For those of you who are coming to visit for the first time, this space holds a collection of Wiki's or pages that can be updated, added to and utilised for classwork, a lot like Wikipedia in that it is able to grow.
On the right hand side you will see an index of pages that already exist. Some are made by past and present class members and some are added by me as reference pages. Have a click around and see what you can find. Some pages have not been used by classmates and some have. These pages are up to you to work on and if you want to alert people to the fact that you have added stuff you want them to see, you can let us know via facebook by inserting a link to your page. You can just update your page for yourself too.
There are other functions such as “Projects” too, which I haven't had a chance to play around with and work out properly but when I do, I'll let you know! If any of you have used Wikispaces before in other classes let me know if you have any tips on how we can better use this tool.
FRED ASTAIRE'S ROYAL WEDDING.
Unit 1 & 3 Focus;
Keywords : Expressive Intention, Body Actions and Physical Skills
These terms need to be learnt/revised.
EXPRESSIVE INTENTION.
The main idea behind the movement. The intention the choreographer wishes to express to his or her audience.
BODY ACTIONS
The body actions to be learnt and analysed are: Gesture, Locomotion, Elevation, Falling, Turning, Stillness. A great way to remember them is GLEFTS.
GESTURE
Small movements, usually made by the hands and arms to communicate a feeling or universal sign, ie a wave hello, a tip of the hat, one hand held up to communicate “Stop”. They can be more abstract in classical and contemporary dance styles such as a port de bra with the arms slowly opening as the dancer presents herself in a gesture that communicates “I am here” or even more abstracted in contemporary dance.
Find examples of Astaire's use of gesture in this dance. What is he communicating through these gestures?
LOCOMOTION
Ways of travelling. We can locomote by hopping, walking, running, skipping, any succession of movements that get the dancer from A – B.
How does Astaire use locomotion? Does his locomotion build during the work? Which directions does he use when locomoting? What does his increase on locomotion communicate?
ELEVATION
Jumps and leaps, but also elevating one body part from a lower plane to a higher plane, such as leg and arm elevations.
How is elevation used by Astaire in this dance? What does his use of elevation communicate?
FALLING
Moves that take the dancer to the floor, also body parts that fall from one plane to another, again arms and legs falling or a plie can be seen as a fall, collapsing the torso to fall.
Does Astaire use falls in this dance? If so what do the use of falls communicate?
TURNING
Any movement that turns, there are so many varied ways to turn, one foot to two feet, two feet to one, turns in fifth alternating feet, elevated turns, turns into the floor.
How does Astaire use turns to communicate the intention of this dance?
STILLNESS.
To come to a complete stop.
Does Astaire use stillness? To what effect?
PHYSICAL SKILLS
The list of Physical Skills are:
Alignment Balance Co-ordination Flexibility Muscular Strength and Control Stamina Transference of Weight
Each of these skills are required to execute the above body actions safely.
Make a list of the Body Actions and match the Physical Skills required to safely perform that action. ie) The body action of turning requires the physical skill of balance. Describe how the body maintains balance during a turn. What do we need to do to achieve strong consistent balance?
Then go through the examples of body actions that Astaire used througout the Newspaper Dance in Summer Stock and add in what Physical Skills are required to safely complete the movement.
Try to link to accurate muscle groups, placement of body parts etc to detail out your answer. If you are unsure do some research on the internet and see what you come up with. If you are unsure of any of the physical skills, have a go, it doesn't matter if you get it wrong, have a try and we'll go over them many times in class.
JOURNALS
Make sure you have updated your journal with last weeks activity.
Describe:
The activity we did,
Your choreography of your own phrase,
How you learnt your partners phrase,
The differences and similaritites you found in each other's style.
How you worked together.
What it felt like performing.
Other duo's you watched and what you liked about them.
Click on the link to find a useful timeline for creating your solo. This is particularly focused on the Unit 3/4 solo's as Unit 1's have less criteria to focus on but well worth printing out and sticking in your Dance Journals.
