Lesson video

Keeping safe in this lesson.

If you're unsure about doing any of the activities in this lesson, make sure you have a trusted adult nearby when you start them.

This lesson should ideally take place indoors, but you could work outside if it's warm and dry enough to do so.

Ensure that there is space for you to work safely, including overhead.

Make sure that you have bare feet and that the floor is not slippery.

Wear comfortable clothing, put your hair up if needed, and make sure that you remove any jewellery.

In this lesson, you will need your clothing, making sure that you've got some writing equipment so you will need a pen and paper.

And finally, check that you have got that space that is safe to work in.

So today's lesson is going to consist of your warm up, a keywords tasks, a recap of our choreography from a previous lesson, a creative task, and then finally, your exit quiz.

Let's look at some keywords.

So action is what we do and this is our movement.

Space is where we do our movement.

And dynamics is how we do our movement.

So we've got what, where and how.

In your warm up, you will be told when to pause the video and work on different aspects of the activity.

As in previous lessons, it's really important we conduct a thorough warm up before we start any physical activity.

So let's just recap the components of a great warm up.

We should have pulse-raising activities, mobilisation of joints and some stretching activities.

What I'd like you to do is to spend a few minutes choosing your favourite song and conducting your own warm up.

Just to remind you of some things that you can include.

Things like jogging on the spot, running round the room, some star jumps.

Things like mobilising your joints including your shoulder rolls that we've covered before.

Rolling down through the spine.

Thinking about swinging exercises.

Swinging down through the body.

And some stretching activities that are going to help open up those joints.

So you could think about rolling down into a plank.

Taking a stretch here, and then uncurling up again.

Have a little play around with some of those ideas and those of your own, and then come back to me when you're ready to start the rest of your lesson.

So our learning focus today is to recap the phrase from last lesson, to use action, space and dynamics to develop our phrase, and these tasks will help us to understand how to work creatively with movement ideas.

As a fun little activity to get us started, we're going to explore our keywords: action, space and dynamics.

So when we look at key actions, we're thinking about key body actions.

Lots of dance moves can fall into each of these different key actions.

So we've got jump, turn, travel, gesture, stillness and transfer of weight.

So jump, turn, quite straightforward.

Travel involves us moving from one place to another.

A gesture is a body action that doesn't carry any weight.

So it could be something like a wave or a thumbs up or a nod of the head.

Stillness I think is pretty self-explanatory.

And transfer of weight is shifting our weight from one body part to another.

So we're going to explore our key features.

So we're going to look at our action words first.

So we've got the idea of jump.

Pretty straightforward jump there.

We've got the idea of turn.

We've got the idea of travel.

And we've got the idea of gesture.

And the idea of stillness.

And finally, the idea of transfer of weight.

So they were some really, really basic ideas but I'm sure you can come up with some more exciting ones.

So quickly pause your video and see if you can come up with your own version of a jump, turn, travel, a gesture, a moment of stillness, and a transfer of weight.

Literally spend about 30 seconds doing it.

Don't think about it too much, just come up with a movement for each word and then come back.

So let's move onto some more keywords.

We're now going to look at space.

So space involves us using different levels, different directions, different facings, and different sizes of action.

Our next activity is going to be exploring space.

So I want you to imagine that you're in a big bubble or cubed-shaped space and that you can reach out in front of you, behind you, to the sides, top, bottom, and you can touch the edges of whatever shape you're in.

So we're going to explore the different levels that we can create within this shape.

So we can come up high.

We can be on a medium level and maybe reach out to the sides.

Or we could be on a low level and explore that shape in that level too.

We can also think about directions.

And by direction we mean the direction that our movement goes in, not the direction that we travel in or face.

So I can make my arm circles come out in lots of different directions but the action is still the same.

So we've still got this idea of these sweeping arm gestures but they always travel in a different direction.

Then we think about facings.

So the way that our body faces.

Now I always remember this by thinking of my actual face.

So you're going to turn your body to face different places in the space.

And wherever you're facing is also where you're looking.

So that's the easy way to remember the difference between a direction and a facing.

So directions, think about the direction that the action goes in.

Facing, which way am I looking and which way is my body pointing when I move? So we can face lots of different directions to make our choregraphy look more interesting.

