Lesson video

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Hi there.

Welcome to your next Remote Learning lesson.

This lesson is on dance development and it's called Dance: can you choreograph your own expressive dance performance?

My name's Ms. Hacking and I'm really looking forward to being your teacher today.

I'm hoping by the end of today's lesson that we can all create an original dance phrase using different dynamics and expression.

Our keywords today include, choreography, which means making a dance, so you are going to be having to go at your own choreography today, making up your own dance.

Our second keyword is expressive skill.

Expressive skill means performance qualities made up of musicality, focus, projection, extension and facial expression.

Our final keyword today is performance.

Performance is the act of executing the skill to the best of your ability, especially when it counts.

Before we start today's lesson, it's important that we warm ourselves up.

So, in today's warmup, you're going to show what you know about performing actions with control.

Going to select a song to move to, perform actions in time with the beat of the music.

Change the song and perform new actions to the new beat of the song.

Challenge yourself to move in time with the beat of the drum in the song.

And can you explore different space and dynamics with your actions?

There's a video following now to show you an example of a warmup if you're not sure how to do it.

However, please be as creative as possible and use your own dance ideas, your own dance moves to perform to your choice of song.

Okay, our lesson today is split into two parts.

In our first part of today's lesson, we are going to be looking at creating a dance routine.

And in the second part of today's lesson, we're going to be developing an expressive dance performance.

Let's get started.

So, choreographing a dance means to make up your own dance, and Lucas has said it would be fun to choreograph my own dance.

Izzy said, yes, but remember, you need to think about the actions, space and dynamics that you use.

Okay, quick check.

What do you need to think about when choreographing a dance?

Is it A, mirroring actions, B, the weather, C, jumps, hops, and steps, or D, dynamics, actions, and space?

What do you think?

Okay, well done if you said D.

When you are choreographing your own dance, you need to think about the dynamics, actions, and space.

So, to successfully choreograph a routine, you need to think about which actions you will use.

Examples of actions you might use, thanks, Izzy, is a jump, travel, turns, gestures, and stillness.

So you could use any of those within your choreograph routine to ensure that it looks interesting and you perform it to the best of your ability.

It is often useful to perform actions in counts of eight because music is often in counts of eight as well.

So often using the count of eight helps you to perform to the music.

Lucas has said some of the actions I'll include in my choreography will be jump, slide, step, step, wave, point.

What actions might you include in your dance?

Maybe pause the video and have a go at some actions.

To successfully choreograph routine, you need to think about the space you will use as well.

And Izzy said, examples of different ways you may explore the space in your choreography could be, different levels, so, thinking about low, medium and high levels.

Different directions, so rather than always going forward and backwards, you might move side to side or on a diagonal.

Different facings, so often, we think we always have to face the audience, but actually, sometimes standing sideways on or with our back facing a different way and can make your dance routine more interesting.

And also the size of our actions.

If we are doing really small movements that might portray us hurt in emotion for example, whereas if we use more of the space and do bigger movements, that might suggest something else.

Lucas has said some of the ways I will explore space will include jumping forwards, sliding left, stepping high, stepping low, waving big, and point facing behind.

How might you use this space when choreographing your dance?

Perhaps you want to pause the video now and use the actions that you thought about earlier and change them so that you're using the space in different ways.

Okay, let's have a go to quick check.

True or false.

Changing the direction you move into is an example of exploring space in your choreography.

Yeah, well done if you said true.

Can you tell me why though?

Changing the direction of an action is a way of exploring space.

For example, you could slide forwards, backwards, left or right or even on a diagonal, and that is a different way to explore the space.

So, well done if you said something along those lines.

To successfully choreograph a routine, you'll need to think about which dynamics you will use.

And Izzy's reminded us that examples of different ways you may explore the dynamics in your choreography could be through speed, so making movements slow, medium, or fast paced.

Through your energy, having lots of energy or very little energy with certain moves.

And the effort that you put into each of your moves as well.

Lucas has said, I want to improve my actions by including a range of dynamics such as jump forward with lots of energy, slide left slowly, step high with a big effort, step low with little energy, wave big quickly, and point facing behind slowly.

So he's used speed, energy, and effort and changed the actions from earlier in the lesson to include the dynamics to make the dance look a bit more interesting.

How might you use different dynamics when choreographing your dance?

Again, you might want to pause the video and try and add the dynamics into what you had already created for your actions.

Lucas has said, I'm going to choreograph with my brother and use his feedback to improve my motifs.

Izzy said I'm working by myself but I might record my actions so I can see how I can improve my motif.

So, both these students are wanting to improve their motif.

