Level 5
Developing Practical Knowledge in Dance (PK)
Students will explore and use selected vocabularies, practices, and technologies in dance.
Developing Ideas in Dance (DI)
Students will explore and use choreographic structures to give form to dance ideas.
Communicating and Interpreting in Dance (CI)
Students will present, interpret, and respond to dance as communication.
Understanding Dance in Context (UC)
Students will compare and contrast dances from a variety of past and present cultures.
Learning Examples
- Identify, compare, and contrast, from a variety of cultures, dances that use narrative structure to tell stories (e.g., Bharata Natyam, classical ballet). Choreograph a dance that uses narrative structure to show a sequence of events in the building of a waka. Use different sections of the dance to depict the events (e.g., the hui, selection and felling of the tree by the elders and tohunga, carving, blessing, launching). Present the dance to others. (UC, DI, CI)
- View a selection of live or recorded performances of gender-specific dance forms and investigate, compare, and contrast their features. Learn and perform some appropriate dances from those viewed. (PK, UC, CI)
- With a partner, improvise dance movement using the device of call and response. Develop movement motifs and structure a dance on a given theme (e.g., confrontation) using the device. Present the dance to others and seek feedback on how effectively the device was used. (DI, CI)
- Initiate dance ideas by investigating and expressing, through movement, plaiting and weaving from different cultural traditions (e.g., making whariki, fala [mats]; kete, ato [baskets]). Using the ideas developed, choreograph a dance that reflects aspects of both plaiting or weaving and the stories or symbols associated with them. (DI)
- Participate in a dance workshop with a visiting dance teacher from the community. Focusing on a particular dance form, explore and discuss its vocabulary, techniques, stylistic qualities, and performance protocols. Discuss and write about the similarities and differences between this dance form and one other that has been practically experienced. (PK, UC)
- Keeping in mind techniques of safe dance practice, improvise, with a partner, movements based on stretching and contracting. Use selected movements from this improvisation to develop a warm-up sequence. Present and then teach the sequence to others. (PK)
- Interview parents or grandparents about the social dances they used to do as teenagers. Compare and contrast these dances with those of teenagers today. Practically explore some of the dances identified in the interviews. Select vocabulary from them, and choreograph a group dance that uses rondo form to contrast past and present social dances. Rehearse and present the dance to an invited audience that includes the people originally interviewed. (UC, PK, DI, CI)
- View a live or recorded dance performance. Describe the choreographer's main thematic idea and how that idea was communicated through the choreography and the production technologies used in the performance. (CI, PK)
- Compare the ways in which specific dances are used in different social contexts (e.g., the haka – to welcome, celebrate, challenge, protest). (UC)
- Select and interpret a haiku and create a dance based on its ideas, images, structure, and rhythms. Present the dance to others and seek feedback on its effectiveness. Reflect on the dance presentation and its success in communicating ideas and images from the haiku. (DI, CI)