So if we take these arm circles again.

That action will look different every time I go to face a different direction.

And as a choreographer, we can really draw our audience's eyes to movement by deciding very carefully about which facing we put the body and our performer.

So if you've got lots of people in a group, you might get them to do all the same actions but all facing different ways.

So we get to see this really interesting, almost 3D effect because we get to see that movement from lots of different angles.

The last thing we're going to think about in terms of our use of space is how we use size to move us through the space or keep us really contained.

So we could take a slide, for example, and we can make it into quite a small slide.

Or we can move through our space a lot more by making it a giant slide instead.

Same action, but just by changing the size of the movement, it gives it a completely different feel.

So you might find that in your choregraphy piece, a big giant slide might show confidence or it might show that you're really trying to break into a space.

And if we use a small slide, it might show self-consciousness, or it might show restriction, especially if we then make that slower and more deliberate.

So what I would like you to do now is just to quickly pause the video and spend about 30 seconds just exploring how you can move in your cube or your bubble using levels, directions, facings and different sizes of actions.

And you can do whichever movement you like.

And finally, we're now going to look at dynamics.

So dynamics involves our speed, our energy and our effort.

So our final feature that we're going to look at today is dynamics.

And that's our speed, our energy and our effort.

When we talk about speed, we're talking about how fast or slow something goes.

When we talk about energies, we're talking about the qualities of movement.

So is it rigid? Is it fluid? Is it sustained? So sustained, if you imagine like a straight line and it's just really, really continuous and it goes on and on and on.

Is it quite bumpy? Is it quite jerky? Is it quite crispy or sudden? They would be energies.

So we get a sense of feeling about if someone's excited, if they're feeling tired, if they're feeling nervous or, I don't know, giggly, we might see that in the way that they then decide to perform their actions.

And then, finally, we have efforts.

So effort is the weight and the flow behind that movement.

So effort includes being really bound and quite tight or being really free-flow and just loose and being able to go anywhere you like.

You also have really heavy movements.

So heavy, coming down into the ground.

Or light, arising, and almost like a helium balloon thing.

You're floating and there's no weight behind the movement at all and it becomes really easy and effortless to perform.

So you could go back to the movement that you created in your previous task in the space in your bubble.

So have a go now at using that movement to change the speed and the energy and the effort.

So really, really see what happens if we speed things up, and imagine like you've got a remote control.

So you're fast forwarding, yeah.

And then when we slow things down.

So thinking about like slow-mo, you know, that effort.

Imagine you're in a wind tunnel and it's so hard to even just try and move forward.

And then just play about with different qualities, different weights and efforts of movement.

Literally just 30 seconds, and then come back.

So let's work together to remember the phrase from last lesson.

Six, seven and a one, two, three, four, and five, six, seven eight.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

I'm going to give you about two to three minutes just to rework through this phrase so that you feel confident that you can remember the order of the actions.

That's going to be really important when we move on to your creative task.

If you didn't learn the routine last time, please just use that video and spend an extra few minutes just making sure that you know what you're doing.

Here is the video of the completed phrase.

Now spend a couple of minutes once more just running the phrase to a piece of music.

Ensure that you're really confident with your timing.

Write down two aspects that were successful in performing that phrase.

Why do you think these went well? Then suggest one way that you could make further improvement and think about why that will help you.

Pause the video just so that you can jot those things down.

So when I'm thinking about things that go well in my performance, I might be thinking about whether I got the order of the actions right, I might be thinking about whether, if I was dancing it to a piece of music, that is felt like it was in time.

I might also be thinking about whether I performed the actions facing the right direction, or whether the energy behind them felt good as well.

So if you wrote anything down that feels similar to that then that's great.

And then when I'm thinking about ways I can improve further, I like to think about how the audience may view it.

Did I look confident when I was performing it? Did I remember the order? And if I didn't, what am I going to do to help myself remember that order? So it might be that I just need to spend a little bit more time rehearsing it.

Maybe I need to film something and have a look back at it and think, "Yeah, that's where I went wrong, I'm going to practise that bit over and over again until I can't forget it." So if you wrote down similar ideas to that, once again, that's great.

Lets move on to some more keywords.

So now we're going to look at motif.

