In this lesson, students discuss the importance of performance quality and identify the components necessary to ensure a high standard of performance. Students will then apply performance skills and the Creative Process to create compositions.

Learning Goals

  • Demonstrate understanding of performance skills and how they enhance a presentation
  • Use the Creative Process to create compositions

Materials

Minds On (Approximately 20 minutes)

  • Inform the students through lecture and discussion of the following performance skills:
    • Focus – the ability to unite mind and body for the sole purpose of performing the immediate task.
    • Confidence as a Performer – knowledge and demonstration of technical skills.
    • Co-operation in a Group – the ability to attain the group goal without drawing undue attention from the audience to individual performance.
    • Projection – the ability of the performer to make the audience feel at ease with performance quality
    • Technique – application of movement with safe practice
    • Expression - the ability to demonstrate the power of movement with feeling and emotion
    • Movement Dynamics – the ability to modulate the force and size of movement.
    • Endurance – the ability to maintain an appropriate level of energy.
  • View video clips of a dance performance. Discuss the effectiveness of using proper technique and performance skills to enhance movement.
  • Co-create a list of prompts/questions to guide students in providing feedback using The Creative Process. 

Action! (Approximately 40 minutes)

  • In pairs students create a short work in progress/compositional study approximately 1 minute in duration with a focus on the Creative Process: Imagining and Generating, Planning and Focusing and Exploring and Experimenting. It should be related to the form of dance being studied in class since a more thorough understanding of the style will enhance the application of performance skills that will come. At this stage of the process, it is recommended that students focus on the process of creation and meaning making more than the final product. 
  • After sufficient creation time, the pairs explore the range of performance skills and apply them to the work in progress/compositional study.
  • Students then perform their work in progress as follows:
    • as small as possible;
    • as large as possible;
    • as slowly as possible;
    • as quickly as possible;
    • by fixing their gaze on one point for the length of the performance;
    • by performing the dance as heavily as possible;
    • by performing the dance as buoyantly as possible;
    • by performing the dance focused on one emotion, (e.g., sorrow, joy, anger, peace);
    • other
  • With another pair, students observe their classmates perform their work in progress and provide feedback to Revise and Refine. 

Consolidation (Approximately 15 minutes)

  • After both pairs have completed the exercise, they sit down together with co-created prompts/questions for discussion, assess the strengths and next steps. 
  • Students may document their learning experiences, explorations, ideas, brainstorms, designs and reflections through a dance portfolio/notebook.