Ideas for Teaching Choreographic Tools
Questions for students to consider as you explore different tools:
- How did this choice change the way you perceived the movement?
- Why might a choreographer make a choice like this?
- Can you use this tool to support the intention of your choreography? How?
Generation
Which parts of your body are involved?
Take a look at our Improvisation video for inspiration on exploring different movement qualities.
Task:
Round 1:
Students “write” their name with one part of their body. (The hand that they usually write with is a good place to start.) They can imagine that the paper is on the floor, in front of them, above them…
Round 2:
Students try writing their name with other body parts – elbow, knee, hip, nose…
Round 3:
Students write their first name with one body part and their surname with another part. Then they try to write both at the same time.
Pathways within the Body
How does the movement travel through your body?
Take a look at our Pathways Guided Improvisation Video
Eye Focus
Where are you looking?
Task:
Round 1:
With half the class observing and half the class dancing, ask students to try these following prompts and discuss how their eye focus changed
- Connecting to things that are close to you
- Connecting to things that are far away from you, even beyond the walls of the room
- Including the audience
- Ignoring the audience
- Confronting the audience
Round 2:
Students work through a dance and choreograph their eye focus throughout – this is a great exercise for performance preparation.