Telling Stories Through Dance

Grade Two has been busy telling stories in different ways.

In preparation for Carol Night students used ballet movements to tell the story of the Viennese Musical Clock.  They worked in small groups to create clocklike movements.

Students wanted to tell an entire story, so we started to think about how people tell stories through dance.  We read the story "A House For Hermit Crab" by Eric Carle.


Students explored creative dance elements. These included locomotor movements that go from one to place to another, and axiel movements that are performed in one spot.  They explored "energy" elements that express the feeling of the movement, such as delicate/ powerful, unhurried/ quick, and tight/smooth.  As they learned about the characters in the story, students used these dance elements to improvise dance movements.

Students formed "character groups" to decide how they might dance together.  They used what they knew from ballet and other forms of dance to create their dance.  Then we mapped out the stage, learning about the different parts of the stage.  

We connected the dance to the rondo by Jean Philippe Rameau called Contre-danse from "Les Indes Galantes/ Air Pour Bouree Et La Rose."  A rondo is a musical form with a recurring theme and various sections (ABACADAEAFA).

Students have been connecting ideas. Now students are at the stage where they added "color" and "sound" with scarves and instruments.  Our next steps will be to add the remaining parts of the story.

Check out the videos we've made so far.

Now we'll be going further with our ideas to continue telling our story.  Stay tuned for the rest of the story.