Starter questions/ideas for class or group discussion:
- What kinds of dance can you identify on the chart?
- Who are the dancers in the photos? Do you think anyone could learn/perform the dances shown? Why/why not? How/where could you learn these dances?
- Which photos show dances that are being performed to entertain an audience? What other purposes are there for dance?
- Which countries and cultures are represented on the chart photos?
- Why are the dances pictured being performed today? Why were they performed in the past?
- What dances on the chart are performed on a stage? Where else might you see dance being performed?
- What clothes/costumes are the dancers wearing?
- Which dancers use props as part their dance? What is the purpose of the prop? How is it used? What does the use of the prop tell us about the culture/society that the dance comes from?
- Have you ever seen any of the dances performed before? If so, when, where, who? (For example, in the dance studio, on television, at a Christmas concert.)
- What types of dance have you seen and/or participated in within your local community? Collect dance pictures from local newspapers. What is happening in these newspaper photos? What are the purposes of the dances pictured?
- Talk about dances from different cultures that are performed to celebrate particular occasions or events.
- Identify how dance is used on television, such as in advertisements. List all the times you see dance on television over a week. Identify the purpose of each dance on the list. Create a dance to advertise a product or event.
- Looking at the photo strip across the top of the chart. Identify the dances that might be telling a story about people, places, or ideas. Explore the story idea in one of the photos.
- Discuss Maori dance in your school classroom and/or environment. When, what, where, why, who and how does Maori dance happen? Find someone in the school or in your community to talk to your class about their knowledge of traditional Maori dance and the multicultural dance heritage of New Zealand.
Purposes of dance
Some of the many cultural and societal purposes of dance are as follows:
- social,
- ceremonial,
- competitive,
- political,
- educational,
- promotional,
- therapeutic,
- celebrational,
- commercial/economic,
- gender role expression,
- vocational,
- personal expression,
- environmental,
- artistic,
- entertainment,
- ritual,
- liturgical,
- community belonging,
- courtship,
- communication,
- telling stories.
Discuss all/part of this list with students, finding examples of each purpose. Ask students to think of other purposes.
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