And often with dance it's helpful, perhaps to get someone else to give you some feedback on your performance or to video yourself and to give yourself feedback on your performance so that you can really perform to the best of your ability.

Okay.

Now, it's your turn to have a go at the task.

The task today is creating a dance routine.

So the first thing you're going to do is select a piece of music of your choice, create your own choreography to match the music.

Think carefully about the different actions you will include.

So you might include traveling movements, turning movements, jumping movements, gestures, and stillness.

Use the space creatively by changing levels, directions, pathways, and the area you perform in.

Include a range of dynamics to show contrast such as smooth or sharp, fast or slow, strong or light movements.

And remember, you can repeat movement motifs within your dance to make your choreography more structured and effective.

There is a video showing now that will help you give you some ideas if you're really unsure how to create your own choreography.

But, I think, you're going to do really well at this task and you can be as creative as you like to make those actions more interesting through thinking about the space and the dynamics of those actions too.

Okay.

Let's reflect on our first task.

So move, did you ensure your movements demonstrated a range of dynamics and expression that enables a clear performance?

And Lucas said that I use fast actions and actions that required lots of effort and energy.

Did you change the dynamics?

Did you use a range of dynamics to make sure that your actions were a little bit more interesting in your performance?

Think, did you evaluate, improve your performance to ensure that the motifs message was clear?

Izzy said that I recorded my motif so that I could watch it back to evaluate and improve my motif.

Again, did you do this or did you get someone else maybe to watch your motif?

Did you practice a movements and then think actually those weren't as good and you were going to use different ones?

It's always important to evaluate and improve our performance so that we can always keep improving.

Feel, so, did we strive to improve the quality and clarity of a motif because that requires resilience.

And Lucas said that I showed resilience by listening to my brother's feedback to continue to improve my choreography.

So again, yeah, looking to always improve our performance and make sure that the movements we're using in our motif really are the best possible movements or the best way of performing those movements.

And connect.

Imagining how your movements would relate to others and the music makes a performance feel expressive.

And Izzy said that I could imagine teaching my friends these movements.

And perhaps you could too.

Maybe you're working by yourself like Izzy today, but actually, if you see your friends at some point, maybe it's something that you would do together and that you could perform as a group of people rather than just as one person.

Well done with that task.

You've worked really hard with it.

Okay, now we're moving on to the second part, today's lesson, which is developing an expressive dance performance.

So now we've created the choreography, it'd be useful to improve our expressive skills to improve our performance.

Expressive skills are performance qualities made up of musicality focus, projection, extension, and facial expression.

And Lucas has said that using expressive skills will enhance our performance skills.

So yes, we've got the choreography, but now we're going to use our expressive skills to really improve our performance.

Musicality means how well your movements match music.

So, Lucas said that I'm using heavy rock music, so I need to use strong heavy actions to work with that music.

So, that's a really good way that he's used musicality to support his dance motif or dance movements link into the music.

And Izzy said that I'm using fast dance music, so my choreography needs to be quick with small movements.

So again, she's related her movements to the music that she is going to be performing to.

Focus is whether dance is looking and paying attention during their performance.

And Lucas has mentioned that he once saw a dancer constantly looking at the floor and their performance didn't look that good.

So I wonder if you've ever watched that where you've seen a performance maybe at school or at somewhere else and perhaps the performer wasn't feeling that good or was feeling quite shy and they had their focus on the floor and it just didn't look that effective.

So, always think about where you are looking ideally out in front or wherever you need to be looking to make sure that movement looks really polished and purposeful.

And Izzy said, yes, I think it's best to look forwards or at the actions you are performing.

So, either forwards at the audience or maybe if you are doing a certain action that your head and your gaze follows that action as well.

Okay, quick check.

Expressive skills are performance qualities that are made up of what?

A, action space and dynamics, B, jumps, turns, and stillness, or C musicality focus, projection, extension, and facial expression.

What do you think?

Well done if you said C.

Expressive skills are performance qualities that are made up of musicality, focus, projection, extension, and facial expression.

So projection means making your movements and energy big enough for the audience to see and feel them.

And Lucas has said that I want to make waves big enough so an audience can see them from far away.

So, you've got to think if you're performing on a stage, for example, there might be people sat in the audience right at the back and if you did tiny movements, they might not be able to see them properly.

So, sometimes it's really good to do expressive, projected big movements so that everyone in the audience is able to see.

Izzy said that I want to project my movements by using different levels in space.

And again, you can make things bigger.

So, if you imagine that someone starts really small, crouched up on the floor and then jumps up high, that is a really big projection of their of the movement rather than just using their arms.

