NATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS CURRICULUM SUPPORT
Dance
Advice and Guidance to Support
the Choreographic Process
[NATIONAL 5]
This advice and guidance has been produced to support the profession with the delivery of courses which are either new or which have aspects of significant change within the new national qualifications (NQ) framework.
The advice and guidance provides suggestions on approaches to learning and teaching. Practitioners are encouraged to draw on the materials for their own part of their continuing professional development in introducing new national qualifications in ways that match the needs of learners.
Practitioners should also refer to the course and unit specifications and support notes which have been issued by the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
Acknowledgement
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Contents
Mind map of educational relevance4
Exploring stimuli5
Discovering your theme12
Applying knowledge of technical skills andchoreographic
principles13
Appreciating safe dance practice15
Engaging with theatre arts and technology16
A choreographic plan23
Evaluation template24
Useful links and resources28
Appendix 1: Progress of development from stimulus to choreography31
Appendix 2: Theatre arts and technology plan template33
Appendix 3: Plan template for the choreographic process35
DANCE (NATIONAL 5)1
© Crown copyright 2012
ADVICE AND GUIDANCE
Mind map of educational relevance
Below is a mindmap for printing out and displaying over a double page spread. Click the image to view the file.
Exploring stimuli
Providing learners with a variety of stimuli to inspire them can develop creativity and encourage personalisation and choice.
Exploring stimuli task
Here is a suggestion of a task that could be used with learners over a lesson or series of lessons.
Learning intention
To learn about the variety of types of stimuli and generate my own personal ideas in response to this.
Success criteria
To have chosen the type of stimulus I would like to use for my choreographic piece and have a range of initial ideas that inspires the creation of my choreography.
Using Stimuli
The following includes information that could be given to learners and/or taught.
There are different types of stimuli to consider:
- auditory
- visual
- kinaesthetic
- tactile
- ideational.
Auditory stimuli
Music and sound can be a great source of inspiration and motivation for choreography.When listening to a piece of music or sound, consider the feelings evoked from that piece and why.What mood or atmosphere is created?How is that mood or atmosphere created by the piece?Is it due to the musical lyrics, tempo or rhythms?
You may wish to explore a range of genres of music and types of sound, perhaps a genre which you are unfamiliar with.As a starting point visit:
Movement response
What movements are inspired from a reaction to the auditory stimulus?
Consider the form, shape and style of dance that would suit the music and/or sound.
Responding to lyrics
Action words may be performed literally, eg pull, kneel, etc, or lyrics may be responded to symbolically, for example to kneel before someone means to be under authority.How could this struggle and conflict of power be represented in the dance?Perhaps it could be convey by the use of levels in a paired dance.
Is there a narrative, message or theme you have noticed from the lyrics?Perhaps one word has a strong impact for you and you may choose to explore this further.
Sound response
There may a selection of sounds, eg one instrument or sound effect, which may inspire a piece of movement.Consider everyday sounds, noises, voices, laughter, etc as a stimulus.
Creating music
Alternatively, you may compose your own sound or music, or work in collaboration with others to create a piece of music to suit your intentions. You may choose to combine several pieces of music and edit them together to create a unique track for your choreography.An example of a dance company that often does this is the British street dance troupe Diversity.Their use of edited music often creates an impact.Also keep in mind pauses or breaks in music and sound, or silences that can be effective in creating tension.
Auditory stimuli task
Learning intention:to explore how music can be a source of inspiration for a dance.
Success criteria:I understand how inspirational music can be in creating a piece of choreography and could now apply this to my dance.
The suggestions above could be used in a series of lessons shaped around the following:
movement response
responding to lyrics
sound response
creating music.
You may teach all aspects or alternatively divide the class into groups, each with a different focus.They can then perform their group choreography and share their findings with the rest of the group.They may discuss their process from stimulus to performance, and any ideas used and discarded.They can also evaluate the skills they used and think about how they can begin to apply this to their own choreography as all pieces will have music and/or sound.
Teaching approach
This would be a useful exercise in groups as it will develop learners’ confidence in choreography.Learners should be given opportunities to work in groups or in pairs to develop the skills used when choreographing before working on their own.
Further task
As their confidence is developed, learners could be asked to respond individually to short pieces of different types of music and to improvise movements.This could be challenging but if learners can be encouraged to feel comfortable working in this way, the response could be highly creative.If recorded, this could document improvised choreography in response to music, and sequences may be included in their final piece.
