HUMANITIES CONNECTIONS
Episode Summary
- Vocabulary - Works Consulted
- Teacher Response Form
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Dance Basics
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Episode Summary
Teacher Tape
- Overview of the series. What's the first thing you
notice about a dance performance? It's ok for different people to notice different
things. Dance is like a code... to understand the code is to understand the
worldview of the dancers, and speak the language of movement. Difference in
western and non-western views of dance. Dance as and artistic language. Responding
to dance... movement is contagious. Project idea: kids recreate a "kid
song" using gestures they remember from elementary school.
- (teacher-student audience) History of dance.
A slideshow which chronicles the development of ballet from the Middle Ages
through commedia del' arte to the founding of the danse d'ecole, or school
of classical dance. (may work for student audience if teacher wishes.)
- Understanding the teamwork required for production.
Interview with Tonya Harper, Lighting Director and Stage Manager of the Lexington
Ballet. Tchainkovsky and Petipa: composer/choreographer team of the original
Nutracker. Ideas about the importance of the collaboration between
choreographer and composer. Ways Petipa's choreography redefined ballet. Project
idea: experimenting with music and choreography. Footage of teacher Patti
Bringham and her class at Lexington's School for Performing Arts.
Student Tape
- Through The Nutcracker we're learning to watch
dance. Definition of choreography. Comparison between dance and basketball.
The elements of dance: space, force, and time. Space is important in both
dance and basketball. Ways we see the element of space in dance. The element
of force and how we see it in dance. Time is another element of dance we clearly
see in basketball. Ways we see the element of time in dance. Rebecca Ratliffe
of the Lexington Ballet does a "play by play" of a portion of The
Nutcracker, in which she points out the elements of time, space, and force.
Students will use The Nutcracker to identify the concepts we're learning.
Overview and cuts from Act 1 of The Nutcracker. Definition and illustration
of mime. Definition and Illustration of locomotor and non- locomotor movements.
- Getting into The Nutcracker. Rebecca Ratliffe
explains the concept of pas de deux and does a voice over telling students
what they should be seeing. Defines divertissements and does a voice over
telling students what she would like them to notice in her own performance
of the Arabian Dancer. This section ends with a (15:00) portion of
Act 2 of The Nutcracker. Wrap up of the performance. Before
we move on to the final cut of The Nutcracker we look at dance in more
depth. There are hundreds of productions of this dance, and in each the choreography
is different, according to the style of the choreographer and abilities of
the dancers. Students see a clip of three passages from The Nutcracker
and compare the stules of two choreographers. Clip one: Parent dance, Balanchine
version, Lexington Ballet version; Clip two: Waltz of the Snowflakes, version
one, version two; Chinese Dancer, version one, version two. Discussion --
what did you see? The point: The more you watch dance, the more you see in
it. Finally, students watch the last section of The Nutcracker.