Introduction
Discovering Dance is designed to help students in Aotearoa New Zealand to learn in the discipline of dance. We hope that it will:
- raise teachers' and students' interest in dance
- deepen teachers' and students' understanding of the diversity of dance genres and styles practised by a variety of people in New Zealand
- help teachers to develop their own professional literacy in dance.
The resource consists of three elements:
- Discovering Dance: DVD 1: a video or DVD sent to all schools
- Discovering Dance: DVD 2 (the extended mix): a second DVD (sent to secondary schools only)
- these online teachers' notes.
An animated character called FD (Future Dancer) narrates the video/DVD 1. He accompanies a group of young dancers – Daniel, Sophia, Jessica, and Chelsea – as they explore a range of dance genres/styles based around seven key themes. The dances originate from many different cultures and perform a variety of functions. The friends discover that dance is an important part of all our daily lives and that it takes many forms.
The teachers' notes follow the order of video/DVD 1 and are structured into sections that relate to its seven themes.
Each set of notes includes:
- brief background notes for each of the themes and dance genres/styles
- focus points and questions to consider when viewing the dances
- suggested activities in relation to curriculum levels
- a list of suggested resources
- a glossary.
DVD 2 (the extended mix) shows longer versions of most of the dance genres/styles. In the notes, the DVD track number under a dance heading indicates where to find the longer version of the dance on DVD 2.