What Is This A Picture Of?
I posed the question “why does dance matter to you?” to the followers of my other dance twitter account, @dancequote, and this is a visual representation of their responses.
What Is Why Dance Matters?
It is a movement to spread the word on why dance is a valuable artform and who it matters to. Join the movement here: whydancematters.org
Read more about the un-scientific manner on how I created this after the jump.
As we are coming up on National Dance Day (July 28, 2012), Nichelle at Dance Advantage has posted the question: “Why does dance matter to you?” In fact, she’s trying to start a whole movement (dance pun intended) of the online dance community to share Why Dance Matters. If you want to get involved, check it out at whydancematters.org, tweet #whydancematters to you or follow our Pinterest board (you know I love a good Pinterest board)!
So here’s why dance matters to me:
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| From: http://youknowyoureadancerwhen.tumblr.com/tagged/wordsofdancers |
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| “Hot Sun” by Brian Gurrola |
Summer is in full swing and it’s been hot hot hot where I live for the past two weeks! If it’s summer where you live, I’m sure you are feeling the heat. I feel badly for my city neighbors who have been suffering from super heated subways and sidewalks… Make sure you’re staying hydrated if it’s hot where you live!
Because of the heat, in creative movement summer class we’ve been channeling “cool thoughts”. Here are a few exercises you can do with your classes:
Maria explains it best in her blog entry with a ton of great creative movement ideas about snow, and using the book, “Snowy Day” (Maria’s Movers)
Split up into “Snow People” and “Builders/snow artists”. The Builders will create a snow person out of the Snow People by gently guiding and shaping each snow person into a shape to make one big snowman.
The first time we do this exercise, I assign each Builders a part, like “lower body”, “face”, “accessories”, to help them narrow down what they are creating. If your crew is really good at working together or you have a small class, then you might be able to skip the assignments and just let them create together.
Remind the Snow that their job is to hold their position, but cooperate if a new Builder would like to shape them differently.
Each of the Builders adds on the creation (stretching arms to create scarves, moving hands for buttons or even suggesting an expression for the Snow to make). Suddenly… Voila! you have a snow man! Switch the groups and tasks and repeat!
I love this exercise for my youngest creative movement class (ages 7-10), as it is a great introduction to group work and partnering in a fun way. This is a very hands-on activity… we learn about communication, leadership and cooperation.
My older kids get a kick out of it too and you can create some cool lifts (no pun intended) out of it. With my older ones, I skip the assignments and just split them into groups of 3-5 and tell them they need to create a snow man or woman using their bodies. Then we take turns showing our snow person and creating storylines about what the snow person does for a living, what he or she is doing at that very moment. A lot of fun!
Check out this page Ohia.com for a lot of great ocean-inspired creative movement exercises!
Weather and nature is great for creative movement inspiration. My 5 and 6 year olds enjoy being seeds that blow in the wind and then turn into flowers when the sun shines. When we are flowers our roots are planted (either by sitting, kneeling or standing in one spot) and just our upper body moves.
Sometimes there is a big thunderstorm coming and our petals and leaves blow very fast (we sort of look like those inflatable tubes that wave all around). Other times it rains and we drip and droop. When the sun shines we stand up very tall and spread our leaves to catch all of the sunshine.
Other times we pretend we are clouds that float about the room. Our clouds can be blown by the wind together to travel in one direction or sometimes we float in different directions. Have fun creating your own weather dances!
– Ice melting and freezing: great for “freeze dance”
– Floating in a pool or stream: oh no! there’s a whirlpool!
– Making shapes that divers make (cannonball!)
– Blowing in the wind
– Rain: light rain, heavy rain, being a flower or plant in the rain
– Fishing: being fish, being on a boat, fishing, being the worm, seaweed
– Fans: slow fans, oscillating fans, big fans, small fans
– Making Lemonade: adding sugar, ice, lemons, mixing
Music Suggestion: The David Sun Natural Sound Collection: Sounds of the Earth – Storm 
How do you “stay cool” at dance class? Any summer movement ideas?
Looking to change up your abdominal exercises in class or at home? Try these yoga-inspired moves that are sure to get your abs firing!
Here are a few exercises to add into your ab sequence during your jazz, modern or ballet warm-up. If you’re not sure how to do them, click on the name for a more detailed explanation from Yoga Journal. All photos unless otherwise noted are from creative commons on Flickr.
Yoga basics. Stretches the hamstrings and gets the blood flowing. Keep the shoulders pressed down away from the ears.
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| Downward facing dog – photo from Flickr. |
Variation – Dolphin Pose: From downward dog, lower your elbows to the floor while keeping your heels pressed down. To strengthen arms, you can slowly mover from dolphin to downward dog and back a few times.
Begin in down-dog and move the shoulders over the palms and hold. A variation is dolphin plank, which is done on the elbows.
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| Photo from Flickr. |
Added challenge: Lift up one leg a few inches off the ground. Hold. Switch legs.
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| Dolphin pose with lifted foot, photo from Flickr. |
What to watch for: Make sure your students are keeping their abs tightened and not allowing their back to sway. Students with arm or shoulder injuries should avoid this exercise.
Begin on hands and knees. Keeping abs tight stretch out opposite arm and leg. You can make this a moving pose by bringing the knee and elbow in and out while still balancing. The motion challenges the dancer to use their core to maintain balance.
Watch that students are keeping their hand and leg in line and are not tempted to work their extension by arching the back or kicking their leg higher than the hip.
Hold side plank position. For added difficulty, raise and lower and raise hips slowly. This position strengthens the arms and wrists as well as the abs. My students found it very hard to balance in this position, especially once we added the dips. Some of them modified it by lowering to their elbow. Make sure you keep the shoulder stacked over the elbow or wrist. Also watch out for hyperextended elbows.
