The first
time I arrived at the local after school program in town with Celeste and two
dancers from the Dance Ensemble who were willing enough to help me carry out my
workshop with the kids. At this point, I knew I would have to be flexible with
the workshop I had prepared, which would be a simple version of Workshop #1, but
it turned out I had to do so more greatly than I had anticipated. While we had
a small, older group of students already at the site, we waited 15 minutes for
the younger group to arrive from the elementary school (and seeing as we only
had ~40 minutes to begin with, this would make quite a difference in the
structure of the workshop). When the younger students arrived, we had about 20
students to work with.
Warm-up
I deviated
from using any of the five images I had presented to the Dance Ensemble dancers
and to the kids when they visited our studio the week prior. So, instead, I
borrowed a large model of DNA that my Biology teacher used to teach my
second-year Biology class about DNA. I thought this would be a good substitute
for a simple image on a small sheet of paper, because it would allow the
students to get up close and personal with the model and see it as not only a
learning tool, but also a sculpture and something interactive.
Being in
this space did present a few more difficulties, however. It was obvious that
the students were in a space that they were familiar with and used to behaving
in a more relaxed manner, than say a classroom. Electronics, crafts, and other
activities became distractions for many students who were initially invested in
the movement workshop. It should be noted that part of the culture of the space
and program includes an emphasis on encouraging students to participate in a
variety of activities, but no child can be forced to do so. In this case, the
students could drop out of participating in the workshop if they chose. It was
a challenge to keep the students’ focus and to keep the space from erupting in
noise. In this situation, I noticed right away, that we were completely in a
different situation than the one we were in a few days earlier when the same
group of kids visited us at the college. In our dance studio, the kids were not
only contained but also in a foreign setting. They could not be distracted,
because apart from each other, there was nothing to be distracted by. They were
thrown into a situation that went at rapid speed and by the time they had to leave,
had no opportunity to engage in any type of distraction.
After
introducing ourselves and warming up by experimenting with shapes, levels,
abstract and literal ideas, we jumped into using the model to identify its
characteristics and descriptions and building a movement phrase based on these
ideas and observations.
Aside from
the slightly chaotic scene that ensued, each group came up with some fantastic
movement. There were ideas ranging from perceiving the model to be a set of
monkey bars, to stairs, to a marshmallow, to overlaying text with the movement
by naming all the colors that could be seen on the model.
The model
was an excellent tool that sparked many of the kids’ curiosity. Some students
were ambitious enough to instigate questions themselves. One even got out a pen
and pencil to investigate the model more in depth. But some of the little ones
had no idea what they were looking at. It was such a delight, in these
instances, to ask them questions to get a glimpse into how they thought of this
weird looking object. Some talked about how it looked like a spider web, in
which different things could get caught, while others explained to me how DNA
is probably the same size as the model in little kids and probably bigger in
adults. On these occasions I wonder what they will think when they learn that
DNA is used to attract and interact with enzymes, similar to the interaction
between a spider web and its prey, or how mind-blowingly large DNA is within
our cells, but in an exponentially smaller sense. By asking the right
questions, these four, five, and six-year olds were essentially coming up with
the same answers, but from a different perspective, as that of a scientist or a
biology textbook.
A week after trying out my workshops with the Dance Ensemble, I delivered Workshop #1 to a group of students who are part of a local
afterschool program at Grinnell College. They arrived about 20 minutes late,
which made things a little more difficult to carry out as was planned, seeing how
we only had less than an hour to begin with. But in they came, with eyes big as
saucers, slightly curled into their bodies, shielding themselves from the
foreign space that is our dance studio. But all of the Dance Ensemble members
were intent on creating as safe and welcoming a space as possible from the
moment we formed a giant circle to begin introductions.
After a series a warm
ups that allowed the kids to understand our approach to dance and what
“creative movement” is, we allowed them to explore a little bit in their
bodies, and figure out ways they could move and perhaps, ways they couldn’t.
Still a little in shock by the whole situation, they nevertheless appeared more
than willing to be thrown into this new environment with a new group of college
students and for lack of a better phrase, “dance for joy”.
We split the
kids up amongst the dance ensemble members, which made for groups of three to
six students per dance ensemble leader, and allowed each group to choose from
one of the five images that I had presented to the Dance Ensemble the week
prior that they would want to investigate through movement. While I had
intended to do a short version of “sketch and label”, Celeste and I figured to
stick with movement in this case, given our limited amount of time. After every
group had chosen an image they were off!
In no time at all, everyone began to
spew out observations and ideas of what the images were and what they looked
like and threw themselves into creating movement phrases. Once every group
seemed to have a substantial amount of material gathered together, we all showcased
what we had made. Unfortunately, many of the kids’ parents were coming to pick
them up during this sharing time, so groups quickly dissipated and some never
got the opportunity to show their dance to everyone.
Something I
took particular note of, during the warm-up exercises was how willing and
tolerant the kids were by observing movement done by other kids, and using it
themselves. As a dancer and part of a dance ensemble, I feel as though we try
and challenge ourselves to come up with our own movement as much as possible.
We hesitate in “copying” others, and seem almost embarrassed and forbidden to
do so. On the contrary, the kids who used the “copying” technique not only used
this as a fall back, but also as a way to investigate for themselves their own
abilities and interests. If they found one movement appealing, they would
repeat it, and some could do so just like the original and some then could put
their own twist on it. On a divergent note, I think, as a dancer, it would be
interesting to conduct some movement exercises or introductory moves based on
this idea, the idea of taking one movement and copying it in whatever way the
Dance Ensemble is able. Whether this means repetition or a variation of the
movement, I think, as dancers, as choreographers, as students, and as teachers,
we need to explore our movements, our abilities, and ourselves by understanding
what it means to copy and what is means to model off of others and the nuances
and variations involved.
We ended the
time we had by reiterating that the images we had just looked at and danced
about were DNA. While this probably went into some students’ ears and out the
other, I hope this experience for them was a memorable. Even if DNA sounds
familiar should they hear it again at home, in class, on the Internet, etc.
perhaps they will be able to think back to this experience and potentially feel
a sense of familiarity and of the material because they had interacted with it
in this creative, movement-based way. From the movement phrases I saw performed
at the end of our session, I saw and felt a sense of intent, joy, and curiosity.
This was an opportunity for every child to have a voice and participate. While
some, no doubt, were more vocal than others, it was an experience where, thanks
to the encouragement and help of the dance ensemble leaders, all the kids could
observe, analyze, move, and create. In what I saw, this was a true instance in
which no child was left behind.