So, again, using projection can really help through different levels, making an audience see and feel the movements and understand the dance's performance even better.

Extensions means stretching or reaching your body as far as you can to make your movements bigger and more expressive.

So Lucas has said that I'll point my toes to extend my leg, and Izzy said that I want to extend my arms to make my movements bigger and more expressive.

So rather than, again, just doing a a little movement, it's nice to really extend with every movement and really commit to every movement through with that extension.

Facial expressions means using your face to show feelings, emotions, or the story of your performance.

So Lucas has said that I'm going to use moody facial expressions to portray the darkness of the song.

And Izzy said, I'm going to use smiles and excitement on my face to reflect the upbeat music.

So again, using different facial expressions can really help gain the emotion of the dance, but also, to portray a feeling through either looking sort of, like Lucas has said, like moody or dark or like happy and joyful that can really change help to portray what the dance is about.

Okay, let's have a go to quick check.

How could you portray an expressive dance of happiness?

Would it be A, using small movements?

Would it be B, focusing on the floor?

Would it be C, showing smiling facial expressions?

Or would it be D, pointing your toes?

What do you think?

So, well done if you said C, that you could portray an expressive dance of happiness by showing smiling facial expressions, which would really help to portray happiness through your dance moves.

So, well done if you said that.

Okay, now it's your turn for task B, the second task of today's lesson.

So, you're going to use a choreography from task A and adapt and improve your dance to include expressive skills.

So, think about how you can use facial expression, projection, focus, and musicality to make your performance more engaging.

So practice showing the mood of the music through your actions and expressions and make sure your expressive skills stay consistent throughout your dances.

Don't just start with your great expressive skills and then forget about it later on in the dance, try and keep it for the full, the full dance.

There is a video now linking back to the performance of the video of task A with more expressive skills being used to give you some examples of how you can use expressive skills to really help your choreography that you did in task A.

So, you might want to have a watch of that, then pause the video to have a go at task B.

Okay, let's reflect on task B.

So, move, ensuring our movements demonstrate a range of dynamics and expression enables a clear performance.

I use facial expressions, musicality, and focus to enable a clear performance of my choreography.

So did you, how did you use expression to make your choreography from task A more interesting?

Think, evaluating and improving our performance ensures that the motif's message is clear.

And Izzy said that I evaluated my choreography from task A and added in expressive skills to enhance the performance.

And I hope you did too, 'cause that was a task of task B.

Feel, striving to improve the quality and clarity of a motif requires resilience.

And Lucas said that I showed resilience when improving my original choreography by adding expressive skills to it.

And again, that was what you were asked to do.

So, I hope that you managed to do that.

Perhaps you filmed your choreography from task A and then you watched it and tried to find out ways in which you can use expressive skills to really enhance that performance.

Connect, imagining how your movements would relate to others and the music makes a performance feel expressive.

And Izzy said that I related my movements to the fast, happy dance music and could imagine performing with other people as a group choreography.

Could you too?

Depending on the music that you used and the musicality of your performance, could you have imagined doing it with other people and thinking about how it would perform as a group performance?

Well done if you did.

Okay, so we are nearly at the end of today's lesson, and so we must, before we finish, complete our cool down.

So, for today's cool down, I would like you to move around the space to the beat of the music.

Every 30 seconds, you're going to change the action, space and dynamics of the movement that you are doing.

For example, you might jump high at a faster pace or slide your feet as you move low and slow.

Reflection, whilst you're moving with the music, think about how you successfully created actions to move to the beat and which actions were more controlled?

Commitment, what could you do between now and the next lesson to further practice your skills?

If you'd like to pause the video now so that you can complete your cool down, that would be brilliant.

Okay, and that leaves us just enough time to summarize the key learning points of today's lesson.

So, move, ensuring our movements demonstrate a range of dynamics and expression enables a clear performance.

And again, we worked on our expressive skills.

So hopefully, you adapted your piece of choreography from task A and made it more expressive in task B.

Think, evaluating and improving your performance ensures that the motif's message is clear.

It's always important to re-watch our performance or get someone else to give us feedback so that we can constantly keep improving our performance skills.

Feel, striving to improve the quality and clarity of a motif requires resilience.

Again, it's not always easy to watch ourselves or to gain feedback to improve, but, it does help us in the long run and it does show us that we have that resilience.

And connect, imagining how your movements would relate to others in the music makes the performance feel expressive.

So, well done if you link your movements to the music.

I really enjoyed today's lesson and I hope you have too.

I'll look forward to seeing you again soon.