Lesson video

Keeping safe in this lesson.

If you are 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 also work outside if it was warm and dry enough and safe to do so.

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

Make sure to use bare feet and that the floor is not slippery.

Wear comfortable clothing, making sure you put your hair up if needed and removing any jewellery.

Pause your video now if there's anything you need to do to get ready.

In this lesson, you'll need your appropriate clothing, writing equipment, so please make sure you grab a pen or paper in just a second and also double check that space making sure that you remove any hazards.

Pause the video once more if you need to go and change any of that.

In today's lesson, we're going to do a warm up.

You're going to learn a phrase and then you're going to use that phrase to develop it in something completely brand new.

And then finally, you're going to take part in your exit quiz.

Let's look at some key words to get going.

So choreographic devices are the tools that we use to develop our movement material.

Develop means to improve and add complexity.

Let's get going with our warm up task.

The other things you can include in your warmup today are things like plea AEs and thinking about our alignment.

We want to make sure that whether we're working in a first position or a parallel position that our knees are going over our toes so that we're not putting undue stress onto a joint.

So you can take your plea AEs.

You can take some rises.

You can also take some arms and create shapes with your arms. Don't forget to include things like your pulse racing activities, things like jogging on the spot, star jumps, mobilisation of the joints the things like your shoulder rolls or your rolls down through the spine.

And as I said, looking at creating some really interesting, dynamic stretches using your body shape and hyperextension to really, really find those muscles and get them nice and support.

Pause the video here and then come back for the next task once you've completed your warmup.

So here's our technical session.

You're going to learn a phrase.

We need a piece of dance material in order to develop it later.

So please work through this phrase.

You may already recognise some of this movement material.

If you've taken part in lessons beforehand.

Six, seven, eight.

One more time.

So in order to work with our choreographic devices today we need a movement phrase to work from.

I'm going to teach you this in three sections but you may recognise some of the material because it's stuff that we have used earlier on in this unit.

So this is section one.

So let's just recap that slowly.

So we pull our body out to the side.

We push our hands down, we then bring it up like the ticking of a clock.

From there, we're going to bring it down, bring these arms up push the hands out and then sweep the leg forward.

So that's section one, pause the video and just have a little practise of that just to recap or learn that if you haven't done it already.

So section two is as follows.

We started here.

So I'm going to go from there.

Do that once more for you.

So let's break that down.

So we started here, so we're pushing through that fog.

We then walk ground, we've got a hyperextension in our back.

We transfer the weight forward and then we flick that back foot off the floor.

Let's do that again.

So you were here, you push, we walk around.

We extend, that could transfer the weight, flick the foot.

So pause the video here.

If you need to go back and have a look at it again then do so and then come back to me for section three.

So we just finished here at the end of section two you're going to close your feet and then section three goes.

Do that once more.

So to break that down you started here where you just flipped your foot.

The first thing you do is close your feet into turn out, pull up body out to the side.

You're going to take two runs forward one, two and stop.

From there we then leap around and turn, come up through the body and look to the side.

Do that once more.

So we're over here, we flick, close the feet pull that body across and hop left.

Open, up, look.

So, now four minutes to spend time ensuring you are really confident with that whole phrase.

This will be really important before you move on to the next stage.

Don't restart the video until you think you can run that whole phrase without turning to stop and think about it.

If at all, you need to go back and double check something.

That's absolutely fine.

Just pause the video rewind it back and check that moment where you maybe you're getting a bit stuck once you're confident resume the task.

Let's look at a few more key words.

So, contrast means using opposing movement ideas and features to create interest.

And this can involve using levels, shape, and dynamics.

And climax is the high point of a dance.

It's a moment that is built up to and is recognisable to our audience.

And this might see a dramatic change in speed or size of your movement material.

In our choreography session today you are going to be developing our phrase.

So the phrase that we've just spent some time working on earlier on, you're going to a contrast and a moment of climax to make it look completely different.

Let's have you look a way that we can do this.

So energy is how heavy, light, bound or free-flow your actions are.

Size is how large or small our actions are.

And leap, is a large jump that travels from one place to another.

With the creative part of our task we're now going to show the idea of contrast.

So that might be varying dynamics, levels, It might be shapes.

And then we're also going to choose a point where we're going to create a moment of climax to that point where it builds up to.

So you can play about with that material now, it doesn't necessarily have to stay in that order.

You might choose to put it together in a way that helps you build up to some things.

So you might think about an action which would be quite dramatic to put at the end for example.

But I just want to demonstrate a few examples of ways that we can change the way that our movement looks and feels just by looking at things like the size of the actions or the weight or the intention behind the movement.

So let's take that first little section but we have this pole shoot up, up, and drop.

If I wanted to show the idea of me being maybe tired or feeling sluggish I might make those actions have a lot more of a heavier sense to them.

So a sense of weight and this idea of being really, really sluggish.

So that might take more energy and then the arm might drop before I shoot that arm up and then bring it down.

Does that make sense? So I'll just show you that again.

So this was the original.

This is my sluggish and heavy version.

I then might contrast that by having this really sharp so that we see that sudden change in the dynamic and it makes it look more interesting.

So let's try and put those two ideas together.

And then I would carry on.

So your task now is going to be to play with that material trying to show me contrast in the dynamics, in the uses of space, in the uses of levels.

You can also, as I said, maybe flip some of the movement around.

So for me, I think if I was going to build up to a climax I have this bit here where I run and at the moment I go into this push back, but I might decide that my big leap is more dramatic and I might decide to face the audience at the end.

So I might decide I'm going to put this bit the running, the leaping together, and then shoot up at the end.

And that would hopefully make my work look more exciting and have that moment where we build up to something, at the end snap.

So you've got about 10 minutes now to use that material in any way that you like thinking about the idea of showing contrast, thinking about building up to a moment of climax.

Have fun and come back to me when you're done.

Pause the video to complete your task.

You've got 10 minutes to spend time working through the task and experimenting with different ways of exploring your ideas.

Remember, sometimes our first idea is not our most interesting, so keep trying different things out and really, really go for the most creative idea that you come up with.

It's really useful to video yourself because you can watch that back and it might help you review your task but it might also help for you to then objectively see what things you think look effective and what things maybe you can discard.

Resume the video once you've completed the task.

So let's review how that went.

What was effective about your use of choreographic devices and why? What else could you do to show either contrast or climax? What impact would they have on the audience? Pause the video and write your thoughts down.

Don't forget to share your work with us.

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

Thank you, see you soon.