PLEASE NOTE: This is taken from the old study design and some of the terminlolgy is now out of date. The principles are the same though and it is still a great resource to keep you on an 8 week timeline.
Week 1 on your Solo.
UNIT 1.
Think about what you might want to dance about if you are in Unit 1. Choose a simple idea or theme (no complicated narrative) to explore through movement. Your idea might come from nature, science or art, look to the outside world for inspiration. We will leave internal ideas such as emotions and psychology for next term.
Write the following example intention out in your journal:
Hurricane
Beginning: The calm before the storm.
Development: The Hurricane blows in
The eye of the storm, eeriely quiet
Continues to destroy
Resolution: The devastion of the land after the hurricane has moved on.
What kind of movements can you picture using in this example?
What body actions and physical skills might you use?
How would they be different in each section?
Does this intention inspire a range of body actions?
Now...
Surround yourself with books, magazines, encyclopedia's, fabric anything that will get you thinking. You might want to cut up a magazine choosing favorite colours, shapes, images. Stick things in your journal. Go for a rwalk with your journal and some glue or tape and pick up things you find and tape them in. Your journal can get messy, stick in leaves or flowers or draw a picture of something that catches your attention, an old car or anything. It doesnt have to be good. It just has to remind you what caught your attention. Go outside at night and look at the stars and planets, research about the ones you dont know about.
Then...
Write out as many ideas as you can.
Choose three favorite ones
Set out a separate piece of paper into three sections for each idea:
Section 1 - Beginning
Section 2 - Development
Section 3 - Resolution
Choose the idea that presents itself most easily, did it devide into three parts without too much brain strain. Which idea unfolded naturally?
Can your idea be explored through three complimentary or contrasting sections? Does your idea "move"?
Starting to MOVE IT.
Choreograph a phrase to communicate an idea in each section. So three phrases. They can be short and long, infact a combination works well.
Remember these phrases by filming them on your camera and writing them down in your journal. You will show me next class. Don't stress if your not sure about them. This is week 1. Just Have A Go. There is no wrong at this point.
PS. All this is to be done with NO MUSIC. Not yet.
If you dont get up to the choreography part at least come with your three ideas chosen. So take the week to get this work done, especially the journalling of ideas. The more you can excite yourself and really look at the outside world the more richer the ideas.
UNIT 3
This solo is about showcasing your skill in technique. So you need to be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses
What are your strengths as a dancer? Don't be shy, what do you know you are good at, you can think in terms of body actions or style or favorite moves. List them in your journal. Why are you strong at these particular movements etc? Is it because you have good core strength, strong balance?
What presents a challenge for you in dance? Are you not so hot at turning? Are your hips a bit tight and restricted? What are your limitations? This is not a time to be self critical, we are standing outside ourselves and seeing what needs work. Be clear and be specific. You may be strong in the legs and weaker in the upper body.
Write out an action plan for you to improve your challenging area's. How will you improve strength in your left ankle? What specific routines or exercises might you put in place? Can you talk to your technique teacher and alert them to the improvements you wish to make so they can help you with specific feedback. Write out all these ideas in your journal and start your action plan.
Plan out your solo.
You can do some thinking as to how you might want to organise your body actions.
Plot out a grid;
Expressive Intention: To explore body actions and physical skills
Gesture
Locomotion
Elevation
Falling
Turning
Stillness
Beginning
Choose two Body Actions, how would you like to start?
What use of time, fast/slowSpace (angular and curved shape)? Energy?
for this section.
Development
Choose another two Body Actions, make them different from those
chosen in the beginning.
T/S/E?
Resolution
Choose the actions that you would like to resolve with.
T/S/E?
This doesnt mean that you don't use the body actions ever again after exploring each section, it just means they are your focus for each particular section, you will bring others in. But you have a main drive for each part of your solo.
You may wish to choose a theme or idea for expressive intention as this helps you choreograph. If so put the EI at the top and make sure you cover a range (3-4 variations) of each body action and fill out the grid as you would have if your EI was criteria based.