From the plank position (on hands), lift the right leg and tuck the knee into touch the outside of the left elbow.
From down dog, step one leg through to a lunge. Exhale and sweep the hands overhead.
Avoid arching the back or sticking the ribs out. The ribs should feel “drawn down into the torso”.
From the lunge or Warrior III, rotate the body to face the side and reach one hand down to the floor. Smoothly push up into the half moon pose, stacking the hip bones on top of one another.
To deepen the pose, lift the lower hand off the floor and rest it on the supporting leg so that the student is balance only on the leg.
For a further challenge, raise the top arm perpendicular to the floor (as shown above). Imagine there’s a wall in front of you, and press the top hand actively into this pretend wall. Then, if balance is steady, slowly change the gaze up to the raised hand.
Another option is to perform small circles with the raised foot to challenge the balance.
From downward dog, lift one leg so that it is parallel with the torso. This is the three-leg Down Dog.
To work the abs, tuck the knee and bring the knee to the right elbow, shifting the body weight over the arms and hands. Stretch the back out and up, the bring the knee to the left elbow, stretch it back out, and knee to the forehead. Repeat 3-4x total and then repeat on the other leg.
5-minute Ab Sequence #1: Hands and Knee Balance with knee tuck (4 per side), Downward Facing Dog, Plank, Side Plank w/Dip (4 per side), Plank, Lunge, Half Moon, Lunge, Plank, Downward Dog, repeat Lunge, Half Moon, Lunge with other side.
5-minute Ab Sequence #2: Hand and Knee balance with knee tucks (7 per side), Down Dog (20 second hold), Plank Cross (4 per side), Down Dog to Three-Leg Down Dog with knee tuck (3 repetitions per side), Dolphin Plank w/small leg lift on each side (hold for 10 seconds each side).
Photo Guide and resource list for each sequence after the jump
As I was getting ready to teach class tonight, I thought to myself, I haven’t done a tap playlist in a while… so here you go! Some old tunes, some new tunes, a little bit of everything.
Warm-Up
Soft Shoe-type Combinations (laid back summer style)
Fast Jazz & Big Band
One of my favorite activities to do on the first day of Dance Camp or the first day of class is to create a “Name Dance”. It is a simple and fun activity that helps us learn each other’s names.
The Name Dance
To begin, start in a circle. One at a time, each student says their name with a simple gesture. Encourage the students to do whatever movement they want – does not have to be a ‘technical step’. Let them experiment with how they say their name – rhythmic, loud, soft, etc.
Go around the circle a second time; students may keep their same gesture or change it. This time, when a student does their name gesture, the class must echo them in both movement and sound.
The third time around, build the dance. Link a few name gestures together and practice saying / doing them in a row. See if you can make it all the way around the circle to finish the full Name Dance.
Bonus Name Dance Activities
If everyone is still enjoying the Name Game and you’ve gotten the hang of it, try going faster, in slow motion, facing outside the circle or going in reverse order.
This game is a lot of fun and students will remember their step for weeks to come – I’ve had students say “oh, now we’re doing The Emma” or “can we add a Sophia in here”. Some of my classes like to greet each other with the other person’s gesture.
And by the way, a “Miss Cait” is a very fancy curtsey 🙂
July’s Blog Challenge was to dance “outside and share a picture of it”. Here is my contribution to this month’s challenge!
Hubby and I went to Maine for a few days and one of the days we got up before the sun to go down to the beach and take photos of the sunset (and dancing!).
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| The beach at 4:55am. ::yawn:: |
If you’ve never seen the sunrise at the beach, I so highly recommend it! This was our first time and neither of us are “morning people”, but it was still so worth it. (And we went back to our hotel and took a nap after, so it didn’t cut into our sleep.. haha).
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| Flying with the seagull. |
A pretty little song from Agnes Obel, Avenue has a music-box-esqe piano melody accompanied with her haunting vocals. I think it would make a nice group number for ballet, contemporary or modern.
And it’s in waltz time! Bonus!
Grab it on iTunes: 
See more about our camps here – Rock Star Theme Camp.
Day #5 Set List
On the last day of camp we put on an impromptu performance in the studio for family and friends. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera for the final day of camp, but I will try to describe everything as best I can.
Main Craft: Giant Ticket / Programs
You Will Need:
– 11 x 14 Construction Paper
– Crayons
We cut out rounded shapes in the corners to make the tickets look more “ticket-ty”. The dancers decorated them for their audience.
Ideas for what to put on tickets: “Admit One” “Dance Camp” “Rock Star Camp”
Ideas for back of ticket (program): Cast list, show order, message to audience
As our audience members came into the studio, our dancers went out and presented them with their ticket / programs.
Showtime Playlist!
We ended up with a great group of students who were hungry for choreography and learning, so we learned eight little combinations, which was so much fun! We started off with our four tap songs and then took a quick break to change our shoes. Then we finished up the show with our jazz & creative movement routines.
Rock This Town by Stray Cats
Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Seger
Rock Around the Clock by Bill Hailey & The Comets
We Built This City by Starship
QUICK BREAK
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah by Paula Abdul
Itsy Bitsy Spider by Little Richard
We had a great week and I hope you enjoyed coming along with us!
Read more about our camp here!
Day #4 Set List
by Starship and Hannah Montana’s “Rock Star”.Since we needed more time to practice our dances, we kept craft time shorter than the other days.
Craft #1: Blinged-Out Sunnies
Supplies: Cardstock or Folders, Gem Rhinestones, Glue, Paintbrushes
Teacher Prep: Cut out glasses from cardstock.
Using glue and plastic gems, decorate glasses.
The Dance Buzz 