Activities
1. Dance Styles Go to the centre drop-down menu, click on Dance and locate the names of at least three different dance styles explained and demonstrated on Creative Explorer (History, New Zealand, Kapahaka, Style, Technique). List these different styles and identify what makes each of these styles different.
2. Leading Dancers Can you find out about some of these key people and why they are important in the history of dance in Aotearoa?
Martha Graham
Douglas Wright
Merce Cunningham
Michael Parmenter
Shona McCulloch
3. Influences The following events were major influences in Neil's life as a young dancer. Can you locate information about each of them, then place on a time line?
'Spot on'
Youth for Christ Dance competition
Saturday Night fever
Harambee Harambee
Meeting Alison East from Auckland Performing Arts School
Setting up Black Grace Dance Company
Traditional Samoan childhood experiences
4. Ideas
"It can start through all kinds of things like just sitting and thinking "Wow the waves look really good, and the way the sun's hitting them. The way they're crashing into the shore makes me feel like, like this!" Neil
Other artists on Creative Explorer say similar things. Maree Sheehan (musician) gets her ideas for songs from all sorts of places and writes songs to express herself when she feels strongly about something. e.g. Fatally Cool.
Neil feels the same way about dance e.g. Relentless.
Think of something you feel strongly about e.g. human rights, true love, racial harmony, the environment.....
Think of ways you could express those ideas through dance. Think of ways you could enhance those dance ideas with sounds or music. Share your ideas with a partner.
