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INTRO TO PATHWAYS DANCE ACTIVITY

Type:

Blog

Category:

Inspiration Board

 

Teachers! Progressing your young dancers from stationary to transitory movement can be a process which takes some time. Getting dancers to understand spatial awareness and how to navigate different pathways and formation changes will be integral as they progress and get older! Here is a wonderful introductory dance activity you can use in class with your own little dancers! I have found that this movement lesson I have created is educational, fun and gets dancers to understand their own personal space and the space around them! So, get them moving and build upon the fundamentals as and when you see fit! Good luck!

WARM-UP: 

*Warm-up to include follow the leader (i.e. teacher) and travel around the room in different pathways before settling into beginning spot on the floor.

*All stretches will include transfer into slow, locomotor stretches through pathway.

MOTIVATION:

*Students will identify pathways from visual stimulation clips (i.e. pictures or videos of The Road Runner  running straight, ballerina performing piques turns in a circular pathway, race cars making angular sharp turns, etc.)  

*Ask students, “Do all people walk in a straight line all the time?”  

*Pull out map and ask students the pathway from A to B? How do we get there? What is the pathway pattern?

LESSON INTRODUCTION: Prompt for prior knowledge: "Do you walk in a straight line all the time?" Teacher’s Goal: By the end of this lesson, students will be able to differentiate between straight, angular, circular and curvy space patterns.

EXPLORATION:

*Walk, run, skip, jump, march, slide, gallop, crawl, slither, hop, etc in a straight pathway.

*Perform them forward, sideways and backwards.

*Change tempos to slow, medium and fast.

*Perform solo, then with partner, then in groups.

*Repeat this with use of circular, angular and curvy space patterns.

DEVELOPMENT: “Race Car” Follow the Leader- Students now become the race cars. Teacher calls verbal cues of the pathway to be followed (i.e. straight, angular, curvy, circular.) Begin with follow the leader as one volunteer leads that pathway to be followed. Progress into freeze dance. One person (or “race car”) travels alone while other “cars” are frozen.  

CONCLUSION: Slow stretch (with no leader this time) with travel through space. Dancers wind down and decrease their tempo until they are in stillness and lined up to exit the class.  

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Author

Jessica Rizzo Stafford

Jessica Rizzo Stafford

Jessica Rizzo Stafford is a native New Yorker and graduate of NYU Steinhardt's Dance Education Master’s Program; with a PK-12 New York State Teaching Certification. Her double-concentration Master’s Degree includes PK-12 pedagogy and dance education within the higher-education discipline. She also holds a BFA in dance performance from the UMASS Amherst 5 College Dance Program where she was a Chancellor's Talent Award recipient. Jess now works extensively with children, adolescents and professionals as choreographer and teacher and conducts national and international master-classes specializing in the genres of modern, contemporary, musical theatre and choreography-composition. Jess’ national and international performance career includes works such as: The National Tour of Guys & Dolls, The European Tour of Grease, West Side Story, Cabaret, Sweet Charity, Salute to Dudley Moore at Carnegie Hall, guest-dancer with the World Famous Pontani Sisters and IMPULSE Modern Dance Company. Jess has been a faculty member for the Perichild Program & Peridance Youth Ensemble & taught contemporary and jazz at the historic New Dance Group and 92nd Street Y in NYC. She was Company Director at the historic Steffi Nossen School of Dance/Dance in Education Fund and in 2008 traveled to Uganda where she taught creative-movement to misplaced children. The experience culminated with Jess being selected as a featured instructor at the Queen's Kampala Ballet & Modern Dance School. She has conducted workshops for the cast of LA REVE at the Wynn, Las Vegas and recently taught at the 2011 IDS International Dance Teacher Conference at The Royal Ballet in London, UK. She is also on faculty for the annual Dance Teacher Web Conferences in Las Vegas, NV. Currently, Jess is a faculty member at the D'Valda & Sirico Dance & Music Centre and master teacher & adjudicator for various national and international dance competitions. Recently, she has finished her NYU Master’s thesis research on the choreographic process of technically advanced adolescent dancers and is the creator of “PROJECT C;” a choreography-composition curriculum for the private studio sector. Jess is also faculty member, contributing writer and presenter in the choreography and “how to” teaching segments on the celebrated danceteacherweb.com. For more info, visit her website at www.jrizzo.net.

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