance creation process (ISARE): Improvisation (how did we start to improvise?) Selection (how did we choose the movements within our group?) Arrangement (once the movements were selected, how did we arrange them?) Refinement (did we practice?) and Evaluation (did we address the expressive intention?)

• The class discussed with Jacqui how younger students would need more support in the dance creation process in particular with selection of movements. It’s important to have all students voices heard in small group times so getting each student to choose a different move allows their creativity to be expressed. Another way to assist them in improvisation is to get them to select moves that you may have performed during the warm up stage of a lesson.

• To add on from that activity, Jacqui changed the expressive intention (the why of performing) to requiring to illustrate an emotion. We also had to add a new move, repeat a move and then perform the phrase from end to beginning rather than start to finish. The creative process our group undertook was to firstly add a new move, repeat an existing movement and then practise that from start to finish before reversing the whole phrase. We assessed the possibilities of expressing particular emotions that our movements already possessed. We decided on choosing anger by emphasising the stomping and shoulder movements, which is changing the energy of our movements.

• By altering the expressive intention you change the way the movements are required to illustrate something. Students may need extra stimulus to engage them in the concept of linking movements with an emotion so using music, poems or books can assist them in this process.