There may be opportunities here to work in an interdisciplinary manner with music practitioners and learners, for example in creating music.The dance class or groups within this class could be set a task to respond to music that has been composed by a learner as part of units in music (may be more
suitable for Higher Music).Or music learners could work with dance learners to create or edit a unique piece of music to accompany their dance.
Visual stimuli
This type of stimuli encompasses anything that can be seen.Pictures, images, posters, photographs, art, colours, objects, personal belongings, clothes and anything in the world around you can all be used as stimuli for further exploration.What is your aesthetic response to what you see?That is, how do you feel when you look at this stimulus?Does it have bright colours and evoke happiness?Is it dark and what does this suggest?You may discuss with others the visual representations of this stimulus, eg does it mean something different to someone else?
Your visual stimulus may have been created by you or by others.It may be an artist’s piece of work or a personal photograph you took of your favourite location.
Visual stimuli task
Learning intention: to explore how objects can be a source of inspiration for a dance.
Success criteria: I understand how using my imagination in response to objects can lead to a piece of choreography and could now apply this to my dance.
Learners can be asked to bring in an object and describe it to others in the class. From this, a selection of objects could be chosen from which to generate ideas. There is a number of ways that this could be done.One way could be for the class to select one object that generated the best response and a variety of ideas. From this, learners could be set a group or paired task to create a dance sequence based on their response and ideas. This need not be a full dance. The outcome will be a wide mix of choreography from one single stimulus. This will help to communicate to learners how stimuli can be used and how creative their choreographic piece can be.
There may be opportunities here to work in an interdisciplinary manner with art practitioners and learners by using a piece of artwork created by learners in the art department.Dance learners could discuss their initial response and then the art learner could contribute their inspiration, and the ideas used to create a dance or sequence.
Kinaesthetic stimuli
There may be a specific style of dance, movement or step that you wish to explore as a starting point for the choreography of your piece.If it is a specific step you wish to include or build from, consider where you want to include it in your piece and if you wish to repeat it for emphasis.What does this step communicate to the audience?
You may have one movement or several that you choose to use, for example you may decide that you wish your dance to include many elevated steps and there may be reasons for this.
It may be that an action word is the basis of your movement and kinaesthetic stimulus.
Kinaesthetic stimuli task
Learning intention:to explore how steps can be the starting point of a dance.
Success criteria:I can develop a dance from a set of steps and could now apply this to my choreographed piece
Practitionerscould create a step or sequence and teach it to a group.Groups can then use their given steps to develop their piece yet further.They will have to take into consideration the style of steps given.The practitioner can decide if they should choreograph to the same piece of music or choose music to suit the steps created.
There may be opportunities here to work in an interdisciplinary manner with PE practitioners and learners.The dance class may go and watch a PE class at any activity and focus on their movements.They may then select some of these movements and develop a motif from this.Another approach could be to divide the dance class to watch a variety of activities, eg football, hockey, trampoline, aerobics.
Tactile stimuli
‘Tactile’ means perceptible by touch and tangible, therefore this type of stimulus focuses on what you can feel.You may select pieces of materials to feel whilst blindfolded and verbally describe your response to this.Materials can include a variety of items, including objects and surfaces around you.
Your response to what you feel may influence the style and feel of your dance and the mood and atmosphere you wish to create through your choreography.
Consider other senses that could evoke a different type of feeling, such as an emotion, eg scents.
Tactile stimuli task
Learning intention:to explore how other senses, such as touch and smell, can be a source of inspiration for a dance.
Success criteria:I understand how using my imagination in response to tactile stimuli can lead to a piece of choreography and could now apply this to my dance.
Learners can be blindfolded and asked to offer their response to what they feel or smell.Alternatively, a secret box could be created for learners to put their hands into and feel what is within.Learners could describe this process and their response as a starting point for their choreography, for example they explore the feeling of anticipation, fear of the unknown.
There may be opportunities here to work in an interdisciplinary manner with art, design and technology, and home economics practitioners and learners.The secret boxes could be created by the design and technology learners or home economics learners.
Ideational stimuli
This includes ideas and responses stemming from themes, stories, words, emotions, people and relationships.It could focus on characters or stories from poems, books, plays, films, television programmes, adverts, posters, songs, facts, issues or news articles.What sparks your interest in this ideational stimulus?
