LESSON 6 – MOTIF, RELATIONSHIPS AND DYNAMICS

LESSON 6 – MOTIF, RELATIONSHIPS AND DYNAMICS

1.The students were working for most of the lesson today without my input, I mostly observed and assisted them when I felt they needed my help or they asked. The stimulus today was the students’ mobile or home telephone number. This was a very visual orientated lesson with their core skills being used (numeracy, literacy skills etc.) Each number has an action dance move next to it (see below). Using their own phone number create a dance motif. They’re allowed to put in a linking dance movement before they moved onto their next number.

0 - Arm movement
1 - Swing
2 - Elevation
3 - Falling
4 - Roll
5 - Travel
6 - Stillness
7 - Leg movement
8 - Gesture (Isolation)
9 – Turning

Once they had their own sequence they were then to work in a duet, trio, quartet and large group. This was to allow them to explore the movement within different groups and see how they can develop their own sequences and make them more imaginative and interesting just by working with someone else or a group of people.

2.This task is always a successful one. The students can look a little puzzled at the beginning but when you show an example they understand and really enjoy the creating process of it. I feel this is a great task to show students how a simple task can create great original movement that they wouldn’t have necessarily came up with if they hadn’t have had the task.

3. Looking back to the recorded film that we have of the sequences (on the students’ blog) I can see that this is a brilliant and simple task to use and develop. It’s a task that allows the students to see that they can come up with their own tasks using numbers, words, letters etc. I would use this task again next year as it works well.

4. For next time I want to make sure I mention Merce Cunnigham (One of the pioneers of Contemporary Dance). I totally forgot that this would e a great opportunity to mention him as he was very big on using tasks and using ‘chance’ as a way of experimenting with dance. The students had researched him at the beginning of their first semester but it would’ve been good to mention him and see if they remember anything from their research about him.

5. To do this I need to add it into my LTA plan and in my lesson plan that will have the phone number task in it next year. I intend to mention it to the students next time, but it would be in a more relevant lesson if I were to mention it with this particular task.

6.Seeing what the students produced today in terms of movement using this task, I was really impressed and they clearly showed that they understood the task and so I would think this was a successful lesson, and the comments left by the students on their blog reiterates this.