Study Guide

 

 

Can watching or making dance enhance your problem solving skills? Can it help you do better on a math test? A physics lesson? The playing field? You bet it can! When we make a dance, we're constantly testing ourselves, trying to put movements together in different combinations- exploring the boundless possibilities within our bodies and minds.

Does the chair you're sitting in have only one use or can it be seen and used in other ways? Could it be a stepstool? A pedestal? A fort? A door jam?

How about the shirt on your back? Is it just a shirt or could it be a turban, a sail on a pirate ship, or a fishing net? 

How about the person next to you? Do they have only one mood or do they have a multi-faceted personality? If you look closely, you might be surprised by some of the things that person can say or do.

Everyone and everything has a story to tell. We just have to train ourselves to look at things in different ways to discover what those stories can be. 

EXPLORE THE POSSIBILLITIES!

 

Following are some suggestions to enhance the experience for students both in preparation for and as a follow up to the performance.

 

Suggestions for Activities in the classroom

Motion 360 is a physical show and an inspirational show with the goal of getting young people working together to find solutions. Therefore exercises that get students on their feet and allow them to imagine, create, work together and play will probably be the most effective follow up to this performance.

 

(In groups of 1, 2 or 3)

Have each student choose an object to use in the exercises. It can be something brought in or found on the spot.

Create a dance using the object as a partner. Have the rest of the class first watch in silence and then provide the rhythm or accompaniment for the dance.

Repeat the exercise and have another student use the same object in a different way. Does this change the accompaniment?

Come up with a very simple story. Using the objects, try to tell this story without words.

Choose a simple task (e.g. folding a towel, stacking textbooks) then give the group an obstacle to performing that task (e.g. clasp their hands behind their backs, wear blindfolds). Which is more interesting to watch? To perform?

 

(entire Class)

Music

Listen to all kinds of music. Music you have never heard before, or music that you thought you didn't like. Play a song. Find a different version of the same song. Is it different when someone else plays it? Explore what it is you like or dislike about a certain type of music. Listen, explore and listen some more!

Have them sing or play their own versions of songs they know. (America the Beautiful to a reggae beat?!?)

 

Transformation

Trade shoes with a classmate (all the better if they're too big or too small), put on a hat, hike your pants up too high, etc. How do these things change the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you feel, the way you approach other people? Does it make you more bold? Shy? Silly? Serious? Just play.

Make masks from paper plates, paper bags or any found objects. Do they create a character? Do they change your posture, voice, personality? Explore the differences.

 

Suggestions for Creative Writing

Write a life story using the first person (i.e. a monologue).

Identify a difference in yourself. How are you different from other people? How can this difference be used to your advantage? How does it make you special? How can you use it to help others? Write about it.

Think of someone you know who has struggled with being different. Maybe its you. How do others treat this person? How do you treat this person? How might this person overcome these difficulties? How could you help this person?

 

Subjects for Lecture or Classroom Discussion

There are any number of academic tie-ins to be explored with the Motion 360 show, including creative problem solving (which serves any subject from math to sciences to the arts), the physics of balance and movement (sports, the arts, physics) and historical uses of ritual arts in cultures from the cavemen to the present (history, social studies, religion). The following are some of the more straightforward possibilities for classroom discussion.

DANCE is an ancient form that has been used in ritual from primitive times to the present day. Its uses include magic ceremonies to control forces of nature (fertility, weather, the hunt) or other people (courtship, war, peace), or to celebrate these and other events (the passage into adulthood, birth, death). Its form can be mimetic, to depict certain people, animals, gods or expressive, to convey an emotional state to the audience or to create one for the dancer (this can culminate in a state of trance or possession as in the whirling dervishes). Dance has evolved over the years into an art form, used sometimes for pure entertainment (pop culture, MTV), as a storytelling device (certain ballets), as an athletic event (even figure skating! and ballroom dancing) and a means of social interaction (school dance).

Discuss what dance means to students. Compare ballet to MTV. What are the similarities? How does watching dance make you feel? How do you feel when you are dancing? Compare a school dance to a courtship dance of wild birds. Discuss different styles of dance such as ballet, jazz, tap, modern, hip hop. Discuss cultural differences in type and function of dance as well as differences of gesture and body language? What is body language? Can it be used to make a dance?

MASKS have much the same origins as dance (see above) and are used primarily for transformation. We use masks to create characters, to express emotions, to teach, to disguise, to empower and to be larger than life. From ritual masks (e.g. animals in the hunt, gods) to comedy (circus clowns and commedia dell'arte) to Halloween to Broadway (Phantom of the Opera), masks are everywhere in our lives.

What kinds of masks do we see everyday? What makes a mask? Are eyeglasses enough? A cap? A moustache and/or beard? An attitude? Discuss super heroes. Some use masks to disguise their true identities. Do we do that too? Some use masks to give them their special powers. Discuss super models. Do they wear some kind of mask? Does wearing a mask make you feel or act differently?

 

 

Live Performance and Theatre Etiquette 101

Before attending a performance it is often useful to discuss live performance. How is it different from a movie theatre, television, living room or classroom? Those who have seen live performance may want to share their experience with others.

Talk before or after the performance only. Remember the people near you and on stage can hear you.

Appropriate responses to the performance, such as laughing, applauding, and responding to questions are appreciated.

 

 

Suggested Reading and Viewing and Listening

E.E. Cummings. Selected Poems. Liveright Publishing. 1994.

 

Faustwork Mask Theatre- http://www.faustwork.com

 

A Thumbnail History of Commedia dell’Arte- http://www.davidclaudon.com/arte/commedia.html

 

Dance in America Series. Pilobolus. Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 1977-

http://www.pilobolus.com

 

The Physics of Dance- http://www.hep.uiuc.edu/home/g-gollin/dance/dance_physics.html

 

Peter Schickele. The recordings of P.D.Q. Bach. (any recordng)

 

Bobby Mcferrin and Jack Nicholson. The Elephant's Child by Rudyard Kipling. (CD)

 

HBO Films. Stomp Out Loud.

 

The Sweet Sunny North- Henry Kaiser and David Lindley in Norway. Shanachie Records. 2005

 

The Odyssey by Homer. Many versions available for all ages.