Kerri Fitzgerald Education Plus, University of Canterbury & Patrice O'Brien National Facilitator, Secondary Dance

Challenge

Class: Year 9 or 10

Level : 4

Duration: 2 – 3 weeks (about 6 – 8 sessions)

Overview

This is a suitable unit for near the beginning of a dance programme and is particularly appealing to boys. Students explore gestures and body postures associated with a challenge or confrontation, and develop ideas into short dance sequences using the structure of call and response. Students also view and discuss haka performances focussing on the quality and energy of delivery. To do this unit students need to have prior knowledge of the dance elements and will learn some choreographic devices in the unit.

Resources

Ministry of Education Dance Wall Charts

Haka information:

  • Newspaper and magazine articles
  • Books and the internet
  • Ministry of Education Ihi FreNZy
  • Ministry of Education Discovering Dance DVD and Teaching Notes on TKI

DVD’s of other genres showing dance challenges e.g

  • You Got Served
  • West Side Story (Opening dance)
  • Tap Dogs
  • Stomp
  • Any flamenco footage (local video shops and libraries)

Achievement Objectives

Developing Practical Knowledge in Dance: Level 4

Students will use elements of dance to share personal movement vocabularies and to explore the vocabularies of others.

Developing Ideas in Dance: Level 5

Students will explore and use choreographic structures to give form to dance ideas.

Communicate and Interpret Dance: Level 4

Students will present dance for a particular purpose and record responses to their own and others' dance.

Understand dance in Context: Level 4

Students will explore and describe how dance is used for different purposes in a variety of cultures.

Specific Learning Outcomes

Students will use elements of dance to develop a movement vocabulary based on aspects of a challenge or a confrontation and will share movement ideas with others in pairs and small groups. (PK)

Students, in groups of 4-5, will explore and use choreographic devices to shape this movement vocabulary into short dance phrases. (DI)

Students will perform the phrases to an opposing ‘team’ using the structure of call and response. The other students will act as an audience and interpret the “challenge” providing a verbal response. (CI)

Students will explore and describe how the haka is used to challenge. They will identify the key movements of a Haka and will understand the purpose of haka in a variety of contexts. They will analyse the movement of at least one haka that communicates a challenge. (PK, CI, UC)

Suggested Learning Sequence

The numbering refers to steps in the process rather than periods of work. When starting each lesson review parts of previous lesson and include a physical warm-up e.g. repeat the game, repeat the haka moves, repeat the viewing of haka and other genres that show a challenge.

  1. Play the drama game “Where Do You Come From” which has the call and response structure to be incorporated into dance making later.

Instructions:

Line up students at either side of the space in 2 teams. Team 2 has time-out to decide a country they might come from e.g. Africa and what activity/work they do there e.g. Digging for diamonds.

The 2 opposing teams march towards each other chanting.

Call:Team 1 “ Where do you come from?”

(with 4 steps forward using the rhythm of the chant)

Response: Team 2 “ We come from Africa”

(take 4 steps towards the opposing team)

Call: Team 1 “What do you do there?”

( 4 more steps closer to team 2)

Response: Team 2 “Something beginning with D”

They then mime the activity whilst the opposing team calls out what they think they are doing.

Once it is guessed correctly they chase team 2 back to the wall they came from. Anyone tagged has to join Team 1. Team 1 now decides where they come from and what they do there and the game continues!

Teacher leads discussion on the structure and uses of call and response. Refer Arts Curriculum Dance Glossary p32.

  1. Teacher uses gestures only to signal to the class to respond and move

e.g. gather, sit, lie down, stand, jump, stop, move towards the door, sit, stand, gather, spread out, stop

The teacher then gives signals that need to be interpreted by the class e.g. a rolling movement of the hands. This could be interpreted as meaning to roll on the floor or turn.

Teacher guides discussion re using movement to signal a response; a conversation without words.

Students do the signalling task in pairs. Imagine one is the master and the other the slave. Students, playing the master, must communicate by gesture only what they are instructing their partner, the slave, to do.

The teacher instructs the “master” student to become increasingly abstract so that the “slave” partner has to interpret the movement and respond accordingly.

Share some results of this work by having 2 – 3 pairs demonstrating their slaves.

