Building Dances : A Guide to Putting Movements Together

by McGreevy-Nichols, Susan

• ISBN13: 9780736050890
• ISBN10: 0736050892
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Package
• Copyright: 2004-12-09
• Publisher: Human Kinetics

Summary

For years, K-12 teachers have been relying on the invaluable tools and blueprints in Building Dancesand Building More Dancesto help their students put movements together. Now, with Building Dances, Second Edition, the original text has been significantly expanded and updated to give you even more tools to guide your students as they experiment with the creative processeven if you've never taught or choreographed dance.Like the earlier books, this guide puts you in the role of facilitator rather than demonstrator. Using the dance construction models provided, you'll explain the material, teach the necessary skills, direct the action, and assess the outcomes . . . letting your students focus on the creative work.Building Dances, Second Edition, follows the same winning approach that made the first edition so popular. It takes you step by step through the choreographic process, with sample lesson plans, warm-up ideas, and seven easy steps to follow when building a dance, plus even more great material:A convenient, expanded, ready-to-use deck of Deal-A-Dance cards Updated dance-building activities, called Dance Construction Models, reformatted and expanded to include loads of new information and six new activities An expanded glossary explaining important dance terms in everyday language New forms and checklists to make the assessment process easier for you and your studentsThis edition contains a total of 15 Dance Construction Models, including 6 never before published. Each construction model provides concrete ideas to help students shape dance movements, perhaps to create a scene, communicate a story, foster an idea, or interpret a piece of music. And now the Dance Construction Models have been redesigned to make them even easier to use! Each one includes a description of the activity or procedure, an example, cross-references to the national standards for dance and for physical education, easy adaptations for three different grade levels (grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12), and criteria for student assessments. You'll find four types of sample rubrics for each one, with specific criteria for movement skills, cognitive skills, choreographic and creative process, and social and aesthetic skills.The unique Deal-a-Dance cardsone of the most popular Dance Construction Modelshave also been expanded and reformatted to get students even more involved in creating and assessing their own work. The cards provide more than 230 movement ideas to get the creative juices flowing. Each card presents a definition of a selected movement term, a description of that movement, multiple suggestions for students to try, challenges that encourage them to put movements together to form phrases and dances, and a self-evaluation question. The cards are excellent hands-on tools that allow students to work at their own pace, either individually or in small groups. You can use them for a single lesson, a unit, or an entire semester of work.This edition also contains new ideas to help you connect dance to other disciplines and increase students'engagement, plus new criteria for writing rubrics and suggestions on how to expand simple dances into whole productions for PTA and other student performance settings.Whether you're a physical education teacher, drama coach, music teacher, dance teacher, classroom teacher, or recreation specialist, this book will help you stimulate your students'imaginations. Use it alone or together with the companion resource, Building More Dances, to help your students experience the joy of building their own dances.

Table of Contents

Preface	v
Acknowledgments	vii
Blueprints for Building a Dance: How to Use This Book	ix
Laying a Foundation: Basic Building Blocks	1	(12)
What Makes A Dance?	2	(1)
Relationship Between Creativity and Choreography	2	(2)
Three Parts of a Lesson	4	(2)
Safety Tips	6	(1)
Three Sample Lesson Plans	6	(5)
Three Parts of a Dance	11	(1)
Summary	12	(1)
Identifying Building Supplies: Basic Materials for Building Dances	13	(16)
Movement Skills	14	(2)
Movement Elements	16	(1)
Celebrating Cultural Diversity	16	(1)
Historical and Social Perspectives	17	(2)
Who, What, Where, and When of Music	19	(1)
Organizing Music	20	(8)
Summary	28	(1)
Constructing the Frame and Roof: Meaningful Organization of Materials	29	(10)
Structure and Choreographic Forms	30	(3)
Characterization and Story Line	33	(1)
Sounds and Music	34	(1)
Props	35	(2)
Costumes	37	(1)
Set Pieces and Scenery	37	(1)
Full Production	38	(1)
Summary	38	(1)
Adding Architectural Details: Customizing Dances	39	(8)
Accents: Adding Emphasis	40	(1)
Gestures: Telling the Story Through Movement	41	(1)
Stylizing: Creating a Place and Time	41	(2)
Expressive Qualities: Creating Moods Through Movement	43	(2)
Summary	45	(2)
Putting it All Together: The Choreographic Process	47	(18)
Step 1: Choose Subject Matter	48	(1)
Step 2: Explore and Select Movements	48	(1)
Step 3: Coordinate Music and Movements	48	(3)
Step 4: Explore Possibilities	51	(3)
Step 5: Refine and Memorize Choreography	54	(1)
Step 6: Add Finishing Touches	55	(1)
Step 7: Perform the Choreography	55	(1)
Summary	56	(9)
Inspecting Your Creation: Observation to Assessment	65	(14)
Student Assessment: Standards, Criteria, and Rubrics	66	(1)
Outcomes for Dance: Six Areas of Assessment	67	(2)
Summary	69	(10)
Building Dances From Blueprints: Implementing the Choreographic Process	79	(68)
Deal a Dance	81	(7)
Picture Dance	88	(4)
Words, Sentences, and Paragraphs	92	(5)
Story Dance	97	(5)
Write What I See	102	(4)
Machine Dance	106	(4)
Costume and Prop Dance	110	(4)
Decode a Dance	114	(4)
Create a Culture	118	(4)
On the Move Dance	122	(4)
Holiday Dance	126	(4)
Out of This World	130	(4)
Four Seasons	134	(4)
Animal Kingdom	138	(4)
It's All Around Us	142	(3)
Summary	145	(2)
Appendix: National Standards	147	(2)
Glossary	149	(12)
About the Authors	161