Movement as Performance

There are three words in the title of this program: Mind Move Make.  The second word is, of course, MOVE, and movement is a big part of our class.  We tend to focus on yoga-influenced movement, but movement can take so many interesting forms.  To demonstrate this I started our class off by showing one of my favorite Flash Mob dances.  It takes place in Belgium in a train station.  Here is a link if you are interested!

I showed the video for several reasons, one being that I wanted the students to see humans coordinating their movements together in a very purposeful way, and that this could be achieved in a chaotic place like a train station.  I asked my students to work in groups of three to develop a movements piece that described a phrase from the book You Are Stardust.  The students drew one phrase from several that I printed out on folded pieces of paper.

Listening to the students develop their movement pieces was really interesting!  One group got started right away actually moving together while another group talked out their ideas before starting with movement.  I gave everyone about ten minutes to choreograph their mini-performances before presenting them to the class.  Each person had a list of the phrases that could have been selected and we had to guess which phrase had been chosen when the students were finished performing.  As soon as we were finished, one student looked up at me and asked, "Can we do that again?"

After the performances were complete, the students worked really hard to finish their You Are Stardust-inspired artworks.  I was very proud that everyone finished by the end of the class!  Here are the completed pieces.  Next week each child will have a chance to tell the story of his or her artwork.  I'm looking forward to hearing about these gorgeous pieces of art!