Participant: Meredith Simmons
Workshop: Writing Dance/ Dance Appreciation
Presenters: Ilsa Bush and Glenna Blessing
Date: August 14, 2007
How do we get our students to really see dance? This was the underlying theme of the
Writing About and Appreciating Dance workshop. Ilsa Bush and Glenna Blessing shared
ideas about how to increase the ability of students to see the intricate details of dance.
The objective is for students to gain greater appreciation for dance as an aesthetic
experience as well as to focus on the message conveyed by a dance. Students who lack
knowledge of movement often have difficulty truly seeing the richness and layers of
dance. A successful dance appreciation course will hone the students’ observational
skills, improve their ability to articulate what they observe, and increase their enjoyment
in watching dance. Ilsa Bush presented a basic class framework of viewing, doing, and
writing to improve students’ awareness of dance.
In order to open a student’s mind about dance, it is important to investigate assumptions
about what is and what is not dance. This can be accomplished by viewing videos of less
obvious examples of dance such as Nine Person Precision by Charles Moulton or Alwin
Nikolais’ Crucible. Observation can be sharpened by helping the students to break down
the overall picture created by the performance into separate aspects such as movement
shapes and height levels, group patterns, and interactions among the dancers. Other
factors that will enable students to see more when they view dance are having some
knowledge of dance history and the context for the dance they are viewing and having a
ready supply of words to describe what they are seeing.
For teaching tools, Ilsa suggested watching dance on videos and taking advantage of the
opportunity to rewind and watch segments repeatedly. It is difficult to grasp detail in a
live performance because there is so much to observe at once and students don’t yet
know what to look for. To develop vocabulary students can work together to create a list
of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs to use in describing dance. Providing
demonstration classes in various types of dance allows students to physically experience
the movements they are observing. This in turn makes the movements more recognizable
on stage and easier to describe.
The workshop presenters and participants shared several teaching ideas to help students
express their thoughts in writing such as using graphic organizers to get initial thoughts
on paper, encouraging class brainstorming sessions, and providing sentence starters to
stimulate and structure writing. Introducing students to an argumentative essay format
gives students an outline to follow, imposes discipline in drafting a composition, and
forces attention to details.
Even though we were sharing ideas for a dance appreciation course, workshop
participants saw how these approaches to teaching our students to observe, analyze, and
describe could tie into classes on subjects other than dance.