What did the students do?
Throughout four weeks, my Raising the Barre lesson plan functioned to help students create original adagios. The classical dance arts operated as a medium for non-verbal communication. Where, students explored the Bigger Idea, how to vocalize emotions and their identities as artists using movement. The creation process began through the selection of balletic terminology stemming from previous coursework. In addition to viewing excerpts of repertoire and choreographers’ interviews. Which, visually, exposed some youths positively (for the first time) to professional demonstrations of artistic expression utilizing dance.
To spur creativity, objects such as vanities, kitchen sinks, or dressers, served as a personalized ballet barre. Students maneuvered through working with different spacial limitations, placing movement together to form a nonverbal expression. Breaking from our traditional realm of practicing in the confines of our studio, significantly planted an experience for students to develop deeper connections with their movement navigating through their specific physical surroundings. All the while, simultaneously, stimulating exploration of feelings working through the difficulty or ease maneuvering the body.
The students finalized adagio, were formed with a total of eight terms and transitional steps of their liking. Students were given creative liberty framing their dance phrases but had the responsibility each week to discuss their challenges in class and explore solutions together through conversations with peers and myself. This further served to understand how, professionally, choreographers need to adapt or modify movement because the body may function physically different than how one may envision dance on paper.
How did you implement the plan?
Students were asked to choose various rooms in their home and utilize a vanity, desk, table, etc. as a personalized ballet barre. Deterritorializing from dancing in a studio strengthened the idea of how anyone can dance at any time. In courses past, students communicated their anticipation, waiting each week to use the dance studio, and this, in particular, encouraged me to frame a lesson encouraging self-expression. By reinforcing how students had acquired a vocabulary (balletic terminology) to voice their desires as artists, joys, or any emotion they felt were important to them through dance in the comfort and safety of their own homes.
Before the end of class throughout our four weeks, my class watched videos showing choreographers discussing how a movement is a form of outward physical expression. Videos of choreography allowed us to discuss further how artists corporally expressed themselves through Performing Arts. Our dialogues, in particular, allowed me to understand further how dance made my students feel. Which provided me the motivation to ask if movement could express the same sentiments they communicated verbally. Some students felt empowered, stronger, reflect on how they are at their happiest when coming to dance class, or have a need to move when they find themselves bored or sad. Each student discussed different emotions, and I asked them to explore further those emotions when at home, working on their dance phrases.
Raising the Barre centered on providing students an experience to connect to dance on a deeper level. In semesters past, when placing choreography together for performances, I traditionally show movement. My students, in return, mimic the actions. Still, there is often a disconnect to why they are dancing a certain way or connecting altogether with the emotional presentation of the piece. This assignment, in particular, motivated my students to create genuine connections to a movement that ultimately, reveled genuine emotion when performing. Contrast to, robotically moving on a stage with music. This assignment pushed my students to work through their challenges and develop a deeper connection to the movement because they were choosing their balletic terms accordant to their needs.
Document and describe the artmaking process and the ways in which students engaged in the activity. Look at the products of the activity and your documentation of the process. How do they compare?
Every week, students structured their adagios by adding terms forming a dance phrase. As the weeks progressed, some students changed their original combinations in accordance with what physically felt more conferrable on their bodies. Though as a class, we checked in to discuss challenges or strives, the students nor I saw the pieces until the end of the four weeks.
Visually, the combinations on paper did not reflect the nuances each student brought to their piece once performing their phrases in the class. The written terminology primarily functioned to help students practice French spelling and served as a tangible guide as they explored the physicalities of movement. Such as, thinking about how they would modify or incorporate a transitional step to make the term physically possible.
Most interesting, and what I believe is the most significant outcome of the process was in the presentation itself. For example, students were given the opportunity to utilize music they incorporated at home or sustain from performing with music altogether. Musical choices varied from classical to contemporary instrumental. Though music had been eliminated in a couple of the pieces by deliberate choice, everyone lost themselves in their dance phrases. Facially, I was captivated by how gazes were focussed on port de bras (arm movement) rather than our studio’s dance mirror or fixated on their peers who served as the audience.
When reflecting on the process of creating an adagio, some students also shared how performing their original pieces placed videos shown at the beginning of class into perspective. For example, in the video taken from the 2015 Festival International de Danza Contemporanea, famed choreographer, and director of Alonzo King Ballet, Alonso King expresses how dance is much more than just steps. Students shared how they felt their peers’ emotions witnessing the pieces, and in return, when performing, students communicated how there were moments they forgot they were dancing. Consciously one does not think about speaking when talking, and successfully I saw students forget about the performance aspect of dancing and allowed their feelings to guide the fluidity of their movement.
What were some challenges?
One of the biggest challenges was in the first stages of my lesson. I underestimated how my students would approach choreography. I initially anticipated a universal acceptance and excitement but quickly realized how daunting the concept to create could be for a particular few. Though I structured the assignment in a manner in which students would work slowly developing their phrases each week by adding two terms at a time, I had a few students feel extremely overwhelmed by the idea.
