Unit 26 - Choreographing dance

Friday 13^th October

Today I went into the primary school with my dance lecturer Laura for my first teaching session. The purpose of going into the primary school today was to teach a group of children a piece of choreography that I have been working on over the past couple of weeks. From working with the children and watching how they dance, I will then liaise with my dance teacher and she will help me pick one of the girls to continue to work with me throughout this academic year on a piece for the end of year showcase.

The primary school that I will be teaching at is St Paul’s C of E Primary School in Hereford. The school is a lovely size and I think I will work well with the children of the school.

When we arrived at the school we were given the final list of the children who would be taking part in the session. We already had a draft list of names of the children who had signed up to the workshop before today but we some of the children couldn’t participate because they hadn’t brought their form back into school. We were told on Wednesday that we would be teaching the children in 3 small groups for 20 minutes. However, we were now just teaching 2 groups but still for 20 minutes. The first group of children would be from the older year groups and the second group was made up of children from the younger year groups.

The first group consisted of 2 girls – Emily and Eve. To start with, there was a confusion with the room which we were meant to be using so we had to make do with the music room which was quite small but just about had enough room for the 3 of us. However, we did move a few of the things around in the room to make sure that we were utilising as much of the space as we could. I started by taking the girls through a short warmup. The warmup didn’t need to be too long as I didn’t have much time to teach the girls the choreography and I wanted to make sure that I was able to teach the group a reasonable amount of choreography. Just after I started teaching the girls the choreography, we were told that we were able to move to the main hall which meant that we would have a lot more space. I noticed a massive difference in the way the girls moved from the smaller room to the bigger room. Fortunately, the girls picked up the choreography very quickly and I was able to teach them half of my choreographed material. As I was going through the choreography I kept making sure that the moves were clear and that they understood. There was one time when Eve asked a question about one of the moves and I answered the question by demonstrating the move and explaining it at the same time. As it was coming to the end of the 20 minutes, I lead a cool down just to stretch out the muscles before the girls went back to their lessons. Here are a few pictures which my dance teacher took whilst I was teaching the first group:

Looking back and reflecting on this teaching session, I felt like this first group went ok. I was very nervous before and at the start because this is something which I have never done before and although the dance material is in my comfort zone, the teaching element is definitely outside of my comfort zone. I think that being in the smaller room also knocked my confidence slightly as I was weary of my surroundings and was worrying to what extent I could perform the moves but once we had moved rooms, I felt like I became more at ease. I think the girls did really well and that they picked up the choreography really quickly. Both of the girls moved really well to the music and had really good timing.

Moving on to teaching the second group of children. This group was made up of slightly more children but generally of younger ages. I started this session by giving the children a brief as to what we were going to be doing in the session and then asking for all of the children to take off their shoes and socks. I then took the group through the same warmup as I did with the first group. The warmup was pre-choreographed so I didn’t need to worry about this too much. After the short warmup due to the time limit, I moved onto taking the children through the same choreography as I taught the first group. Because the group were able to pick up the dance so quickly, I was also able to teach them half of the choreography. There was one move in particular which the group weren’t quite getting correct so we spent some time working on this. Once it was coming to the end of the session, I took the group through a short cool down. Here is a video and some pictures of me teaching the second group:

I think that I handled the second group a lot better and easier than the first group. I think this is because I was in the swing of teaching and I was becoming more confident with what I was doing. I think also being in the bigger room helped a lot and the fact that I had a bigger group of children so the room wasn’t as silent as the first group. Also, something that I did in the second session and didn’t do in the first was give the group a brief of what I was going to be doing in the session. I think this made both me and the group more relaxed and maybe this is something that I should have done with the first group. The children worked really hard during this session and I didn’t think that they were going to pick up the choreography as quickly as the first group because they were much younger but they picked it up really well.

The whole purpose of the session today was to teach the children the choreography and then select a girl who I was going to be able to dance with. From watching both of the groups whilst they were learning the choreography, I selected 2 girls, one from each group, who I thought picked up the choreography well and moved really well. However, it was quite hard to select the girls because I was facing away from the children for most of the session because I was teaching them the choreography. But from what I did see and after speaking to Laura, we decided on the 2 girls.

Once we had left the primary school, I had a discussion with my dance teacher, Laura and she gave me some feedback on how she thought the session went. Overall, the feedback was positive and Laura said that I did well considering it was my first time teaching a group of children in a primary school setting. Here are some points that she made of what she thought went well:

·     You showed good spatial awareness during the warmup (especially to start off with when we were in the smaller room)

·     You encouraged the children.

·     You made sure the children understood and gave them opportunities to ask questions.

·     You gave the children chances to do the choreography without you.

·     The mirroring helped aid them before doing it without your input.

·     You gave a clear answer accompanied with a clear demonstration such as when Eve asked about the turn.

·     You then followed this up to make sure that she could do it confidently and independently.

On the other hand, I did feel like there are lots of things which I could have improved on. Laura gave me some points of which she thought I could work and improve on. These are:

·     Allow the music to continue playing and count the children back in to start the choreography from the beginning to allow them a more continuous run-through with the music.

·     Be conscious of where the children are standing in relation to where they are going to be moving to so they don’t end up getting crushed up at one side.

·     Be a bit more relaxed when teaching as this will make you feel and come across as more confident when teaching the children.

I completely agree with all the feedback that Laura has given me and I will take all of this into consideration when I come back into the primary school to teach the child who I will be dancing with in the end of year showcase.

The 2 girls that I have selected today are called Eve and Maisie. Because I was unable to decide which girl was going to be able to perform in the show the best and didn’t know which one had the most potential, I left it down for the school to decide who was going to be given the part. After a few days we heard back that the school have selected Eve to be the girl who will dance with me in the show.

I am very excited to start working with Eve and start choreographing a piece which will include interaction between the 2 of us and will weave into our end of year showcase. I will start working with Eve in a few weeks.