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BUILDING DANCE VOCABULARY WORD WALLS

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Dance Teachers, we all know that Word-Walls are a great way to inspire young dancers to learn movement and also identify and read movement vocabulary. This is an important part to nurturing dancers who are able to execute as well as articulate within the genre. It combines both the physical as well as verbal ability. Using interdisciplinary avenues to reinforce these vocaulary lessons help solidify maintaining and remembering vernacular while introducing dancers to another form of visual art......To help get you started is one example of a word wall based on a painting by Marc Chagall, “The Blue Circus.”

Have the dancers study the painting and discuss it together. Talk about all the movement they see within the painting, the emotions they feel, the dynamics it resonates, etc. Add each student’s recommendation to the word wall. Follow-up by then creating a “Mad-Libs” inspired Movement Sentence. Have them fill in the blanks with words from the wall and improvise or choreograph to their movement sentence. Share each dancer’s creation with the class. Watch how inspiring these young choreographers are when given the opportunity to create from an interdisciplinary subject (such as art) and incorporate reading and writing as well!

FLOAT / DIVE / SPIN / TWIRL / JUMP / WALK / RISE / SINK / TURN / ROLL / SHINE / STARE / TWIST / STRAIGHT / CURVY / BEND / SAD / LOST

And if you’d like to continue in a series of paintings with the same artist, also try “The Dance” & “The Circus Horse” by Marc Chagall.

 

Author

Jessica Rizzo Stafford

Jessica Rizzo Stafford

Jessica Rizzo Stafford is a native New Yorker and graduate of NYU Steinhardt's Dance Education Master’s Program; with a PK-12 New York State Teaching Certification. Her double-concentration Master’s Degree includes PK-12 pedagogy and dance education within the higher-education discipline. She also holds a BFA in dance performance from the UMASS Amherst 5 College Dance Program where she was a Chancellor's Talent Award recipient. Jess now works extensively with children, adolescents and professionals as choreographer and teacher and conducts national and international master-classes specializing in the genres of modern, contemporary, musical theatre and choreography-composition. Jess’ national and international performance career includes works such as: The National Tour of Guys & Dolls, The European Tour of Grease, West Side Story, Cabaret, Sweet Charity, Salute to Dudley Moore at Carnegie Hall, guest-dancer with the World Famous Pontani Sisters and IMPULSE Modern Dance Company. Jess has been a faculty member for the Perichild Program & Peridance Youth Ensemble & taught contemporary and jazz at the historic New Dance Group and 92nd Street Y in NYC. She was Company Director at the historic Steffi Nossen School of Dance/Dance in Education Fund and in 2008 traveled to Uganda where she taught creative-movement to misplaced children. The experience culminated with Jess being selected as a featured instructor at the Queen's Kampala Ballet & Modern Dance School. She has conducted workshops for the cast of LA REVE at the Wynn, Las Vegas and recently taught at the 2011 IDS International Dance Teacher Conference at The Royal Ballet in London, UK. She is also on faculty for the annual Dance Teacher Web Conferences in Las Vegas, NV. Currently, Jess is a faculty member at the D'Valda & Sirico Dance & Music Centre and master teacher & adjudicator for various national and international dance competitions. Recently, she has finished her NYU Master’s thesis research on the choreographic process of technically advanced adolescent dancers and is the creator of “PROJECT C;” a choreography-composition curriculum for the private studio sector. Jess is also faculty member, contributing writer and presenter in the choreography and “how to” teaching segments on the celebrated danceteacherweb.com. For more info, visit her website at www.jrizzo.net.

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