So this is an action or actions that communicate our dance idea.

And then we're going to look at develop.

This is to improve and add complexity to our choreography.

So motif and development is a really great way of making our choreography look really interesting really, really quickly.

Let's look at each of the components again, actions, space and dynamics, and let's talk about the ways in which we can use them to change how our original movement looked and make it look something brand new.

So we can change the order of our actions.

So rather than going, for example, action one, action two, action three and four and so on, we can randomise those actions.

So we pull them apart and put them back together again in a completely different order.

You can repeat an action and you can choose to repeat that at different points within your phrase.

You can also try and perform the action on different body parts and this can look really interesting, and it's also a real challenge.

Another way that you can develop your action content is to add in new movements.

You can also take movement away.

Let's look at space.

So space includes our use of levels.

So we've got high, medium and low level.

Facings, and these include our stage directions, so things like facing upstage, downstage, stage right, stage left, upstage right, upstage left, et cetera.

We've also got directions.

So directions can think about going up, down, across, behind.

And also we can change our size of our actions by making them larger or smaller.

Then with dynamics we've got things like fast and slow, heavy and light, bound/free-flow, jerky/sustained, rigid and smooth.

And we can mix up and use any combination of these to give our movement a bit more variety and to make our audience go, "Ooh, that looked great.

Ooh, that was really intense." It's a really interesting way of exploring the same actions but just mixing up the speed.

So your task is to create your own version of the phrase.

Using changes of action, space and dynamics, you should now create your own version of the phrase.

You don't have to use all of the material and I want it to look and feel completely different to the original, so be really playful with how you explore each component.

Once again, please watch this video to see an example.

We will then work through how to create your own.

So what did you notice about my version? You can write down or call out the ways that you could see how the phrase had been developed.

Pause the video if you need to and then come back to me.

So there was a few things that I did.

I took some actions out.

I also then reordered my actions.

I used repetition, so I did repeat some of my movements, and I tried to make some of the movements happen on different body parts.

In terms of space, I used different facings and directions for my movements.

I also made some movements a lot bigger than they originally were.

And then with my dynamics I used a real variety.

So I used fast and slow, I made some of my movement heavier and more jerky.

I also made some of my movement quite fluid compared to the original.

Well done if you noticed any of those.

What I would like you to do now is to spend about seven to ten minutes planning your own choregraphy.

Don't forget, you can use the table to help you to include a mixture of changes of the action, space and dynamics.

Now you have your choreography created, try filming it and watching it back.

Great work.

So watch your choreography back and think about what we created and how effectively you think you used action, space and dynamics.

Why did your choreography work? Call out or write down your answer now.

How could you make this version of the phrase even better? Write down one way that you would improve your work.

Excellent, so if you came up with things like you were able to list at least two or three different uses of action, space and dynamics, then that was really effective.

And then if you'd been able to say why you thought it worked, maybe it had a sense of flow, maybe it had a lot of energy to it, or maybe it looked really, really creative in terms of the use of space and the shapes that you created.

If you've come up with an idea of the way that you could improve your work, brilliant.

Some ways to improve your work could include things like, for example, dynamics.

Dynamics is the trickiest one 'cause I think people tend to end up making everything the same speed unintentionally when you're working with your music.

So one thing to really think about is, almost like a heart rate monitor, you want those peaks and troughs.

So trying to think about always if you do something fast, follow it with something really smooth and slow, and try and mix up those qualities of movement to give it a real interest.

It's now time to take part in a cool down.

Once again, when we've done physical activity, a cool down is really important to help the body return back to its pre-exercise state.

At the end of a physical class, we need to make sure that we do a cool down.

The reasons for this are to help bring our breathing rate back down to normal, to stop blood from pooling in your muscles and ending up with things like cramp, aching muscles, building up lactic acid.

So ways that we can do that are to go from jogging down into a walk, you can think about some long and slow stretches.

Things like you did in your warm up but in reverse.

So rather than increasing the intensity, we're trying to decrease the intensity.

So you could use some of those exercises that you did in your warm up but make them slower and make them more deliberate.

So have a go at doing your own cool down and I will see you again very soon, thank you.

Don't forget, you can share your work with us.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter and don't forget to tag us.