A range of themes you may consider exploring are love, war, hate, nature, jealousy, pride, the elements (earth, air, fire, water), anger, pity, bullying, conflict, friendship, bravery, law or confinement, power, and many more.
Your choreography from ideational stimuli may result in you aiming to communicate a meaning or message and to tell a story or part of a story.
Ideational stimuli task
Learning intention:to explore how text can be a source of inspiration for a dance.
Success criteria:I understand how using my imagination in response to text can lead to a piece of choreography and could now apply this to my dance.
Learners can be asked to bring in a piece of text that interests them.They could share this with other learners and then create an individual dance sequence in response to the themes that have emerged.
There may be opportunities here to work in an interdisciplinary manner with drama and English practitioners and learners, who often use stimuli as a starting point for drama.The dance class may watch a drama performance and use those themes to create their choreography.Alternatively, the drama and dance practitioners may give their learners the same themes and they may perform alongside each other.The dance learners may use texts that they are studying or writing in English as their chosen ideational stimulus.
Approach to exploring types of stimuli
Learners may choose one type of stimulus to focus on or a range of types of stimuli to explore initially.They may choose to combine types of stimuli to explore for ideas, for example auditory and kinaesthetic stimuli.Practitioners may wish to prepare one example of each type of stimuli to use as a starting point for discussion, investigation and practical experimentation.This could lead to an exercise of improvising in groups or as a class in order to provide learners with a context of the range of types of stimuli and how to develop them into performance before allowing for more personalisation and choice.
Learners’ themes may take into account social and cultural influences and there may be specific issues that the learners wish to explore.
Use of film
All of the above activities will develop learners’ understanding of using stimuli for choreography and their creative process could be documented by filming.All the sequences created could be edited together.This would allow learners to see their journey and the different types of movement pieces created from a variety of stimuli.This film itself could be used as a stimulus for further exploration.
Discovering your theme
Once learners have explored the types of stimuli, they should aim to select those they have responded to most for further investigation.The following is advice learners could be given or taught.
Selecting your stimulus/stimuli
This may be the type of stimulus that you were most interested in or that gave you the most ideas.You should know the reasons why you selected the stimulus and the ideas it gave you.
Further investigation
Aim to do more research on your chosen stimulus.Do you know everything about your stimulus?Consider the following, which may be appropriate to your type of stimulus:
- Where did it come from?
- Who does it belong to?
- Where else might you find this?
- Who else might use this?
- How does this stimulus make you feel?
- What does it make you think?
Exercises for further development of ideas
- Thought-storm.
- Mind-map of ideas.
- Research on internet or library.
- Discuss your stimulus with others – what is their response?
Theme: once you know your theme
- What movements represent and symbolise your theme?
- What message do you want to communicate, if any?
- What mood and atmosphere can represent this?
Appendix 1 is a template of questions to consolidate learning at this stage.
Applying knowledge of technical skills and choreographic principles
Knowledge of technical skills
From their work on technical skills, learners will be aware of a range of styles of dance and this will inform them of styles they wish to use for their choreography.Styles could include ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary, street dance, hip hop, salsa, ballroom, Latin, Indian, African, Highland, Irish and many more.
Learners should have a chance to explore a range of styles of dance and the principles and steps associated with these styles.
In order to build confidence they may have combined characteristic steps from chosen styles and created short movement pieces in groups or pairs.
Building from techniques and knowledge gained, they may begin to experiment individually and to choreograph longer movement sequences.
Choreographic principles
As part of their choreography learners will be developing their knowledge of choreographic skills, structures and devices which they can then apply, including:
- devices:repetition, retrograde, embellishment, instrumentation, fragmentation, use of levels, size and dynamic quality for movement
- spatial elements: pathways, shape, formations, staging
- structures: narrative, call and response, motif and development, chance, ABA, binary, ternary.
Activities could explore creating individual movements by teaching dance actions and how they can be developed by using choreographic devices including levels, size, shape and pathways, and/or by exploring the basic
three elements of dance: actions (such as gesture, jump, turn, fall), space and dynamics (such as sharp, soft, fluid, strong, suspended, staccato).
Learners may also consider:
- use and effectiveness of motif and motif development
- use and effectiveness of music – timing, phrasing, dynamics, qualities.
Appreciating safe dance practice
You may consider covering the following topics to ensure learners have an appreciation of safe dance practice in relation to physical wellbeing: