Dance-in-Education (DIE)
(An excerpt from a longer article)
Tripura Kashyap
Movement therapist/Dance Educator/Choreographer
Dance in this context has become a ‘performing’ art, completely
focused on technique and being performed by a select ‘trained’ few. Though the
creative as well as therapeutic potential of dance is enormous, Indian dance is
largely considered to be purely a ‘performance-based art’ whose sole purpose is
entertainment. Continuous performance pressure, shifts the focus from children
exploring, playing with and discovering movements to mastering group as well as
body coordination, learning stage presence, precision of movement and imitation
skills.
This is the dominant aspect of one end of the dance-in-education
spectrum. On the other end, there are a handful of alternative schools in India
like the ‘Center for Learning’, Aditi Mallya School (Bangalore, Karnataka), and
‘Aman Sethu’ School in Pune (Maharashtra state), among a few others, where
classes have lesser number of children. There are 20 - 25 children in each
class and it is in these schools that dance-in-education has taken shape. Rajyashree Ramamurthy, a dance educator at
Aman Sethu School, Pune, says “Dance at our school is being used more in a process-oriented
manner instead of children having to produce a performance piece or a ‘product’
to be consumed”.
The biggest challenge in most Indian schools is the socio-cultural and
ethnic diversity amidst children in any given group. In this context, ‘creative
dance’ is an ideal form customised to suit children within mainstream, special
and inclusive educational settings, from various age groups, gender, religious
and economic backgrounds. This form is extremely relevant for fostering their
creativity, learning and well-being. They also learn the alphabets of dance
prior to learning a formal dance technique. Creating theme-based dances
(as opposed to mastering a technique) and integrating reflective verbal
dialogues after each movement activity helps children relate dance to their
real lives and deal with their emotions as well as relationships, thereby
learning better to adapt to the social settings they dwell in.
Apart from its inclusivity, Anne Riordan (1980) argues that creative
dance engages with the physical, psychological, mental, emotional, creative,
social and spiritual layers of individuals. When undergoing movement
experiences based on these layers; children heal, change, grow and also begin
to let go of their hyper-active, surplus physical energy. No doubt that
‘creative dance’ is a concept that has emerged in the U.K and the U.S.A. When
applied to Indian schools, specific adaptations are needed in
the dance curriculum (Sharma, 1989). Therefore, dance educators
need to negotiate with school authorities to change the way dance is taught and
perceived.
Just as Math or Science take nine months to be taught and culminates
in students taking those exams, dance too should have a similar time scale in
which students learn the language from basic to the advanced levels before
performing it at the end of the academic year. When a dance performance happens
once a year, facilitators have enough time to let movement activities breathe,
and for children to get deeper into the skin of an activity rather than
superficially learn ‘item numbers’ of dance. Dance in this sense needs to
become a ‘co-curricular’ subject rather than an extra-curricular past-time.
When we fully understand exactly why we want to transmit dance to the
younger generation only then the teaching methods and outcomes, emerge more
clearly. Elaborating on the above-mentioned idea, dance educators need to ask
themselves specific questions – how do I teach dance (define methods and
techniques), what do I teach (creative movement or a dance technique?), when do
I teach what? (grading movement activities according to their complexity), and
what outcomes do I expect at the end of the year? Dance facilitators should
also possess the passion and skills to work with children. In most cases, good
stage performers might not possess qualities like the ability to motivate and
increase children’s receptivity to dance or facilitation skills and evaluative
tools to track the children’s or even their own progress.
Every dance facilitator should create a movement activity basket that
contains at least a 500 games and movement activities. These activities are
based on specific ‘themes’ and promote confidence, self-awareness, social
skills, trust, stress release, emotional expression and creativity. As children
go through these activities, they befriend their bodies, get in touch with
pent-up emotions or thoughts, and are able to unleash their creative energies
in a ‘safe’ space that is created by the facilitator. Creating and linking
these activities in sequential sessions and embedding them into a dance
curriculum spread out over one year is the primary prerequisite that precedes
dance teaching.
There are different steps to be considered when introducing movement
activities to children, especially because in most Indian schools children have
never been exposed to creative dance. For example, a simple movement sequence
might be for them to make a hand gesture in which the right hand’s fore-finger
is extended while other fingers are folded in (Suchi). Children in this
activity need to follow their Suchi with their eyes and bodies. A physical and
visual adaptation takes place as children get accustomed to this activity. The
facilitator then gradually introduces variations of the same by asking children
to move their suchi in different levels and directions of space. Later, each
child follows a partner’s ‘Suchi’. Gradually, the facilitator encourages
children to use this activity in a thematic manner relating it to images from
their lives. For example, a child once said, “I want to use my pencil to draw
big pictures in the space around my body, rather than doing math in my note
book”. After a certain point, children, rather than imitating a facilitator,
create their own movement-patterns in space.
In this simple activity, lies out-comes such as discovering one’s
movement language, adapting to a partner, learning about spatial awareness and
working independently of the facilitator. For activities similar to this to be
effective, it is important to keep these sessions ‘interactive’ and ‘playful’
between children in a group and between children and facilitator as well.
Children at the Baldwin School, Bangalore, during a session have used different
body parts as paint brushes to colour the imaginary bubble-like canvas around
their bodies. At the end of the exercise, they were guided into reflecting
verbally what they had painted. One child had painted colours of the rainbow
around her to create happiness; another felt he was part of a Holi celebration
and threw colours in space; yet another painted a ‘fantasy cave’ in which he
wanted to stay forever. Effective techniques and approaches to encourage
children to think, feel, learn, memorize, express and communicate through their
bodies need to be continuously articulated by dance educators in their
sessions.
Similar movement activities in addition to other creative ones can be
done in a meditative silence without the aid of pre-recorded or live music.
Yet, the first question children ask as they prance into a class is “Where is
the music?” This is because in their minds, music and dance are interlinked,
and they cannot think of one without the other. Music does provide the
motivation for children to move with ease and confidence, and therefore, pieces
of music need to be selected carefully according to the objectives of a planned
activity. For instance, if the goal of a particular activity is to encourage
gross motor movements, Indian orchestral fusion music helps children move
across the floor, performing largish movements. These not only expand their
personal kinesphere, they also generate a sense of self-confidence and open
body language.
Dance helps students discover their own creativity and encourages them
to tap into innate abilities worth considering, reacting and responding as
per their own thinking. This involves a focused and alternative reflection on
various ideas, as well as perspectives, to learn something new, and eventually
to construct a cohesive, organic personal sense of meaning and understanding.
Significant levels of movement and dance erudition occur only when tutors
develop unique insights into ways of thinking, learning and communicating dance
etymology in a manner that enlightens and illuminates the pupil rather than
debilitate or institutionalize their productivity.
CMTAI presents the Dance-in-Education workshop at Bangalore for teachers, special educators, artists working with kids.
To register online: https://www.meraevents.com/event/dance-in-education-workshop
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