If you are new to Unit 3 and this makes no sense. Then wait til next week and I can clarify in class.
All this is a lot of work, so just work through it througout the week in smaller chunks, don't sit down and do it all at once, especially when it comes to your solo's. Give yourself time to be out and about in the world before you choose your ideas. You can text me or message me here or on email or facebook if you have any questions.
I haven't yet created a page for you all but I will soon enough. Til next week, happy dancing xx
You have your own page! Show us your favourite dance clips, photos or start a discussion, or an online choreographic journal. Notifications on any changes to a page will keep us all up to date. To use click on edit and play!
This is one of my favorites at the moment. It's really lovely and very well made
Welcome to our VCE Dance Wikispace for 2017!
For those of you who are coming to visit for the first time, this space holds a collection of Wiki's or pages that can be updated, added to and utilised for classwork, a lot like Wikipedia in that it is able to grow.
On the right hand side you will see an index of pages that already exist. Some are made by past and present class members and some are added by me as reference pages. Have a click around and see what you can find. Some pages have not been used by classmates and some have. These pages are up to you to work on and if you want to alert people to the fact that you have added stuff you want them to see, you can let us know via facebook by inserting a link to your page. You can just update your page for yourself too.
There are other functions such as “Projects” too, which I haven't had a chance to play around with and work out properly but when I do, I'll let you know! If any of you have used Wikispaces before in other classes let me know if you have any tips on how we can better use this tool.
FRED ASTAIRE'S ROYAL WEDDING.
Unit 1 & 3 Focus;
Keywords : Expressive Intention, Body Actions and Physical Skills
These terms need to be learnt/revised.EXPRESSIVE INTENTION.
The main idea behind the movement. The intention the choreographer wishes to express to his or her audience.
BODY ACTIONS
The body actions to be learnt and analysed are: Gesture, Locomotion, Elevation, Falling, Turning, Stillness.
A great way to remember them is GLEFTS.
GESTURE
Small movements, usually made by the hands and arms to communicate a feeling or universal sign, ie a wave hello, a tip of the hat, one hand held up to communicate “Stop”. They can be more abstract in classical and contemporary dance styles such as a port de bra with the arms slowly opening as the dancer presents herself in a gesture that communicates “I am here” or even more abstracted in contemporary dance.
LOCOMOTION
Ways of travelling. We can locomote by hopping, walking, running, skipping, any succession of movements that get the dancer from A – B.
ELEVATION
Jumps and leaps, but also elevating one body part from a lower plane to a higher plane, such as leg and arm elevations.
FALLING
Moves that take the dancer to the floor, also body parts that fall from one plane to another, again arms and legs falling or a plie can be seen as a fall, collapsing the torso to fall.
TURNING
Any movement that turns, there are so many varied ways to turn, one foot to two feet, two feet to one, turns in fifth alternating feet, elevated turns, turns into the floor.
STILLNESS.
To come to a complete stop.
PHYSICAL SKILLS
The list of Physical Skills are:
Alignment
Balance
Co-ordination
Flexibility
Muscular Strength and Control
Stamina
Transference of Weight
Each of these skills are required to execute the above body actions safely.
JOURNALS
Make sure you have updated your journal with last weeks activity.
Describe:
PRAC
Dance making timeline
Click on the link to find a useful timeline for creating your solo. This is particularly focused on the Unit 3/4 solo's as Unit 1's have less criteria to focus on but well worth printing out and sticking in your Dance Journals.
PLEASE NOTE: This is taken from the old study design and some of the terminlolgy is now out of date. The principles are the same though and it is still a great resource to keep you on an 8 week timeline.
Week 1 on your Solo.
UNIT 1.
Think about what you might want to dance about if you are in Unit 1. Choose a simple idea or theme (no complicated narrative) to explore through movement. Your idea might come from nature, science or art, look to the outside world for inspiration. We will leave internal ideas such as emotions and psychology for next term.Write the following example intention out in your journal:
Hurricane
Beginning: The calm before the storm.