  1. View and discuss some examples of dances that use call and response. See list of resources.
  1. Discuss the Hakaand how it is used often as a challenge. Set a research task if appropriate, or use student experts, community experts or teacher knowledge to discuss the use of haka as challenge.

View the All Black Haka (or other haka performances) on Discovering Dance.

Students stand in a circle and in turn make a shape from the haka they have viewed. They then action these shapes by doing the movement that came before or after the shape.

Discuss with students the attitude and energy of the delivery of the haka e.g. dynamic, threatening & strong. List words on the whiteboard.

5.Compile on the white board, a list of the parts there might be to a battle or challenge. Group these under the 4 headings below.

  • to threaten
  • to persuade
  • to retreat
  • to surrender

Discuss the different types and energies of movement from each of these categories. Explain to the students that they will be making dance phrases in groups based on each of these parts of a challenge.

Ask students to find a number of ways of threatening in movement only. They might try these movements out on the teacher or another student.

  1. Form pairs. Select material from the exercise above to form a dance phrase that suggests the idea of threatening. Continue to develop this phrase adding ideas given by the teacher so that the phrase becomes more abstract and less like the original literal gestures students are likely to have chosen e.g. Add:
  2. body percussion,
  3. a turn,
  4. more than one body base
  5. interesting rhythms
  6. repetition of one of the gestures.

This phrase needs to be performed in unison.

  1. In the same pairs develop a phrase for another dance phrase chosen from of surrender, retreat and persuade using the process above. When performed:
  • Threaten - must be performed in unison
  • Persuade – must use a grouping with different levels
  • Retreat - must move to a different space in the room
  • Surrender – must use cannon

This gives students a clear structure to work from.

  1. Students join up with another pair to make groups of 4. This is their Challenge Team. Students learn each other’s phrases and so that each group has 4 phrases; 2 threaten phrases and 2 others. Decide on an order for the phrases and rehearse. Students will freeze at the end of each phrase, looking straight ahead as soon they will be facing another Challenge Team. Remind students about what call and response involves. Each group now has 4 sequences (the calls) with stillness in between each to allow for another group to respond in movement (the responses).
  1. Students develop a way to notate their dance phrases using any system that they understand.
  1. Call two Challenge teams together. Toss a coin. The team who wins the toss gets a preview of the other team’s ‘Challenge’ then has limited time out to put their phrases into a different order (if they wish.)

Two teams line up on either side of the room and the 2 teams perform their challenge in the structure of Call and Response. Team 1 is the team that lost the toss; Team 2 is the team that won the toss.

Team 1 Performs phrase 1 (then freezes)

Team 2Responds with their first phrase (then freezes)

Team 1Performs second phrase (then freezes)

Team 2 Responds with their second phrase (then freezes)

(and so on until all phrases have been performed)

  1. The rest of the class observes other groups confronting and challenging each other and interprets the meaning and outcome of the ‘Challenge’ and provides feedback.

Give them specific things to look for and respond to e.g.

  • Which group appears the strongest?
  • Which group used canon successfully?
  • What sections of body percussion worked well?
  • How did the teams respond to facing the challenges from the other team?
  • Which sections were particularly effective? Why?

Extension

Find out about dances that originate from martial arts, are about battle or that use weaponry of some sort. Here are some ideas;

  • Capoeira
  • Chinese Sword Dances (see Discovering Dance)
  • Highland Dance
  • Poi Dance
  • The Ballet Soldatenmis

Assessment

Below are examples of questions that can be used for assessment.

Self

Have I found gestures for each of the aspects of a challenge? ie threaten, retreat etc.

How have I contributed to the development of dance ideas?

What dance elements have I used?

What do I know about the use of haka as a challenge?

Peer

Have we chosen and developed 2 phrases following the specifications given?

Did we learn/teach the phrases of others in our group well?

Are we communicating effectively?

Are we using the space effectively?

Are we using contrasting interesting rhythms?

Does our use of energy clearly and appropriately show an aspect of a challenge?

Have we rehearsed thoroughly?

Teacher

Has the group developed an effective range of movement?

Is the meaning clear?

Have the dancers followed the structure given?

Is it performed with focus and intensity to reflect the purpose of aspects of challenge?