HAIKU CHOREOGRAPHY

 

Georgia Standards

 

South Carolina Standards

 

Key Vocabulary

 

Materials

• Several examples of haiku poetry
• Music
• Crayon, colored pencil, or marker–anything that shows color and has a name

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

• Place one feeling word in each corner of the classroom. 
• Give each student a crayon, colored pencil, or marker–anything that shows color and has a name.
  • Tell students to move to the feeling word that they think their color name best fits. Allow students to discuss why they selected that word.
• Next, divide students into partners. Have partners create a movement to show their feeling word. Encourage students to use their whole bodies.
  • Now, have students stand in a circle. Students should be standing next to their partner. 
  • Turn on music. Allow each pair to say their feeling word and show their movement. This will make one class “feeling dance”. 
• Debrief the activity with students discussing how students used movement to communicate an idea. Tell students that dancers and choreographers also communicate meaning through dance.
  • Ask students to share observations about how feelings were expressed differently.

 

Work Session

INTRODUCE BEAT IN DANCE

• Discuss beats and how dancers and choreographers use beats. Show students a video to demonstrate. 
• Choose one movement from each feeling word from the activator. Without music, have students follow your movements as you put them together to make one dance. 
• Now, add music. Count as you perform the movements. Have students follow along with you.

 

INTRODUCE LEVELS AND ENERGY IN DANCE

• Engage students in a movement exercise that will allow them to learn about and explore levels in dance.
• Play music with a steady beat. Help students find the beat by tapping their toes on the ground or patting their legs. 
• Bring students’ attention to levels (high, middle, low) with movements such as stretching up high and moving on tiptoes, crouching in a small ball close to the floor, and bouncing in place at a middle level.
• Tell students that they will play a movement game in which they should make a movement that corresponds to the word that they hear.
  • Demonstrate using the word “mountain”. Start by standing tall and straight with arms by your sides. Then, slowly lift your arms away from your body, away from your sides, until they meet above your head in a point.
    • Ask students how you showed the idea of a mountain using your body. 
    • Now, crouch down low and bring your hands together into a point just above your head. Ask students if this movement is the same. They should say that in one you stood tall and in one you crouched low. Ask them which is a better movement for “mountain”. 
    • Tell students that dancers use levels to communicate meaning just like standing tall for “mountain”.
  • Allow students time to explore movement using levels by saying different nature-related words and allowing students time to respond with movement.

LEARN ABOUT HAIKU

• Share the origin of haiku poetry and read an example.
  • As students listen to the poem, invite them to close their eyes and visualize the images in their mind.
    • Ask them what images come to mind. Discuss as a class.
  • Draw student’s attention to the structure of haiku poetry. Help students count the syllables in each line of the haiku. 
  • Conduct the same process with another example. Ask students if they notice any patterns emerging. 
  • Discuss how all haikus follow a 5-7-5 syllable structure.
• Discuss how dancers/choreographers can use poetry structure as a base for choreography. 
• Display a haiku poem for students to see. Ask students, “If a dance followed haiku structure, how many beats would be in the beginning, middle, and end?”.
  • Students should arrive at 5-7-5.

 

CHOREOGRAPHING DANCE

• Select a haiku to read as a class.
  • Ask the students to identify the images that come to mind in each line. 
  • Count the syllables in each line.
• Tell students that they will be choreographing a dance that follows the structure of the haiku and that shows the images that the haiku conveys. Encourage students to think about how they could use levels to help them show the images in the poem. 
• Divide students into groups of two or three students. Assign each group a line of the poem. Each group will choreograph a movement phrase for their line of the poem. 
• Once students have finished their choreography, put three groups together so that all lines are represented. Allow time for groups to practice their sequence.
• Pause students in their practice. Tell students that now they will practice counting with their movements. Demonstrate by counting to five completing a movement phrase for the first line, counting to seven completing a movement phrase for the second line, and counting to five again completing a movement phrase for the third line.
  • Provide time for students to practice performing to the count.

Closing Reflection

• Students will perform their choreography for the class. Have the class practice counting the 5-7-5 structure before each performance starts. Then, have groups perform each movement phrase while the class counts together.
  • Ask the audience members how the movements and levels demonstrated the images portrayed in the haiku.

 

Assessments

Formative

Teacher will assess students by asking students about their choreographic choices and how they aid in the audience’s understanding of the structure and images in the haiku.

 

Summative

CHECKLIST

• Students can identify the structure and images in a haiku poem.
• Dance assessment:
  • Choreography:
    • Students can create a choreography that has a beginning, middle, and end. 
    • Students can create a choreography that demonstrates the structure and images in a haiku poem.
  • Audience:
    • Students can discuss the performances of the other groups and identify how movements demonstrate the structure and images in a haiku poem.

 

DIFFERENTIATION 

Accelerated:  Have advanced students create choreography for the entire haiku instead of only one line. Add additional Elements of Dance, such as Energy, for students to incorporate into their choreography. Remedial:  Create choreography for a haiku together as a class before (or instead of) having individual groups choreograph independently.  Focus on haiku structure or images instead of both in the lesson.

 

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Origins of haiku poetry Dance with 3 counts/beats Dance with 8 counts/beats

 

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by: Melissa Joy. Updated by: Katy Betts.

Revised and copyright:  July 2024 @ ArtsNOW