Development: The Hurricane blows in
The eye of the storm, eeriely quiet
Continues to destroy
Resolution: The devastion of the land after the hurricane has moved on.
What kind of movements can you picture using in this example?
What body actions and physical skills might you use?
How would they be different in each section?
Does this intention inspire a range of body actions?
Now...
Surround yourself with books, magazines, encyclopedia's, fabric anything that will get you thinking. You might want to cut up a magazine choosing favorite colours, shapes, images. Stick things in your journal. Go for a rwalk with your journal and some glue or tape and pick up things you find and tape them in. Your journal can get messy, stick in leaves or flowers or draw a picture of something that catches your attention, an old car or anything. It doesnt have to be good. It just has to remind you what caught your attention. Go outside at night and look at the stars and planets, research about the ones you dont know about.
Then...
Write out as many ideas as you can.
Choose three favorite ones
Set out a separate piece of paper into three sections for each idea:
Section 1 - Beginning
Section 2 - Development
Section 3 - Resolution
Choose the idea that presents itself most easily, did it devide into three parts without too much brain strain. Which idea unfolded naturally?
Can your idea be explored through three complimentary or contrasting sections? Does your idea "move"?
Starting to MOVE IT.
Choreograph a phrase to communicate an idea in each section. So three phrases. They can be short and long, infact a combination works well.
Remember these phrases by filming them on your camera and writing them down in your journal. You will show me next class. Don't stress if your not sure about them. This is week 1. Just Have A Go. There is no wrong at this point.
PS. All this is to be done with NO MUSIC. Not yet.
If you dont get up to the choreography part at least come with your three ideas chosen. So take the week to get this work done, especially the journalling of ideas. The more you can excite yourself and really look at the outside world the more richer the ideas.
UNIT 3
This solo is about showcasing your skill in technique. So you need to be able to identify your strengths and weaknessesWhat are your strengths as a dancer? Don't be shy, what do you know you are good at, you can think in terms of body actions or style or favorite moves. List them in your journal. Why are you strong at these particular movements etc? Is it because you have good core strength, strong balance?
What presents a challenge for you in dance? Are you not so hot at turning? Are your hips a bit tight and restricted? What are your limitations? This is not a time to be self critical, we are standing outside ourselves and seeing what needs work. Be clear and be specific. You may be strong in the legs and weaker in the upper body.
Write out an action plan for you to improve your challenging area's. How will you improve strength in your left ankle? What specific routines or exercises might you put in place? Can you talk to your technique teacher and alert them to the improvements you wish to make so they can help you with specific feedback. Write out all these ideas in your journal and start your action plan.
Plan out your solo.
You can do some thinking as to how you might want to organise your body actions.
Plot out a grid;
Choose two Body Actions, how would you like to start?
What use of time, fast/slowSpace (angular and curved shape)? Energy?
for this section.
Choose another two Body Actions, make them different from those
chosen in the beginning.
T/S/E?
Choose the actions that you would like to resolve with.
T/S/E?
This doesnt mean that you don't use the body actions ever again after exploring each section, it just means they are your focus for each particular section, you will bring others in. But you have a main drive for each part of your solo.
You may wish to choose a theme or idea for expressive intention as this helps you choreograph. If so put the EI at the top and make sure you cover a range (3-4 variations) of each body action and fill out the grid as you would have if your EI was criteria based.
If you are new to Unit 3 and this makes no sense. Then wait til next week and I can clarify in class.
All this is a lot of work, so just work through it througout the week in smaller chunks, don't sit down and do it all at once, especially when it comes to your solo's. Give yourself time to be out and about in the world before you choose your ideas. You can text me or message me here or on email or facebook if you have any questions.
I haven't yet created a page for you all but I will soon enough. Til next week, happy dancing xx
You have your own page! Show us your favourite dance clips, photos or start a discussion, or an online choreographic journal. Notifications on any changes to a page will keep us all up to date. To use click on edit and play!
This is one of my favorites at the moment. It's really lovely and very well made