Reflection: Dances for Schools Workshop

Earlier today I had the opportunity to attend a workshop with Ezra from Dances For School. As you know, I spent last term organising and running a Year 7 and 8 dance group. Growing up I taught dance to girls aged 4-9 at my local dance studio, so I felt I had the experience to facilitate a dance group for our students.

What I quickly realised is that dancing at a studio and dancing at school are two very different things. I felt a little bit out of my element in my teacher clothes and with my teacher reputation letting loose and creating movement with my students, it wasn't natural. Whereas 10 years ago as Miss Chelsea, in my ballet skirt and tights, I had a different persona. The students were younger and they were all there for their 1 hour ballet lesson; I felt in my element.

I met Ezra on Instagram and we had been in contact earlier in the year to organise some school-wide dance lessons, and while this did not pan out, he invited me to attend his workshop in Christchurch. I am so glad he did. I got the chance to work alongside about 30 teachers in a practical and focused workshop aimed at teaching dance through the New Zealand Curriculum to students who have any level of experience.

We collaboratively choreographed a dance within the 2 hour workshop and had the chance to ask questions and get some great reading material on how to successfully teach dance in schools. We have an upcoming hip hop competition being held at our school and I have been asked to work with a group to represent our school in the competition. I was panicking with the added element of a competition over my head, not simply spending a term choreographing a short routine like last term.

These are the take aways from the PLD session that I know will benefit me as I take on this new challenge:
- picking music in 4:4 beat 
- vocalizing what we are actually doing, and cutting out 'dance teacher speak' ex) less counting, less random sounds (if you have taken a dance class you will know dance teachers are notorious for making up their own jargon or sounds for steps. For example you may hear your instructor shouting, "and one two GA GA, pose, and BOOM hit hit hit")
- keeping spacing simple and effective
- using an invisible clock as a frame of reference and have each student dancing around their own clock so that the angles are the same for the entire group 
- keep steps simple and fun so that students can genuinely enjoy the dancing they are doing

With these take aways, I feel more confident in my own ability to choreograph an awesome dance routine for this competition and take on another term of Year 7 and 8 dance group as well!