The Arts

Dance

Dance begins with an awareness of the movement of the body and its creative potential. Skills and knowledge acquired will allow students to begin working both independently and with a partner in creating and performing dances. Students learn to compare styles and meanings of ethnic dance, social dance, jazz, modern, tap and ballet in terms of the elements of space, time, and force/energy. Experiences in perceiving and responding to dance expand students’ vocabularies, enhance their listening and viewing skills, and enable them to begin thinking critically.

STANDARD 1: CREATING ART

Students know and apply the arts disciplines, techniques and processes to communicate in original or interpretive work.

READINESS

Students know and are able to do the following:

• Use appropriate terminology and demonstrate locomotors and nonlocomotors/axial movement while moving to a beat and changes in tempo

• Identify and execute nonlocomotor movements (i.e., stretch, twist, and turn) using various rhythm patterns and various tempos

• Identify and execute locomotor movements (e.g., leap, hop, jump, skip) using various rhythm patterns, and various tempos

Possible links to: Language Arts – vocabulary; Mathematics - counting

Recognize and perform basic warm-up sequences (e.g., stretching, bending)

• Identify and execute isolations of various body parts

• Execute gross muscle stretches (e.g., major body parts)

• Possible link to: Science - motion, energy

Imitate and mirror basic body movements and shapes

• Follow movements and shapes of a designated leader 
  
• Improvise with a partner or group as if looking into a mirror

• Demonstrate use of time and space elements by following movement changes in

• tempo, directions and levels

• Change direction of movement at a given signal (e.g., forward, backward, to the side)

• Change levels (high, middle, low) of shapes and or movements at a given signal

• Change tempo (e.g., fast, slow) of movements at a given signal

Possible link to: Mathematics - shapes, line

Identify and demonstrate knowledge of moving as an individual and as part of a group

• Improvise movement individually

• Improvise movement as a member of a group

• Demonstrate unison movement

Possible link to: Social Studies – socialization

Identify and demonstrate the range and types of movement abilities of one’s own body

• Execute a preferred style of moving

• Select and share personal movements

• Demonstrate the ability to move in front of a group, through space and in one’s own personal space

Possible link to: Science - motion, energy

Show respect for personal work and the work of others

• Move in a delineated personal space without interfering with the personal space of others

• Identify proper audience behavior (e.g., attentive, appropriate applause)

• Demonstrate proper audience behavior

Possible link to: Social Studies – values

Theater 

Students know and apply the arts disciplines, techniques and processes to communicate in original or interpretive work.

READINESS

Students know and are able to do the following:

Use natural language patterns (e.g., from literature or school and home experiences) with familiar phrases as they play out a story

After listening to an account and class discussion of characters:

• Retell the story including setting, time, plot, and physical descriptions of the characters

• Use dialogue and movement as a character while responding to teacher and/or peers

Develop sensory perception and the ability to describe mental pictures by recalling objects and/or events (e.g., use words, movement, or drawings in a variety of ways to illustrate things seen, heard, felt, tasted, or smelled in class or home experiences or created after listening to stories told or read)

After a discussion about mental imaging on specific sensory stimuli:

• Describe a recalled sensory experience

• Use a variety of art media to create a picture about a sensory experience

• Create a movement-based image or story to communicate a sensory experience

Sustain a pretend scene (e.g., from literature or students’ personal experiences), using appropriate language or movement with the teacher role-playing or

giving cues

• Sustain concentration within a given role throughout a scene

• Use language that is appropriate to one’s character throughout the scene

• Use a range of movement that is appropriate to one’s character

• Respond in character to cues given within a scene

Describe (e.g., through words, drawings, technology) the setting of a story to be dramatized and, with teacher guidance, establish spaces for the dramatization, and select materials that suggest the furniture and objects needed

• Describe/draw/depict the environment (e.g., time, place)

• Choose props that will enhance the playing and meaning of the story

• Arrange a space for playing out the story

Possible links to: Mathematics – proportion; Visual art - space, form, and balances

Show respect for personal work and the work of others

Listen to others and follow suggestions

• Share and take turns

• Participate in a process for self-evaluation, feedback about the process, and feedback about the dramatization