The majority of the students felt at ease quickly choosing terms and began to form a buddy system looking over what terminology had been selected and by who. My newer students, on the other hand, expressed a strong hesitation and communicated this.
My goal was to inspire creativity and make a lesson that would be an enjoyable experience. Addressing my student’s concerns to make everyone feel at ease, I modified my initial lesson plan. Initially, I instructed students to approach the terminology where they would choose eight terms by selecting two terms at a time from a list I provided form coursework we had learned. Seeing the hesitation in this stage by some, I then asked students to play with the idea of hard and easy and taking one easily executed step and one more challenging one. For those students that still felt uneasy, we discussed how the execution could be the challenge itself.
Positively, the discussion of execution allowed me to integrate a conversation of stage directions - a necessary and integral part of forming choreography. For instance, students could choose to explore executing their movements dedans (inward) or en decors (outward). Which ultimately touched how their movements could be a reflection of how they felt at that moment and how it may develop in the course in the weeks that followed. For some, their immediate joy could physically convey an outward excitement while, for some, they could explore further using movement to express what they were grappling with internally as they began to form their dance phrases. Celebrating the students’ differences working through the lesson, we discussed the beauty in delving into an array of different emotions and how, as a class, we could use dance and movement to express that.
What were some successes?
The most rewarding success during the initial process of integrating Raising the Barre lesson into our class’ rhythm was how the students came together to work with one another. For example, my eldest students who had had more experience performing worked with newer students after class. There was a lot of encouragement in our class, and I was particularly thrilled about how supportive the students were with one another.
Throughout the year, my Ballet class traditionally is a very individualized experience. The students use their bodies to learn the art form, and they work within themselves to learn the terminology and how to execute it. It is predominantly during our studio’s second session in Spring, where students explore choreography and begin to work with one another.
Assigning a lesson where they would create a piece allowed us to have discussions on how, at times, choreographers have to adapt or modify movement. Since, what one may visualize on paper at times, may not always be physically possible working with the human body. When students used a few minutes after our scheduled class to practice, students exchanged insightful support, communicating what worked for them and exchanged ideas on how their peers could approach a movement that was difficult to pair. Such as helping with sharing a transition step that could help the execution or eliminating a movement and replacing it with another one.
How does your environment affect the teaching big ideas and questions?
As a studio teacher, my classes, in particular, are tuition-based. Our student demographic is predominantly affluent. Over the years, with the success of our studios business, scholarship and discounts have been a possibility of reaching more youths in our community to experience the Dance Arts.
One of the underlying lessons detouring from our typical structure of dancing in the studio and taking the assignment home working in different environments in my students’ home, was to explore how dance could be done by anyone at any time. In the process of structuring the phrases, students conversed about how they enjoyed taking Art in their own hands and not having to wait for their scheduled ballet classes. Over the years, my students learned vocabulary (ballet terminology) and our conversations positively touched not only how the arts could be a vessel of communication and expression, they now had the power to practice, create, and utilize their acquire terminology to cultivate and release a creative outlet; not having to wait or pay for studio time to do so.
My class, in particular, is predominately also heavily centered teaching the technical foundation of Ballet. Such as the art form’s terminology and how to safely and physically execute movement with the body. My Big Ideas lesson emphasized why my students learn this particular terminology and how it could be viewed as much like the vocabulary one utilizes to express ourselves verbally as a form of communication.
How did this lesson plan fit in with your larger curriculum?
Conducted during our studios Fall session, my lesson served as a preparation for our studio’s set curriculum incorporating choreography in the Spring semester for the culminating Spring performance. Though many of my students are returning dancers, I have a few new students. This lesson opened further conversation about what will be expected in our course, such as remembering choreography. Most significantly, this lesson eased tensions about performing in general.
For my new students, in particular, performing their adagios amongst peers in the comfortability of our classroom, established an atmosphere of support and encouragement where students felt safe performing utilizing their bodies to move. For some students, performing can be incredibly intimidating and more so for prepubescent youths as they begin to develop physical insecurities or begin to compare themselves to their peers.
When the students demonstrated their adagios, everyone supported the artistic endeavors of their peers by exhibiting appropriate theatre behavior such as clapping after each performance. Our class also had an exchange of one positive reinforcement of how the different pieces made the students as an audience, made them feel.
How do you think this experience will affect your future practice?
Assigning choreographic homework for the first time in my class was a lesson I will continue to explore and implement in future practice. My students and I highly enjoyed expressing themselves through dance in a manner we had not done so prior. Many of the dance phrases reflected empowered young dancers. As a result, their outward strength many convayed during the final presentation is a theme our class will continue to explore further and have chosen to work on as our course progresses to form a piece for our culminating performance. I will guide the choreography, but this year, the students will take the reins of the choreographer to structure a dance based on how they have grown and how they feel when they dance. As I reflect on my experience forming a guide for students to structure movement, I was most fulfilled by my students developing the deeper connections to movement as a form of vocabulary ultimately, for them to create dance pieces based on the stories, ideas, and feelings significant in their lives to share with their community as they step on their stage.
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