Description
The DANCER is both a creative catalyst in the classroom and a teacher’s helper. As long as he is on a magnetic surface he waits to be moved around, repositioned, and choreographed. As a prop, let him hold signs that point directions (“Dressing room this way”), give reminders (“Rehearsal is at 4 pm” ), and reinforce rules (“Three minutes to dress out”). As a teaching assistant he likes to demonstrates concepts like dance elements, stage direction, and alignment. For example–
DANCE ELEMENTS of Body and Space:
- Shapes
- Body parts
- Postures
- Gestures
- Levels
- Positions
- Grande Plie, Demi-plie
- Extension (and hyper-extension)
- Supports (those possible and impossible)
- Body parts leading (such as elbows, knees, shoulders, head, hands, feet, hips)
- Relationships between body parts (how moving one part often affects placement elsewhere)
- Stylistic positions from jazz, ballet, and other dance styles.
Demonstrating STAGE DIRECTIONS if you have a magnetized white board:
- Draw a horizontal line as a “stage floor.” Place him there to show the difference between a leap and jump, a hop and jump; and other desired elevations and landings.
- Draw a flat parallelogram (2-D) for a “stage” and set him “on it”: downstage, center stage, stage left, etc.
- Place several dancer magnets on the board to show different relationships in space.
- Let several dancer magnets demo general space, personal space; near and far space; high, middle, and low space, and other spatial placements.
Made of recycled material with numerous nearly-invisible mini-magnets on the back, the DANCER is at home on any magnetized surface (not provided) and works from there. But his favorite surface is a white magnet board where he is able to have his words put into a “comment bubble.”
